Kranz On Copy: Insights and answers on copywriting and writing copy

Last week, Massachusetts' first Ikea store opened in Stoughton. I tried to make it there yesterday with my family, but after a long hour in which the traffic inched forward on a narrow two-lane road, we questioned an Ikea shuttle bus driver headed in the opposite direction; he said we had another hour ahead of us. We baled out and went to Boston's North End for dinner instead.

But here's what's really blown my mind about Ikea: an interview with Ikea Group president Anders Dahlvig that appeared in Thursday's Boston Globe Business section. In it, he says that, "Our quality is OK, but there is more to do," and "in the 1980's, we had a lot of problems with quality." When asked if he owned Ikea furniture, he said, "about 50 percent."

If an American executive had been asked the same questions, you know what you'd get: "Of course, all my furniture is Ikea. We're committed to quality! It's job #1. [Oops, that might be taken...] We're proactively looking for news ways to make our quality even better!!!"

Executives say these kind of things because that's what they're trained to do. Be positive. State missions. Spin for advantage. This, we're told, is "effective" communicating. You know, the kind that "interacts" with consumers and "builds bonds."

Of course, it doesn't. But difficult realities rarely trump heart-felt illusions. So we exaggerate, boast and preen. And the real result is lost credibility. Or worse, a collective yawn from the masses.

Mr. Dahlvig served it up straight. And what he said wasn't all positive and glowing. Some of it may have been, by our American standards, ill-advised.

But you know what? I believe him. And when the traffic finally clears (February, perhaps?) I'll make that trek to Ikea.