About a year ago I was doodling on a paper bag—as one does.

I drew a line.

This math nerd turned that line into a line segment. Somehow that got me thinking about copywriting and the eternal debate around clear copy vs. clever copy.

This is where I ended up.

Clear vs. Clever v1

At different points in my life this paper bag would’ve been a poor attempt at Spider-man or about a thousand of those pointy S things from the 90s (you know what I’m talking about) but at the time I was working on a brand strategy project for a technical client and I had messaging on my mind.

We developed their brand voice to have four key traits: natural, helpful, honest, clever.

Brand Voice traits

As technical providers, what they did naturally sounds like 0s and 1s to a lot of people so being able to say it in a human way was critical. This crew also has a ton of personality—they are clever and witty and funny—so we needed to balance that as well (you see the “butt-but” joke??).

Ultimately in wanting to create something that conveys the technical expertise while maintaining the humanity my brain was going down a rabbit hole that manifested itself as a line segment.

Back to the doodle

What I came up with (which has since been dubbed the Shamis Scale of Clarity, not by me) was a way to help me think about where I want my writing to fall. While I’ve always loved writing, copywriting is a skill I’ve had to learn over the years. And like many wannabe copywriters, I always wanted to come up with the most creative, wittiest, cleverest line possible (I still do it here).

The thing I realized over the years is that when I was trying to write the most clever line I wasn’t doing that to sell a product or service, I was doing that for my own ego—to prove that I was funny or smart. More often than not those lines wouldn’t perform and I’d be shocked because wasn’t I so funny and smart? Why weren’t people running to throw 6-figures at me for my line?

What the project above and many others like it over the years taught me is that it’s all about balance. You can still have fun with the work while also being an effective marketer. This is how I started thinking about it.

A - 100% Clear

This might be appropriate for your product pages or sales collateral when describing features but it's probably super dry and boring. This isn't my style.

I find that this is where a lot of technical documentation and knowledge base articles end up and while I get it, I don’t like it. Just because these things are technical doesn’t mean they shouldn’t incorporate your brand tone and voice which I’m assuming isn’t “robotic.”

B - 100% Clever

This is the complete opposite. It might be funny or attention grabbing but the likelihood of your target knowing what you're talking about is pretty low. All these years later this is still where I tend to start before reigning it back in.

You see a lot of this in B2C where most categories are commoditized and low cost.

C - 50/50 Clear to Clever

This is right down the middle. A good compromise for sure and if you can thread this needle there's nothing wrong with that. But if I'm being honest this feels like you're trying to make everyone happy and that never actually works.

D - 65/35 Clear to Clever

This is actually the sweet spot in my opinion—at least in B2B. There's clarity around your offering but you might still get a laugh or at least a smile from your audience.

I like this spot because it frees you up to focus on your offering and then add some personality to it. In B or E below you usually lead with the laughs, here you lead with the product and that’s what most B2B audiences are looking for.

E - 35/65 Clear to Clever

After B this tends to be where most people land hoping for a laugh, probably getting it, but losing sight of your product. This is where in the past I would've wrote something meaningless about increasing revenue or all-in-one because it was kinda product related but that was just a trojan horse to land a joke. Never really worked.

It could be me though because Liquid Death’s Super Bowl spot does a great job of nailing this. The “drinking on the job” line has a major negative connotation with alcoholism but they flip it to sell you water. This was a campaign that was meant to be controversial and they towed the line really well. Again, this works better in B2C.

The Shamis Scale of Clarity (non-doodle version)

So why D?

I'm a Creative by nature so I want to experiment, try new things, and push myself to connect with readers. That said, I'm also a business man (cue Jay-Z). I'm trying to sell something and I can't do that if the reader doesn't know what I'm talking about.

And how did I pivot from B to E to D?

B to E was experimentation and learning lessons the hard way. This was the easy one.

E to D was the harder pivot and I credit that transition to Eddie Shleyner. From the time I first met him, he's preached clarity over cleverness and you know what he's right. Ten times out ten when I’d test clever copy vs clear copy, the clear copy would win so I stopped fighting it and figured out how to do both with the balance towards clarity.

Today that looks like starting closer to A (never all the way A though) with what the key takeaway is then it’s about layering in humor and personality that doesn’t take away from that key message. If you can’t tell which it is you either stumbled upon C at which point if it’s good, go with it or you fell into C and you’re not doing either particularly well. Use that as a nudge to move towards D or E.

Clear? Clever? Who cares?

Gold jacket, green jacket… You know the rest | Happy Gilmore

I do and you should too! If you’re writing for yourself then it may not matter but if you’re selling something then it’s not about you. Use the scale to meet your audience where they are and sell in a way that they’ll respond to. From there feel free to experiment by going left or right a notch at a time and see what happens because just because you’re leaning one way or the other right now doesn’t mean you have to stay there forever.

I’ve been on a bit of an anti all-in-one kick lately. I love the idea of all-in-one software but I hate the mediocrity, high price tags, and outdated opinions that are baked into them. This is why I’ve been helping companies build their own all-in-ones.

Think of it like this… instead of relying on a single piece of bloated software to do everything, you can rely on world-class point solutions and integrate them using tools like Zapier, and Clay. The only opinions that matter are yours and the only tools are the ones you love. If you’re looking to build your own custom all-in-one, book some time.