A Lesson for Copywriters: What’s Wrong with this Sign?

I was walking down the street the other day (okay, maybe a month or so ago) and paused to read the following sign posted on the door of a local sushi restaurant.

It’s a classic example of how to bury your main message (which isn’t something you want to do).

If you read only the first sentence (which I’m sure is all most people read as they rush by), you would think the restaurant is closing. Forever.

It’s only when you read the second sentence of the first paragraph do you start to understand they’re closing for renovations and will re-open.

There’s a lesson here for copywriters. Put your key message first – either in the first sentence or (in a longer text) the first paragraph. You can’t be sure everyone or anyone will read the whole text to get the real goods. This might not seem like a big deal on such a short note, but it’s easy to overestimate how much people will read and absorb. The easier you make things for them, the better.

This is precisely why news media employ the pyramid structure for their stories, addressing “who, what, where and why” in the opening paragraph.

Have you other examples of buried leads? How would you go about un-burying them?