Why the Simplest Ads Are Always the Hardest to Write
There's a quote often attributed to the French mathematician Blaise Pascal: "I would have written a
shorter letter, but I did not have the time."
He wasn't talking about advertising. But he could have been.
The Temptation to Say Everything
When a business owner sits down to think about their radio ad, the instinct is almost always the same:
include everything. The sale. The product range. The years of experience. The friendly staff. The easy
parking. The website. The phone number. The tagline.
It all feels important. And in a sense, it is — to you. The problem is that none of it is important to a
listener who doesn't yet know why they should care.
Every word you add to a radio ad costs something. It costs attention. It costs clarity. It costs the single
moment of impact that makes the difference between an ad that is heard and an ad that actually lands.
What Simplicity Requires
Writing a genuinely simple ad — one that communicates one idea, cleanly and memorably, in 30
seconds — is one of the hardest things a copywriter does. Not because simplicity is complicated, but
because getting there requires ruthless decisionmaking.
You have to decide what matters most. Then you have to let everything else go. For most people, letting
go of messaging they've invested in — their features, their history, their valueadds — feels like leaving
money on the table.
It isn't. It's the opposite. The ad that says one thing clearly will always outperform the ad that tries to say
five things at once.
The Discipline of the Single Idea
The best radio ads in history are almost always built around a single idea. Not a list of reasons to buy.
Not a catalogue of features. One thought, expressed with enough clarity and creativity that it stays with
the listener long after the ad has ended.
That idea might be a feeling — confidence, excitement, relief. It might be a specific claim — the biggest
sale of the year, the fastest service in town. It might be a character or a story that makes the brand feel
human and memorable.
Whatever it is, everything else in the ad exists to serve it. The voice, the music, the pacing — all working
together in support of one clear thought.
The Hardest Question in Advertising
When we work with clients at Brand New Day, there's one question we come back to again and again
throughout the creative process: if this ad could only say one thing, what would it be?
It's deceptively simple. And for most business owners, it's genuinely hard to answer — because the
answer requires choosing, and choosing means leaving things out.
But it's the most important question we can ask. Because the answer to that question is the ad.
Let's find your one thing. Get in touch and we'll work through it together.
