What? An ad that tries too hard? But there’s no such thing. Or is there?
Yes, there is.
I have long been fascinated by this common mistake. We see it often in print advertising which tries so hard to stop and startle the reader that it fails to communicate.
I’ve learned this is also a familiar problem in baseball. The harder a player tries not to fail, the more he fails.
New York Times columnist David Brooks made a special study of the matter recently and devoted a whole column to it.
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