Every Little Helps
(Warning: this post contains a few carefully selected sweary words.)
Like many others, I’m a copywriter who not only cares about doing an outstanding job whatever the job, but also feels an emotional affinity with every piece of messaging thrown at me (if you haven’t read my previous post, you can insert ‘passionate’ in there somewhere, but don’t expect a glass of warmed-up spicy wine from me if you do). As such, I often find myself in embarrassing situations.
I’ll be sitting in the quiet coach of a train and, without warning, treat the other commuters to an outburst of, “Bloody hell fire.”
Or I’ll be in the queue at the checkout and whilst shoppers are minding their own business, they’ll be accosted with a quick, “Knobs!”
Even a quiet walk down the high street is a rarity. I’ll often walk past a shop and an innocent window browser will be affronted by a sharp, “Shit a brick.”
It’s a bit like having creative tourettes.
And it drives The Missus nuts.
It happened last night, luckily in the comfort of our living room after the rugrats were packed off to beddybyes.
Whilst shopping online for the Christmas booze and associated food goodies I happened across this banner on the Tesco site.
Tesco Finest is the upmarket sub brand for times when you’re feeling a little posher than normal. You know… more Annie Walker, less Bet Lynch.
The reason it caused one of those all-too-familiar outbursts in me is one tiny word: ‘a’.
A. That’s all it took to stir a mixture of anger, sadness and woeful disappointment in me.
Why? Well, I think either the copywriter missed a trick, the marketing exec didn’t think about it enough or no one cared enough in the whole creative process.
Yes, I realise ‘Finest’ is a brand, so in terms of grammar it’s a pass. But in terms of messaging, for me it’s a big fat fail.
Simply replacing ‘a’ with ‘the’ and still keeping the initial-capped Finest logo in there would have kept the whole headline, indeed the whole sentiment, much more rounded, much more meaningful and much more on brand with Tesco’s otherwise fine messaging. And the sentence would have also had the advantage of being grammatically sound whilst also having more umph. There is also, of course, the alternative of replacing the superlative, ‘Finest’ with the comparative ‘finer’ to sit with the ‘a’ – which would have made it much more grammatically pleasing, but wouldn’t have met any watertight branding requirements.
The Missus thinks there are bigger things in the world to worry about. Of course, she’s right. My friends think I’m either crackers or, at the least, a little sad.
If you’re a copywriter, what do you think?
I know I should probably get out more. But that would only exacerbate my condition.
Because I firmly believe when it comes to copywriting and getting the message absolutely spot-on, every little (detail) helps.
Have the Finest Christmas everyone.
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