Have you taken a look at a consumer contract lately and really tried to read the fine print? Beyond the fact that I am 45 and can’t see without a pair of reading glasses, it appears that the fine print is getting much more difficult to see.
A recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that the fine print seems to be getting smaller. They interviewed Brian Lawler who is a professor of graphic communication at California State Polytechni cUniversity in San Luis Obispo and has studied typography of every kind.
He said that the “the characters' height hits only 4.5 points, which translates to about 1/16 of an inch—or a smidgen taller than the thickness of a single dime.” He also says that the “liberal use of uppercase letters makes the paragraphs nearly impossible to visually penetrate.”
Then there is the limited “white space” and all of the grey letters that seem to run together into one big blob of words. It seems like those retailers just don’t want the pesky details read. Once again, leave it up to the marketers to rely on the imperfection of human nature.
First, it is human nature to skip the process of the details and move forward assuming that everything is OK. Not only do the details take time to process they might just reveal something that would invalidate our strong desire to make that purchase. You know…what you don’t know will not hurt you.
Second, we tend to trust smoke and mirror marketing. Many marketing campaigns are notorious for insinuating an idea that is wide open to many interpretations. Most of these interpretations lead the consumer down the wrong path. This is mostly why marketing works. Consumers blindly trust what they are told.
The fine print is the only thing that clears up the ambiguity of the marketing by letting us know those pesky details. It is those pesky details that represent the red flags of a bad deal. So, if the retailers market irresponsibly and then make the fine print even harder to read, something is up and consumers need to be on their guard.
Remember once you sign on the dotted line, you have agreed to the fine print whether you can read it or not. As Ronald Regan would say – Trust but verify.
