DesignBiz Rx Weblog

I spent several years in the trenches of various advertising and marketing agencies and every few months there was another industry genius whose campaign or strategy was the ultimate solution. But sometimes there were real gems of truth to be found among the hype. One of the names I followed since then is Terry O’Reilly, a fixture in the Canadian advertising biz. I recently came across several of his comments that made sense to me back then and still do.

“Emotions should be felt, never stated.” Think about the most powerful moments in your favorite movies, the commercials that move you, even if they’re for products/services you’re not interested in…that’s the power of emotional understatement. 

“People don’t want to be targeted, they want to be understood.” Again, sometimes we lose track of what the message should be when we’re in the midst developing it, but it’s important to keep in mind that custom window treatments are not purchased to cover windows, but for thousands of other emotional reasons, that designers as therapists need to understand.