Does anyone care about advertising clarity? Google does.

Today's New York Times Circuits section has an interesting piece on the fact that Google actually vets its text advertising for grammar and style. The article makes a radical claim in today's market: From Google's point of view, clarity is more important than tone.

Blackfriars sides with Google and applauds their stand. While slang and misspellings can occasionally work for a company, more often, they simply make copy harder to understand, more difficult to remember, and less effective in today's global marketplace. And don't forget, that while you may think that street slang and text shortcuts sound hip to your average American, today's Internet ads are seen around the globe; audiences in other countries who don't speak English as a native language to say nothing of American English may struggle to figure out what you are talking about.

Our bottom line: simple, correct language should be the standard for all business communication, including advertising. That may sound obvious, but Blackfriars thinks more companies than Google should take up that fight.