Up to

Two words carry most of the lying in November copy, and neither of them is a lie.

Up to.

Up to seventy per cent off. The customer reads the number. That is what the words are for; the eye goes past the small ones to the big one, and the big one is seventy. The lawyer reads the words before it, and the words before it mean that somewhere in the range there is one item, a colour nobody wanted in a size nobody is, at seventy per cent off, and everything the customer came for is at ten.

Both readings are correct. That is the craft of it, if craft is the word. One sentence that says one thing to the person deciding whether to click and another to the person deciding whether it can run.

Now think about the click as what it is: a minute, lent. She gave it on the strength of seventy. She lands, she finds the thing she actually wanted, and it is ten per cent off, which is roughly where it was last month under a different sticker. The minute comes back to her, and it comes back with interest owed. She will not complain. She will do the cheaper thing, which is to read the next headline from this brand with the words before the number already in her head.

I have watched brands pay this November after November and call the falling click rate a creative problem.

The tell is the two words themselves. Nobody writes "up to" by accident. It is put there because the writer knew the number was not true for most of the people who would read it, and wanted to say it anyway. The customer may not know the law. She knows the tell.