Spiked: Advertising could be so beautiful

I don't want to be picky, but some advertisers and "brand animals" could do with a little more attention to their language as a working tool. For example, the cosmetics company Clinique advertises its "No. 1 against pigmentation and age spots in Europe". Honestly, that makes me cringe! Because as far as I know, most people get age spots on their face or the back of their hands - and not in Europe, wherever that area of the body may be. Or did the company mean that the miracle product only combats age spots that appear under the European sun? EU or not - that can't be the case either. So one person meant something, the second didn't know and the third wrote the text. Dear cosmetics advertisers: Sometimes you can't fit all the important information into one sentence. Then it's okay to have two. Consumers might then even understand you. Wouldn't that be something?

As a gift

The Verdbaudet mail order company is also currently going all out with its "free gift" for an order. I have always understood and used the word "gift" as a synonym for "free". So a free gift would be something like a white horse or a badly coiffed Corine Mauch. Pleonasm, say those in the know. But perhaps the idea that gifts are free is one that is slowly showing its age. Especially in Europe. But that takes us away from the topic. Media Markt is also completely off the mark. These days, it's saying "18 years of Media Markt Switzerland - full age - full price!". While this claim still sounds reasonably funny on the radio and the advertising professionals paid attention to spelling when developing the word/image brand, the simple text rectangle on the Internet makes your eyes water. Volljährig, Vollbillig, Vollmilch? The capitalization of adjectives outside of a sentence context has already become established, but what is vollbillig? Is there also leerbillig? Or did the advertising window simply not allow any more spaces? I'm not stupid. Or maybe you are?

Messed up

The NZZ am Sonntag, however, has hit the bottom of the barrel. As an advertisement for its management job market, of all things, the newspaper has the following sentence: "Where you find suitable applicants for specialist and management positions is no coincidence." Take a deep breath. The sentence pretends to work, but it doesn't. Let's ask ourselves what might be meant. Probably: "The fact that you can find suitable applicants in the NZZ ... is no coincidence." Or, somewhat more accentuated: "It's no coincidence that you find suitable applicants in the NZZ ..." What's wrong with the little sentence by the noble writers? The copywriter (presumably sitting in a pub and all) has confused local with causal. And, even worse: nobody noticed. Hopefully the specialists and management candidates won't notice either. It's bad enough when they don't get the message and simply skim over the half-page. But, well, it costs nothing to advertise in your own paper. Finally, we should ask what specialists actually are. A cross between experts and specialists? Or simply an unattractive word bubble with no meaning. Holy cow!