‘Doomed’ may sound a little overdramatic, but in the first post on this blog I raised the spectre of how long it would take for doom-laden rhetoric, being used by the media to describe the current economic situation, to find itself into everyday scenarios and then into web and email copywriting. If the headline seems a little overdramatic, well, I’m trying to make a point here.

Below is a visual from my email inbox. Like many people, I prioritise what emails I open and deal with, marking less important emails as unread, to be dealt with later. When I went back to deal with a bunch of these, I came across the visual juxtaposition shown here.

It makes my point well. Retail pharma group, Boots, is using ‘the clock is ticking’ reference in the Subject line to get me to use a time-limited offer relating to their photo printing service. Hemscott, a financial information company, is talking about how to make money in the current market conditions.

The end result is rather than thinking happy snaps when I view the Boots offer, I’m reminded of a ticking bomb, thanks to Hemscott. The Boots email Subject line just makes me feel that any investment at this stage is liable to blow up in my face. They both lose.

The way we read online means we are more likely to make these subliminal connections. The way we interact with online content is a constant facination for the CDA Content Lab and an area where we are currently carrying out some interesting tests, which we hope to share with you shortly.

In the meantime, beware Armageddon language.