Sounds familiar

Almost six years ago, I wrote the post you see here. I know what you're thinking: "He's been pumping out this crap for six years?!"

One man's crap is another man's shinola, or something like that.

The point is I don't like to recycle my posts, but six years later this one is still as relevant as ever.

How do I know? Because in my day job writing about a luxury automotive brand, I find myself using the same exact words I speak about in the post. I'm not proud.

I guess what I'm saying is even though this is a pre-owned article, it's been through a 140-word inspection and reads just like new. Take it out for a test read, and experience it for yourself.

Like a lot of writers living in Southern California, I’ve worked on many car accounts. From top end $90,000 luxury vehicles to $14,000 coffee-grinders, I’ve written it all.

Commercials, collateral, radio spots, print ads, online banners, interactive content, Twitter posts, Facebook posts, outdoor, customer kits, dealer kits, CPO kits, sale kits, employee bonus kits, warranty kits.

Oddly enough, no matter the price or quality of the car, they all have something in common. The words used to describe them.

Pick a car, any car. I bet it’s exhilarating. It’s probably also a leader in innovation. No doubt it’s been engineered to maximize your driving experience, and designed to turn heads as well as corners.

Let’s not forget the fact it’s also loaded with state-of-the-art technology, as well as class-leading aerodynamics whose job it is to keep you connected to the road. How else could you get a car that makes setting the standard, standard.

But there's no point to any of it unless you're around to enjoy it. That's why the car you're thinking about is loaded with the latest active and passive safety features.

The cars come with airbags. The agencies come with windbags.

Differentiating parity products - different brands with the exact same features - has always been a problem in advertising. Often the only thing that does it is the quality of the creative idea, the consistency of the execution and the personality it establishes for the brand.

I bet you know what BMW builds. But I'm fairly sure you aren't nearly as familiar with the tagline Toyota - which builds awesome cars for all income levels - just spent millions to introduce.

Unless there's a real product difference, almost every category from athletic shoes to cars to fast food use the same words to describe their product. Which makes it even harder to tell them apart.

Sort of like ad agencies.

I have the negatives

Here’s a client comment every copywriter gets – some more than others – about a headline they’ve written at some point along the way.

”It’s too negative.”

I get it a lot. In fact, I got it today.

Despite the fact the second half of the line paid off the first part of the line beautifully and, dare I say it, positively, the client was having none of it.

My headline included the word “won’t.” Apparently that’s on the list of random negative trigger words, along with “can’t”, “shouldn’t”, “doesn’t”, “didn’t” and I’m sure a bunch more I won’t (there’s that word again) know until I present them and they’re shot down.

Mid-level clients are not big picture thinkers. Their tendency is to have crippling tunnelvision, and overthink everything, especially how much of their ass to cover. It’s why they examine headlines on a word-by-word basis, as opposed to taking in and reflecting on the entire line, the bigger meaning, the brand tone of voice and the overall message being conveyed.

Obviously to live in the purgatory that is middle management, one must have their sense of humor surgically removed. I believe they keep it downstairs in the pathology lab, next to the jars of middle manager brains.

I kid. Middle managers don't have brains.

It’d be a great business if clients read headlines and copy, and then reacted as if they were real people instead of what they think they are: experts in the life of the mind.

So my lesson for today, courtesy of this middle-management, ass-kissing, overthinking, boot-licking, water-toting, brown-nosing, apple-polishing, favor-currying, toady little suck-up is to try to be more positive.

How am I doing so far?

Hepinstall!

I like to think I have a pretty objective assessment of my talent when it comes to writing. Essentially, I'm not bad. In fact most of the time I'm pretty good. And occasionally, I bat one out of the park.

On those days, when I'm feeling pretty good about myself knowing I've said exactly what I wanted to say, I walk with a little spring in my step. A certain joie de vivre if you will, knowing I've strung a few choice words together people will enjoy reading and thinking about.

Those are the days I try not to think about Kathy Hepinstall. Because if I do, then I have to face the cold, bright glare of harsh reality that I can't come close to how very good she is.

Hepinstall is a writer's writer. Reading her words are a joy. I don't know how she manages to make me feel awe and jealousy at the same time, but somehow she pulls it off.

She has the priceless ability to make readers feel deeply, surprise them and then leave them breathless. For a sample of what I'm talking about, have a gander at her latest blogpost Jesus Would Take The Middle Seat.

I like to imagine the words don't come easy to her, and that she struggles with the same angst and durang I do every time she faces a blank page. I'd like to think that. It would bring me enormous misery-loves-company joy. But reading her work, seeing the ease, flow and specificity of the words tells another story.

Kathy's also written four or five novels - I've lost count. My idea of being productive is leaving a note on the door for the UPS guy. Clearly we have different approaches.

If I were half the writer she is, I'd be twice the writer I am.

Which tells me I should start thinking about math teacher as an alternative career choice.

Apply words as needed

There's been a lot of discussion about the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and not all of it as sympathetic as you might expect.

There are people inflamed at how selfish it was to shoot heroin when you have kids. It's a point of view I understand, but it's an awfully unforgiving one usually put forth by people who have no concept about the grip heroin can have on a life.

Until the beginning of last year, Hoffman had been clean and sober for over 20 years. When he fell off the wagon, he sought help by enrolling himself in rehab last May.

Sadly, as we all know, it didn't stick.

But beyond a brilliant body of work, he also left us these words, that can be applied to virtually any job.

It's a simple message: do the best you can at every opportunity you're given. You're not better than the work. And if you want to be noticed and remembered, then give them something to notice and remember.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman did that every time at bat.

Despite his sad and most certainly tragic death, he left us words to live by.

Rat-tastic!

I once read a review for the remake of Willard, the movie about a guy who had a legion of rats at his command. The review called the movie “rat-tastic!” I thought it was a pretty funny way of putting it.

Much funnier than the made up words used daily by ad agencies on commercials.

In my mind’s eye, I imagine an agency dungeon where copywriters are chained to their chairs, their overlords whipping them mercilessly until they find a way to merge two words that have absolutely no business being made into one. The lingual equivalent of a square peg in a round hole.

It’s bad enough no one in real life talks the way people do in commercials. But at least they’re speaking words from the dictionary (most of the time).

When was the last time you described a strong, soft toilet paper as stroft? When was the last time you described toilet paper at all?

Hampton Inn now offers us Hamptonality!, a cross between the name and hospitality - in case you didn’t know what business hotels were in.

Hyundai has told us in the past that their finely crafted Korean automobiles are made with pure Powercision.

There are also what I like to call the fallback suffixes: -licious, -tastic, -esque, -able, -apolooza, -centric. Just add a word in front of them, and presto! You have a vocabalicious new word.

The unfortunate part is this practice has spilled over into other areas as well. Dog breeders were among the first to pick up on the trend. If you can't decide between a labrador and a poodle, you can pick up a Labradoodle. If the kids want something more their size, get them a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. You know, a Cockapoo.

No matter what industry it shows up in, it just means the people perpetrating this assault on the language couldn't come up with anything better.

Which if you ask me is all just a cross between a bulldog and a shihtzu.