Rob Morrison: The best copy test? TLDR

Say what you like about Millennials, they do have a way with acronyms. BTW. OMG. IMHO. BRB. LOL. They’re all now well understood by every generation. All part of the lexicon. Why? Because, when posting, tweeting or commenting, every character counts. Because in a time-poor world, shorter is better. The approach has its own acronym (of course it does).

TLDR – Too Long. Didn’t Read.

It’s the perfect test of writing for today’s readers. Could the headline be seven words not twelve? Or five. Or two. Could the copy be 200-words not 1000? Could it all be simpler?

That’s right. Simplicity. Every creative department’s under-appreciated friend. In business across the planet, ‘simplicity’ was the source of client-agency tension and suit-creative arguments.

How many times have creatives had to wrestle with a double-barreled proposition? Or triple-barreled? Because the client is “desperate to say everything at once”. I’ve lost track of the times I’ve quoted Herschell Gordon Lewis, “Fire your big gun first.” You need to say something first and something loudest.

Then how many times, after being presented with three simple ideas, has the client tried to squish two ideas together? “I can’t decide which to run so I want a bit of both.”

Need some specific examples?

Whatever browser you’re using right now, open another window and type in the URL of any big company. Choose a telco. Or a bank. Or a car-maker. On their website, you’ll find navigation for pages and pages of deep content. Hundreds of thought-leadership pieces. Thousands of words.

TLDR.

It gets worse when you peek behind the curtain at company intranets. Inevitably, the HR department has posted everything anyone ever asked about working at the company. Staff benefits. Vacancies. Training programs. Then corporate affairs has posted every media release dating back decades. It’s telling that companies have added search engines and chatbots – just to give readers a chance of finding what they’re looking for.

TLDR.

The good news is, A.I. might just be an unexpected ally. When used carefully, ChatGPT can give a useful summary. Readers are pasting in thought-leadership articles and getting a bullet point summary. Or loading in multiple legal-heavy product disclosure statements and getting a reader-friendly comparison. Or simply dropping in an email they’ve written and getting it cleaned up.

That’s valid. That’s smart.

So, if you can stomach it, encourage your clients to use ChatGPT as an editor. But never as an originator. If they get used to simplicity, it might just make everything better for us all.

P.S. Just in case you think I failed the TLDR test, here’s ChatGPT’s 50-word OpEd summary of what you just read.

TLDR—“Too Long; Didn’t Read”—is today’s gold standard for clear communication. Simplicity beats complexity in headlines, copy, and messaging. Businesses often overwhelm with too much content, but AI tools like ChatGPT can help clarify and condense. Use them to edit and simplify, not create. Shorter, sharper writing always wins attention.

For the record, I still prefer mine.

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Rob Morrison is a rarity in advertising – a grey-haired working creative. His consultancy, ‘morro’, is dedicated to curing businesses laryngitis. Giving companies back their human voice.

Here are two more opinion pieces from Rob Morrison: