Looking for crass? You've found it.
As a copywriter I probably pay closer attention to ads than most others. And a lot of what I see bothers me. I've decided to do a regular "ad of the moment" post (not "ad of the day" as I have better things to do than post that frequently) and rate them Good, Bad and Ugly. This one is Bad.
Bad because there's a big error in the headline. They've only used four words but still managed to screw it up. Can't spot the booboo? Then maybe it's just me? But in my book 'why not' is a question. And a question should be followed by a question mark. It's just one of those grammatical conventions that give people helpful clues about how to read something and get the sense from it. A tiresome detail, I guess, if you are busy being a cutting edge tech company intent on creating a brave new world. Rules are for breaking when you are a funky disrupter, right? Or maybe the hipsters at Google are just too cool for school and never mastered the difference between a statement and a question? Call me old fashioned but I think they just embarrassed themselves, big time.
The ad, however, is also bad for another reason.
Every picture tells a story - so what's the story with this one? I think it's something about "Google facilitates multiculturalism and social cohesion by making it easier for people from different backgrounds to find something in common". A bit like Coke's vintage "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony". With maybe a bit of "empowering women to reach out and find themselves/eachother" thrown in for good measure.
The ad is just so right on - but wrong.
It's implausible, inappropriate and even a little insulting to suggest that a woman who represents the traditional culture and values of the middle east should be interested in something as trivial as karaoke. The "why not?" question is a dumb one that shows how out of touch the people at Google are with the real world.
Finally, and I accept this is a cheap shot, if you really want to make the world a better place why not pay taxes in the countries where you run your ads? That's a "why not?" question really worth asking.
I read the 'why not' as rhetorical, so because it doesn't require or expect an answer the question mark is redundant. I think there's a lot to be said for English being a living and evolving language where the rules of grammar are not rules at all but guidelines. And by way of demonstration it was poor form to start a sentence with 'and' not so very long ago. These days this sort of flexibility in form - as long as the communication is clear, is well. Fine.?
Question mark aside, I'm not a fan of headlines with full stops/periods. I'm guessing that this is part of a series and there are some serious ones in there. I share your feeling that this is beyond frivolous to the point of being confusing.?
b2b writer: mostly questions
6 年Yes, and the missing question mark is more than a meaningless slip; it actually turns this into a negative, the exact opposite of what I presume they want to say. "Keep finding reasons to say no." Punctuation matters people.