c4countdown

On the grand scheme of things, there are more important things to get angry about, but I'm increasingly finding inane, pointless advertising straplines annoying. Once upon a time a business could just print its name on its lorries and in its publicity, but it seems like the marketing execs won't allow even a school not to have a strapline these days. (e.g. "Imagine - Inspire - Achieve").

Perhaps good ones do have an insidious effect on us, but the bulk of them make me want to vomit at their pointlessness or meaninglessness. A typical example: "Avis - We Try Harder". Harder than whom? And does that mean that other car hire firms' straplines should be something like "Hertz - We Don't Try Too Hard" or "Europcar - We Don't Try As Hard As Some People"? Most of them are pointless in that they are either meaningless, or have me thinking "Isn't that what you're supposed to do anyway?" (see school strapline above.)

Of course, I might be a lone voice, but if there are any others out there for whom meaningless straplines can induce a feeling of what-a-waste-of-words-induced nausea, I'd be pleased to see examples here. Maybe it'll help me get over my condition. (BTW, I think we can omit the 'solutions' straplines, as Private Eye has already got that covered.)

STRAPLINE = TRAPLINES = TRIPLANES = INTERLAPS

Straplines I can cope with, it's unqualified statements that piss me off. One tedious supermarket had 8 million products cheaper this week. CHEAPER THAN WHAT, YOU FUCKERS?

Brian Moore wrote:Perhaps good ones do have an insidious effect on us, but the bulk of them make me want to vomit at their pointlessness or meaninglessness. A typical example: "Avis - We Try Harder". Harder than whom? And does that mean that other car hire firms' straplines should be something like "Hertz - We Don't Try Too Hard" or "Europcar - We Don't Try As Hard As Some People"? Most of them are pointless in that they are either meaningless, or have me thinking "Isn't that what you're supposed to do anyway?"

Harder than Hertz. In fact, when Avis wanted to launch a campaign they did a lot of research to find an angle for it, but the research couldn't come up with any feature where they measured up to Hertz, which was by a long way the biggest car rental company. So one can imagine "We Try Harder" almost arising as a joke as they all sat round a table failing to come up with anything. But it's been around for forty years, makes a specific claim, everyone knows it, and I don't suppose anyone would now think of Avis as being inferior to Hertz on every objective measure.

So I don't think this is a good example, though I agree with your general point. When you drive from Yorkshire into Lancashire you are greeted by signs that say "Welcome to Lancashire - Where Everyone Matters". Who can see that without wondering what the signs on the other side of the road welcoming you to Yorkshire say?

David Williams wrote:
When you drive from Yorkshire into Lancashire you are greeted by signs that say "Welcome to Lancashire - Where Everyone Matters". Who can see that without wondering what the signs on the other side of the road welcoming you to Yorkshire say?

This is Yorkshire - and you're welcome to it.

I've seen some rotters in my time but have forgotten them all now, so instead, my favourite recent reinvention of a strapline-of-sorts:

I like the slogan for the new Hollyoaks sponsor - I Am Hollyoaks - I like how much sense it makes.

David Williams wrote:When you drive from Yorkshire into Lancashire you are greeted by signs that say "Welcome to Lancashire - Where Everyone Matters". Who can see that without wondering what the signs on the other side of the road welcoming you to Yorkshire say?

I think the Yorkshire ones say "If you're not from Yorkshire, we're not interested".

Those Lancashire ones really tick me off (since I'm paying for them), especially the ones they have as you're leaving Blackpool and Blackburn. How tiny a mind do you have to have to believe Blackpool's not in Lancashire, just because it's a unitary authority now?

David Roe wrote:How tiny a mind do you have to have to believe Blackpool's not in Lancashire, just because it's a unitary authority now?

The legislation drafted by John Denham (thankfully now overturned) stated that "From 1 April 2011 the City of Exeter shall cease to be a part of the County of Devon."

David Roe wrote: Those Lancashire ones really tick me off (since I'm paying for them), especially the ones they have as you're leaving Blackpool and Blackburn.

I've just spent 3 days in Blackpool and it's the most run down place in the world. I nearly killed myself through boredom. It didn't stop blowing gales or raining and I walked for miles looking for proper shops and pubs, particularly ones with dartboards or people in that didn't look like they were on drugs. Needless to say I went back to my B+B and watched shit TV after 4 hours of walking around.

Kirk Bevins wrote:I walked for miles looking for proper shops and pubs, particularly ones with dartboards or people in that didn't look like they were on drugs.

Alcohol is a drug!

Matt Morrison wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:I walked for miles looking for proper shops and pubs, particularly ones with dartboards or people in that didn't look like they were on drugs.

Alcohol is a drug!

Not to mention all that seawater - a well-agitated preparation of every conceivable homoeopathic remedy.

Kirk Bevins wrote:I've just spent 3 days in Blackpool and it's the most run down place in the world. I nearly killed myself through boredom. It didn't stop blowing gales or raining and I walked for miles looking for proper shops and pubs, particularly ones with dartboards or people in that didn't look like they were on drugs.

If you think it's bad now, you want to try going in February. That's going to be a big surprise for some of these Premier league fans - they think Blackpool's all year round holidays.

It's OK for a two-hour visit when the illuminations are on. That's all.

David Roe wrote:

Kirk Bevins wrote:I've just spent 3 days in Blackpool and it's the most run down place in the world. I nearly killed myself through boredom.

If you think it's bad now, you want to try going in February. It's OK for a two-hour visit when the illuminations are on. That's all.

So you're not in complete agreement with the statement: "Blackpool - A great place to visit, an even better place to live", I take it.

Brian Moore wrote: So you're not in complete agreement with the statement: "Blackpool - A great place to visit, an even better place to live", I take it.

Haha who said that? A blind man?

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Brian Moore wrote: So you're not in complete agreement with the statement: "Blackpool - A great place to visit, an even better place to live", I take it.

Haha who said that? A blind man?

I did a job in Blackpool a few years ago in December. The Practice Manager (I was there to a do a repartition on a GPs' server) insisted on calling her husband from home to accompany us to our cars at 6:30 in the evening. The car park was adjacent to the building - i.e. part of the same property. When we got outside I saw why.

Btw - did anyone else read the thread title and think "Why's a bloke starting a thread about badly-fitting clothes?"