Laughing at your own mistakes is admirable…
But laughing at the mistakes of others is fun!
So, here’s a serious lack of copy-craft that caused both my wife and I to start laughing during the disclaimer at the end of a drug commercial…
“If you are a woman, with or without a uterus…”
Ummm… Is there another alternative?
A key tenet of copywriting is concentration: saying what you have to say in the fewest words possible. Concentration increases the power of copy. Your ideas gain clarity and force. Perhaps this writer could have gained more of both by writing, “If you’re a woman…”
But, that would have robbed us of a moment of laughter.
