I typically work in thirty second increments when writing commercials. I have a mere half-minute to convey a specific message, the who-what-when-where-why aspects of the business at hand and a strong call to action. Thirty seconds is frighteningly minuscule if the information is assembled coherently and depressingly endless if the information is poorly written. Maybe there isn't a right or wrong way to write advertising, but there certainly is an effective way. A good way, if you will.
I believe a bad way of doing things is to sound ignorant. I cringe at the grammatical errors I frequently hear in radio and TV spots. Signage is often the worst culprit in these errors. I saw this sign while driving through downtown St. Pete today. I had to take a picture. It reads "We Gots New Floors." Fucking morons.
I hope, nay, I pray, to the Gods of Grammar, that this was done on purpose to catch the attention of motorists. I fear that someone really, really stupid put this together thinking, "That looks good. I am awesome at signs." By the way, the sign is outside of a cigar shop. What the hell does "we gots new floors" even mean?
I simply refuse to believe the sign maker was oblivious to his error. If it was done on purpose, however, what underlying message does that send? Ignore the rules of intelligent language to get your point across and everything is okay?
Well, it's not. It's NOT okay to just sound like an idiot ON PURPOSE so you catch the attention of possible customers. If it were, I'd have no problem writing spots like this:
"Hey penisface! Is your wife a no good cheating whore? Fuck the whores. If you have 99 problems but a bitch ain't one, call super badass and lawyer Carl Key. He'll undo your marriage so you can get back to fucking hot barely legal cousins of yours. If you need one of them divorces, we can probably swing that. Key and Key associates; they're absolutely not not qualified!"
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