Would You or Wouldn't You?

I'm going to have to be political and vague in this post, as it involves a creative disagreement at work. I'm also going to change some details.

Let's say we were asked to produce an advert promoting train travel from Oxford to Cambridge to students at the university. My idea was to play on the university rivalry and have the headline...

wouldn't you rather be at Cambridge?

...just something to grab their attention with a little low-key fun-poking.

However, in production, this got changed to just...

rather be at Cambridge?

...which I felt completely ruined the mechanics of the line. Humour, even if it is of the lightest sort as in this case, is . A slight change of phrase can turn a hilarious one-liner into a dull dud, and so it is with copy.

In this case, the quest to make the shortest phrase possible does more than shorten the phrase, it changes its meaning. "Rather be at Cambridge" is an abbreviation of "would you rather be at Cambridge?", not "wouldn't". And that changes the whole tone - it becomes a neutral question rather than the challenging, teasing tone implied by "wouldn't you?". Also, starting the sentence with "wouldn't you" draws the eye because it challenges the reader and entices them into interacting with the advert. "Rather be" is a meaningless, unchallenging way to start a sentence, and in requiring the reader to fill in the words, is actually harder work than the longer version.

It. Makes. Me. Mad.

Pret - good copy bad copy

Had a bite to eat in Pret the other day, and was taken with the packaging of their own-brand food - clearly a lot of effort had gone into it. It's clear and makes its point concisely, but still adding those buzzwords: "lovingly", "fresh", "natural". "Made today, gone today" is a neat and elegant little phrase too.

In contrast, this - on a bag of low-fat popcorn from a different manufacturer - is just a mess. The first sentence is weak, utterly uninspiring. And the second paragraph aims for enthusiasm, but really - are they the first people to describe making food as an art form? If they'd just said "Making popcorn is an art form", I'd never have responded "well that just sounds ridiculous", I'd have thought "well, I suppose there's a lot you have to get right".

And then there's this pathological obsession with crisps, mentioned FOUR times on the packaging. It made me want to eat a bag of crisps, quite frankly. Oh, and what's the "hybrid stuff" when it's at home? What are the one thing and the other that sailing camp at Bosham aren't? What is any less "industrial" about mass-produced popcorn? It's not as though individual kernels taste different.

So, when I'm feeling peckish, I'll eat what the hell I like, thank you very much.

(they were quite tasty though)

The Sun - new football season

Link to story and video here



It's tempting to think that the softened visual and verbal tone of this new campaign, devised by WCRS&co, is an attempt to set the Sun apart from its departed Sunday brethren, to ditch the cockney-geezers-shouting schtick, and be seen as sober and, dare one say it, cultured. However the adverts were clearly in production long before the walls around that particular fan got a lot browner, so what's the idea?
I suspect they're catching up with the fact that football is increasingly a thinking man's game. Or woman's. When arch-strategists like Wenger and Mourinho roam the touchlines, and Fergie's power lies as much in his head as in his hairdryer temper, the old days of "I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net" seem a long way away. The average fan likes to talk strategy, not just tactics, loyalty, and partisanship, and they want to be fed arguments and lines for the pub.

I do think the advert is flawed though. The animation - by Richard Swarbrick, best known for his rendering of Gareth Bale's sensational performance against Inter Milan - depicts a moment that simply does not need bringing to life. I don't need Terry Venables to tell me how good the overhead kick was, especially not in prose over-reliant on clunkily inserted similes. If you're going highbrow, take it all the way and stick poetry over the top. It's really not as daring a departure as The Sun would like you to think.