The asterisk

By the fourth week of November the most carefully read sentence a brand publishes is the one in small grey type under the asterisk.

Not the headline. The headline was read three weeks ago, on someone else's ad, and it said the same thing. Fifty. Everything. Last chance. By now the customer has been caught once or twice this month, has forwarded a screenshot that turned out to exclude the thing in the screenshot, and has learned where a promotion keeps its truth.

It keeps it at the bottom.

So the eye goes there first. Selected lines only. Excludes new season. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Online only, or in store only, or in participating branches, which is a phrase that means not the branch near you. Minimum spend applies. Ends midnight, in a time zone the customer has to guess.

Watch someone read a sale email on a phone this week. The thumb skips the hero image and stops on the terms. They gave the brand a minute. They are spending it on the one sentence they are sure was written carefully, because a lawyer read it before it went out.

That is the whole problem. The headline was written to be believed and is not. The terms were written to be enforced and are the only line that is.

So in the last week of the month I write the terms first. At the size of a sentence a person would say, in the Arabic the customer actually speaks, with the exclusions stated as plainly as the discount. Then I write a headline that has nothing to hide under an asterisk, which is harder, and which is the job.

The customer reads the small print because it is the only sentence they are certain is true. For them it was always the headline.