I've reached a milestone.
Well, make that millstone. I just saw the 10,000th illustration in an ad or mailing of two people shaking hands.
I have to admire the raw popularity of the device, the way I admire the guts of people like Sylvester Stallone and Keanu Reeves, who call themselves actors…although I certainly don't admire the thin creative saliva that sloshes around behind it. What an appalling display of non-imagination!
Probably the first user of handshakes as a marketing illustration did have a good idea. But that was in the year 1215, and I'm told by those who were there that nasty King John stuck out his left hand, just out of sheer perversity at having to sign the Magna Carta.
Legend has it that the actual origin of the handshake was a couple of tribal leaders who wanted to prove to each other that neither was carrying a concealed weapon. Today's marketers are proving that they aren't carrying a concealed creative idea.
The movie mogul Louis B. Mayer concluded that handshakes spread germs. He would only extend his pinky, for a light touch. Maybe old Louie had an idea there, because handshakes in advertising spread the contagion of dull sameness.
I have one word of advice for you, if you or your advertising agency or your whatever wants to use a handshake as the illustration for your selling proposition: Don't.
While I'm in the neighborhood, may I suggest once again: If you're tempted to head a message “Your partner in…” please resist the temptation. That line has all the impact of a wet sponge. How easy and logical it is to ask yourself, after excreting that headline, “In what way are we that company's partner?” The answer to that question writes itself, a headline far superior to the original (well, unoriginal) cliché.
Get the point? Slogans work if they're tied to salesmanship. Remember the classics? “What'll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon!”…“How are you fixed for blades?”…“There's a Ford in your future.”…“The pause that refreshes.”…“We're number two. We try harder”… “Aren't you glad you use Dial? Don't you wish everybody did?”…“Don't leave home without it.”…“Butter? Parkay.”…“Good to the last drop.”
As far as I know, the only survivor — well, resuscitation — is the Maxwell House slogan. The others have gone to That Great CPM Room in the Sky, along with the CPM concept. (There's a darkened alcove waiting for CRM.)
Quel dommage. These weren't just cleverness-for-the-sake-of-cleverness words. They promoted the product. Now we have muzziness such as AT&T's “Your business is all about personal attention. Now, so are we.” That's a solid “Huh?” (Of course the original is all caps.) The word “Now” also is an admission that until now we didn't warrant personal attention. And Ford uses golfer Phil Mickelson, apparently about to smash a ball into a car's grille, with this puzzler (also all caps): “If you want to lead, you have to innovate.” Wow, that's an eye-opener!
Would the old Jaguar have settled for the 2004 campaign? “Born to perform.” How many creative all-nighters did it take to come up with that winner? Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has this puzzler: “Be more.” Is that a slogan, a hope, or have you been reading our mail? And the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards credit card suggests that we can overspend on that card without penalty: “Live richly.” OK, but don't send any dunning notices.
Look, you don't have to be brilliant, just communicative. Grey Goose Vodka isn't at all clever with “The World's Best Tasting Vodka,” which is right in the middle of the venerable Rosser Reeves Tradition…although even in his dotage, Reeves wouldn't have betrayed the ploy by using initial caps. And it's light-years beyond Vox Vodka's “Vox. The smoothest of the smooth.” A drunken yawn for that one.
Retailers are engaged in a great civil war. Sears, battling back against Wal-Mart's “Always low prices. Always,” obfuscates the issue with “Good life. Great price.” Now, which of those two four-word slogans would bring you to the store? Maybe you'd go to Lowe's, which seems to have hired those same copywriters on their days off: “Everyday low prices. Guaranteed!*” An asterisk? In a punchline? Sufferin' succotash! In mice-type, we see the awful truth: “*See store for details.” Gee, that brilliant idea of Lowe's is a winner…for The Home Depot.
Proof that smoking causes brain damage is the campaign for R.J. Reynolds' new cigarette, Eclipse: “If you want to know, you've got to go.” Uhhh…is that cigarette also a diuretic? Reynolds really is out to get us, because if you remember “I'd walk a mile for a Camel” you certainly would be nonplused by “Pleasure to burn.” Does that mean smokers are doomed to perdition? Completing its trifecta, Reynolds has for Winston: “Leave the bull behind.” Who wrote that one, a bull's behind?
Dullness is relentless. Hewlett-Packard has a single word: “Invent.” Yeah, good idea. And the Energizer Bunny seems to be either running out of gas or generating gas, depending on your digestive tract. The current pitch-line: “Do you have the Bunny inside?” Somehow, and I can't pinpoint how or why, it makes the battery seem pregnant with morning sickness, a considerably weaker image than the drum-beating hare suggested when it was whelped some years ago.
How about simple clarity, such as Olympus cameras, with “Resists water, dust, snow, imitation”? Or Ghirardelli Chocolate's “A timeless pleasure”? Or “Relax, it's FedEx”? Hire those writers.
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.”
