Two words that are damaging our credibility, causing complaints and acting as weak crutches for questionable sales pitches:
Up to.
The “Up to…” problem has become epidemic. We expect it from car dealers. Get this doubled condition: “You may have won a cash prize of up to $4,500!” Sure. You may, or you may not. And “up to $4,500” could be a dollar and still be a legitimate statement. Show up at the Saturn/Pontiac dealer and see what happens. It's harmless enough, except for its contribution to the reader's overall skepticism.
That skepticism was enhanced by an almost simultaneous mailing from a local Lincoln-Mercury dealer — “Save up to $22,000*.” Nowhere in this mailing is either the $22,000 or the asterisk explained.
That's why I prefer “as much as.” The difference between “as much as” and “up to” may strike you as subtle and insignificant. It's subtle, all right, but it's no more insignificant than the difference between salesmanship and duplicity.
A competing car dealer sent me a fake check. Fake? Outlandish is a better word, because although it's in check format it's for “The Sum Of Up To: Six Thousand Dollars and 00/100.” Yeah, take that one to the bank.
Continental Airlines has a considerably more insidious “Up to” offer. The envelope states flatly: “Bonus miles 10,000.” A stick-on note inside says, “You're pre-approved! Get your 10,000 Bonus Miles + Value Pack.”
Uh-oh…what's this? A bunch of asterisks. Yep. “*See reverse for Disclosures regarding rates, fees and additional costs….” And here's a complicated chunk of type headed by “Up to 10,000 Onepass Bonus Miles® are reserved for you.” (All these are all caps in the original, automatic grounds for suspicion.) What's this sudden “Up to”? Oh — it's a credit card. What a surprise! And the card is a little different from most others in that it costs $85 a year, imposing fees and fees and fees. Well, that's OK if I'm in desperate need of a card. But again, “Up to”? Oh. If I rent a car at “selected merchants” (odd word for a car rental company) I get 1,000 miles. For phone services from “selected providers” I get 200 miles. So the 10,000 miles are mine only if I sign up for that for-fee, not for-free, card. No, thanks. Come to think of it, why did I add “thanks” to that reply?
Blockbuster, apparently suffering from the Netflix invasion, sent me a “Free Phone Certificate.” It's for AT&T Wireless, not Blockbuster (“available only to valued BLOCKBUSTER® members”). The letter may set an indoor record for the number of asterisks and registration symbols — I just quit counting after the first dozen. Mildly off the point, although the greeting spelled my name correctly, in mid-letter the errant computer says, “Your certificates expire in 45 days, Jordana M. Herschthal.” Oops. In case you're wondering, that isn't my secret stage name.
The Free Phone Certificate is an “Up to $1,080 Value.” How so? Well, I get “Unlimited free night and weekend minutes*” and “2,400 free Anytime Minutes annually*” explained as normally costing 45 cents a minute — “a savings of up to $1,080.00!” Who can quarrel with that dynamic arithmetic, especially since nowhere are the asterisks explained? My reaction in one sentence: Aside from 45 cents a minute being less than competitive, both Blockbuster and AT&T should be ashamed of this one.
BellSouth leaps on the “Up to” bandwagon with a space ad loaded with asterisks, offering anyone who reads the newspaper “Up to $100 cash back.” And how do I get the cash back? In what appears to be two-point type, “Eligible residential customers will receive a $25 coupon (to be returned to BellSouth) per qualifying service.” The qualifying services are Complete Choice Plan, Privacy Director, Fast Access DSL, Cingular Wireless and an unlimited long-distance plan. Hey, that's five, not four. Should the “Up to” reach $125?
Hyatt Hotels' self-mailer says, “Smart. Meetings at Hyatt offer up to $20,000 in savings.” Wow! That's a big “Up to.” It's legitimate, too. Hold a meeting during Hyatt's “Extra Value Dates” and if you have 1,001+ room nights, you get a rebate of $20,000. I don't know what the Extra Value Dates are, but they're between March 30, 2003 and March 30, 2004. Twenty bucks per room makes sense…if the hotel isn't charging base rate in the first place. And any meetings planner who pays base rate probably is on Hyatt's secret payroll.
As an inveterate champion of the underdog, I was distressed to see on the envelope of a Frontier Airlines mailing, “Earn up to 7,500 Bonus Miles inside*.” Sigh. The combination of the deadly word “Earn,” coupled with “Up to” and that accursed asterisk, bode no good.
Ah, it's a standard credit card pitch — 2,500 miles “for your first purchase,” then “one mile per $1 in balances transferred to your Frontier Airlines MasterCard requested in the first 30 days after you open your account, up to a maximum of $5,000. The Balance Transfer is subject to the Balance Transfer Fee set forth in the enclosed Terms and Conditions.” Set forth? Yuck. And “Terms and Conditions” specifies a charge of 3%, so to get my 100 miles for a $100 transfer, I pay $3…not a terrific deal when I can buy miles for 2 cents each.
You know what these “Up to” mailings remind me of? A grungy Bruce Willis/Sylvester Stallone-appearing character says to a friend, “Know what? Today I kept a bank from being robbed.”
“Oh?” says the friend. “How did you do that?”
“I changed my mind.”
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide. Among his 27 books are a recently published new edition of “On the Art of Writing Copy,” “Marketing Mayhem” and “Effective E-mail Marketing.”
