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In this post I try to high light some negative expressions we use in our day to day life and present how they can be related to the advertising world.

Many of our most important day to day negative expressions might not be as powerful as they are if they were said in positive. Let’s see some cases of expressions related to high risks: order:, 4:4:“DON’T WALK,” are all difficult to say succinctly and strongly in any positive construct.

It’s interesting that for years incendiary materials were marked “INFLAMMABLE” or “HIGHLY INFLAMMABLE,” possibly because the wrong negative prefix actually sounded more dire.

“Don’t tell me” means tell me everything. “You don’t say!” means I really want you to say it, even though I can’t believe what you’re saying. As in, “Well, I never.”

The beauty of our language is the way you can stretch it. Two negatives can be joined to make a positive: “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” The reverse is also true.

Why are newspapers full of bad news? Because people are much more interested in bad news; maybe because it helps reassure them of traffic crawls past car accident. It’s also notable how in matters of romance or passion, the negative is often so vivid. I don’t mean in the sense of the obvious: “Don’t. Stop. Don’t. Stop. Don’t. Stop” … etc. I mean in many of the language we share with our beloved, often captured in popular music. “Never will leave you,” sounds more committed than “I will always stay,” and “The 12^th of Never” looks an even longer undertaking than the absolute “forever.”

“Don’t Worry Baby”, from the mouths of the Beach Boys is quite comforting. Greshwin ain’t necessarily so negative in one of the anthems of porgy and best. And when 10cc sing the haunting, “I’m being in love (and don’t forget it) because I’m really so badly in love with you, I’ll try any tactic to hang in there.

Googling around for references on “negative words”, there are, certainly, a hundred well-intentioned yet predictable passages on how to do away with negativity from your job, etc. (One earnest polemic on positivism carries the straight – faced headline: “Stop Being So Negative!”).

Cognitive psychology research conducted by Tufts University professor Salvator Scoraci has made advancements in understanding learning and “false memory” – mistaken recall of test words. It was formerly alleged that memory was enhanced by “generative learning; that people remember better when actively involved in forming an idea around, say a particular word they’re asked to memorise; the theory being that positive collaboration helped it stick.

Scoraci has found people are actually more likely to remember such words when given a negative cue than when given a positive one. This method of learning, using negative cues, is similar to how we find our way when we’re driving our cars, explains Scoraci. If we make a wrong turn, we’re much more likely to remember the correct way next time by remembering that we shouldn’t go the wrong course again.

Yet to circle this back to advertising, my research has also revealed a fellow-sufferer and copywriter, Michael Gebert, in the US. In his online newsletter, shameless Self-Promotion, Gebert echoes our frustrations: No COPYWRITER WILL ESCAPE THIS FATE. YOU write a nice, punchy headline – “Nothing Fights stains like spam O.” Then the comment comes back: “Nothing” is negative. Can’t we turn it into a positive? (Like what? “Spam-O fights stains Better Than Things”?)

Gebert goes on to say: put a sentence with a “not” a “don’t” in it in front of those people, and suddenly, they’ll be impressed by the magical power of that one single word to repel all customers, regardless of the actual meaning of the sentence. That’s not grammar. It’s voodoo.

What’s most confounding to me about this whole topic is that some of the most negative expressions have long been the very stock-in-trade of the world of hard sell. How many products have stated themselves “Not your ordinary …” or “Not for everybody” to enhance their desirability to many?

“Accept no substitute,” “Don’t buy till you try our …,” “Will not be undersold”. “Nobody comes close to our …”. Just as the much-imitated “Drive away, no more to pay” has recently become.

There are also plenty of specific brands with eminent and flourishing campaigns based on seemingly negative thoughts: “Lemon” or “It’s ugly, but it gets you there” were never going to be taken literally about Volkswagen, however said a lot about their cleverly self-effacing attitude. That, along with “You don’t have to be Jewish” for Levy’s bread, more or less started modern, more candid advertising.

More recently, “I never read the Economist. (Management trainee, aged 42)” has helped put that magazine high up the racks. The Wallpaper Institute of America says. Nothing gets your attention like wallpaper,” along with whimsical visuals. The Village Vice has been honest and successful by declaring its individuality with “Not America’s favorite paper” (and thus yours).

When Everyday Batteries themes their ads “Never say die,” it’s far more declarative than “Always stay ALIVE.” Heineken, in the UK, sold a lot of beer that “Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.” And there’s no other line like David Jones’, at least in Australian retail. As Michael Gebert states, the arguments against the yea-sayers are clear: “So obvious that they always get the same response:’Yeab, I know. But change it, would ja? It’s just one word.”’

Anti-negativity, he asserts, “deprives a writer of one of the most effective rhetorical devices in the English language, for no good reason. Would GM still have the car market if only they’d said, “You Would Really Rather Drive a Buick?

I couldn’t agree more. Or should I say, I agree as much as possible. I’ve always thought that Sara Lee’s long-running campaign in the US, “Nobody Doesn’t Like Sara Lee” was so much more pleasant and friendly than the puffed up self-congratulation of it’s underlying sentiment, “Everybody Loves Sara Lee.”

It’s a tradition that goes back to “Nothin’ says lovin’ like something’ from the oven” for Duncan Hines cake mixes. Or was it Pillsbury? And what could’ve been more compelling than the theme that carried American Express to world fame, “Don’t Leave Home Without It.”

Would it have expressed the same indispensability expressed as” Always take it with you when you leave home”? I think not. But then, maybe I’m just being negative.

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