Mercedes E-Class Ad Copy – ‘Butt’ of Critics’ Jokes

One of the points I stress in my book, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, is the importance of writing copy that speaks to your target audience.  If your audience doesn’t ‘get’ your copy or it doesn’t speak directly to them in a language they understand, appreciate, and relate to, then your ad won’t drive the sales you need from it.  Case in point — the new Mercedes E-Class print ads shown below.

Ad #1 Copy Reads: “Superfect. The E-Class Coupe. It deserves a whole new language.”

Ad #2 Copy Reads: “Fabuttractive. The E-Class Coupe. It deserves a whole new language.”

The problems with this copy are two-fold:

First, how many Mercedes customers would be motivated by the pre-teen, Valley Girl (okay, I’m dating myself there) language used in this copy?  Who is the target audience for these ads?  How many of them would be positively influenced by the word “superfect” or “fabuttastic”?  And would they want to be associated with a product and brand that is linked to those words?  It’s doubtful.

Second, the glaring inclusion of ‘butt’ within the word ‘fabuttastic’ is hard not to notice.  It’s almost laughable and is a great example of another point I make in my book – always show your copy to many people before you approve it.  While the creative team behind this ad may not have noticed the word-within-a-word subliminal message, many advertising critics have.  I don’t think many brands like Mercedes want to see the word ‘butt’ in such close proximity to their products and brands.

I’m just saying.

Building Brand Value the Playboy Way – Now Available in Book Stores and Online

My new book, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way, was released this month through Palgrave Macmillan.  It’s available through online book sellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders as well as in stores.

This was an incredibly interesting story to research and to tell.  You can read an excerpt here.

If you have a chance to read it, stop back by and let me know what you think or leave a review on Amazon and share your thoughts.

From WTF to TFW – How a Blog Caused a Logo Change for Wisconsin

Earlier this year, one of my favorite blogs, Your Logo Makes Me Barf, wrote a post called WTF Wisconsin? that pointed out a glaring error made by the Wisconsin Tourism Federation.  If you don’t know what the acronym WTF stands for, I’ll tell you — “What the fu*k?”  Take a look at the logo below.

While it’s surprising that no one within or working with the Wisconsin Tourism Federation mentioned this problem to them, the more interesting point of the story comes from how they learned about it.  The power of the blogosphere is demonstrated once again with the WTF Wisconsin? post on Your Logo Makes Me Barf.  The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel wrote about it on the same day in their Hubbub blog.

Perhaps the more unfortunate part of this story though is something mentioned on another of my favorite blogs — Brand New.  The organization took the time and invested the money to change their name after realizing the error (the new name is Tourism Federation of Wisconsin), but they just flipped the letters in the logo instead of creating a new one.  Now that’s a missed opportunity as this logo leaves a lot to be desired (see below).

Of course, the lesson to learn is — always make sure multiple people review your work.  You never know what you might miss.