“Thank you for calling XYZ Corporation. Please listen carefully, because the menu items have changed …”
It’s a familiar phrase, and it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Why does such a seemingly innocuous phrase drive me to distraction?
SUCCESS STORY: ANGELIC APPROACH
How do you explain complicated planned giving strategies to ordinary people who don’t have a wealth of financial knowledge? That was the heart of the challenge facing the Catholic Community Foundation, the planned-giving arm of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
The CCF manages endowments funds for parishes, charities, and other organizations with the Archdiocese, and its messages needed to compete for attention among the many appeals local Catholics received from those groups. Complicating the issue was the fact that planned giving strategies such as charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts tend to be complex financial vehicles that senior citizens and others with money to give might find confusing or intimidating.
LEGIBILITY FIRST, THEN BEAUTY
Two new retail businesses opened up just down the street. I passed them for a couple weeks with no clue as to what they offered. Then my curiosity got the better of me, so I walked over to see. One’s a hair salon and the other is a photographer.
Their signs are absolutely beautiful — and completely unreadable from more than ten feet away. That might be okay if their businesses were located on a quaint street in a tourist town, where visitors ambled back and forth at a slow pace. But they’re on a busy U.S. highway where the traffic often blows by at 40 mph.
SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT WITH A PIZZA WHEEL
Sometimes, companies are so focused on addressing a perceived shortfall or problem that they miss more important messages, or even send the wrong message to their stakeholders.
The newest commercial for Domino’s Pizza floored me because it’s a perfect example. Domino’s has been running a series of spots in which they admit that they haven’t been perfect in the past, but golly, they’re working on getting better. Most of the spots have been okay.
SUCCESS STORY: COMMUNITY SCAVENGER HUNT
Our Community Bank has been serving Owen County and the surrounding area for more than a century. But in these days of megabanks and cross-county competitors, consumers may be less likely to choose a truly local bank. After all, it’s tough to for a smaller bank to catch their attention.
To reinforce the message that OCB has been an important part of the community for such a long time, and that they understand the needs of community residents better than anyone else, we developed an advertising campaign that featured local landmarks. While those landmarks may not have been tourist attractions, they were the source of community pride — such as the bulldog statue outside Patricksburg Elementary School or the giant chicken that once decorated a Spencer eatery.
USE SINGLE OR DOUBLE QUOTES?
I don’t know whether to blame the Internet for something I’ve been seeing more of lately: the use of single quotation marks (‘) where double quotes (“) should be used.
Many issues related to punctuation are a matter of style, syntax, or personal preference. But the rules on quotation marks are pretty clear-cut.
COPYCATS ARE AMATEURS
Ever tried to be cooler than a teenager? It just doesn’t work. By the time you hear and learn the meaning of the latest expression or newest tidbit of slang, it’s ancient history. The first time you try to use it in front of said teenager, you’ll get a withering look that will add decades to your age.
The same holds true for advertising concepts. When a major national campaign captures the public’s interest, it’s usually because of an amazingly clever or innovative approach. Unfortunately, many company decision-makers are too lazy or unimaginative enough to come up with their own clever or innovative approach, so they simply copy the popular approach.
SUCCESS STORIES: HANGING AROUND THE OFFICE
B2B companies want to be noticed, and they need to remembered, so that when a company needs their services, they’ll call. But how do you do that in today’s noisy, fast-changing marketplace?
Russell Martin & Associates is one of the IT industry’s most-loved training firms. Instead of delivering the standard, dull training presentations, they’ve developed an intimate understanding of how people learn, and they apply it to helping project managers and others in the IT world improve their efficiency, quality, and workflow (among other things).
ASSORTED GOOFS & GAFFES
Time to take another look at public misuses of language. I won’t poke fun at private examples, but media, businesses, and others whose words are crafted for the public are fair game.
We’ll start with the Indianapolis Star, which is a constant source of typographical errors (especially online). Few are as amusing as the one that crept into a June essay about the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. A caption spotlighting a particular hound referred to it as a “pure bread” dog. Not sure whether that was a reference to diet or muscle structure.
LOOSE LIPS (AND POSTS) SINK SHIPS
That headline comes from warnings issued to Americans during the World Wars of the last century. It was a reminder that sensitive data that was discussed publicly could be overheard by those working for the enemy. Military and diplomatic history is full of tales in which a careless remark doomed a battle or other operation.
The same holds true for the business world. In my ad agency days, I remember working on a hard-fought effort to keep a large client. Several people in the organization’s marketing department disliked my agency’s team and hoped to replace us with another shop that employed their friends. The run-up to the selection involved weeks of late hours and anxiety, because job cuts invariably follow the loss of a large account.