Let’s start here: which do you hate more:

• Junk Mail, or
• Spam Phone Calls?

Well, get this: Limited Too is now spam-calling people to tell them about the junk they’re about to receive in the mail:

“Hi! This is Jessica from Limited Too! Watch your mail for our exciting new fall catazine …

I kid you not. Catazine.

Catazine is not even close to a word. It is a faux-clever term dreamed up by a marketing wonk.

Here’s why catazine doesn’t work - as I’m listening to the spam phone call, I get distracted by a word I don’t know. I suspect that most people lose the message at this point. Why create a friction-point by being overly clever?

One more note to Limited Too (Much): I’m on the Do Not Call list.

The issue here, of course, is knowing your audience. Best not to pander to the people of Bedford Stuyvesant. This ad is so off-the-mark that we have to quote it in it’s entirety as a cautionary tale:

When people close their eyes and think of Brooklyn, your legendary brownstones come to mind. That’s because everyone from rappers to directors have used you as the backdrop for stories about life in the neighborhood that has everything. Do or Die is more than a moniker. It speaks to the fact that you don’t take crap from anyone. Especially newcomers who want to change Bed-Stuy into some sort of yuppie strip mall. With us you only make changes if you want. That’s the beauty of our cell phone plans without annual contracts. Because Bed-Stuy, we know you call your own shots.

Oh boy. The ad was picked up in Brownstone, a blogsite that bills itself as “Brooklyn Inside & Out.” Their post has generated over 100 comments since May 30. Here are a few:

I’m going to throw up.

That’s all the neighborhood needs, corporate sponsors to exacerbate racial and class tensions. What 15-year-old thought up this ad campaign? I bet you anything they’ve never even set foot in Bed-Stuy.

Posted by: sylvia at May 30, 2007 10:38 AM

I love the smell of corporate paternalism in the morning…Thanks Virgin Mobile for keeping it real

Posted by: anon at May 30, 2007 10:39 AM

Really weird– most of Virgin’s marketing is pitch-perfect and clever. This is really bad. (New agency, maybe?) Nothing worse in advertising/PR than a campaign that tries too hard to be hip, down-with-the-kids, in-sync with a neighborhood.

Posted by: bob999 at May 30, 2007 10:47 AM

What’s a yuppie strip mall? Isn’t that where you go to buy a Virgin Phone?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 30, 2007 10:48 AM

It’s also generated a few viscious parodies. All the comments here.

I suspect we could all do a better job of knowing our audience. McKinney is just getting the smack-down cause it was Bed Stuy.

The wrong buzz - this ad illustrates how powerful advertising is in our culture. Because you’re either generating good buzz, bad buzz or no buzz at all.

We got to thinking about this because, once again, Florida is in the news for bungling an election. This time, 10,000 votes weren’t counted in an election decided by a margin of 369. The reason? The ballot was confusing and apparently a high margin of voters skipped the contest in question.

Good grief.

Online copywriters and designers are well-versed in the tradecraft of creaing registration paths, sign-ups, polls, eCommerce and all manner of interactive content. Not too hard to imagine that any competant design shop could create, test and polish a friction-free ballot with very low user drop-off. Naturally, the language would be beaten into shape by a qualified online copywriter (don’t you designers even think of horning in on our patch).

Other issues most certainly surround electronic voting - security, paper printouts - even a national standard is uncertain.

Yes, our taxpayer dollars, hard at work.

But it’s 2007. We have the technology to address all of the above concerns.

So, dear election officials: outsource it. Hire Hewlett Packard, NCR and Online Copywriter (or anybody else you like as long as they are not related or a love interest). Hire Google or Paypal or eBay or Amazon. Hire Online Copywriter (did we mention that already?).

Creating an effective national electronic ballot is well-within our scope of knowledge as a nation and long overdue.

For example, in our last post (Capitalizing Internet), the MSW dictionary didn’t recognize the following as legit words in the English language:

• Google
• Permissivist

How about this one?

• Blogged

Sure, we can all customize our own dictionaries, but that’s really just an invitation to chaos.

To be fair, dictionaries embedded in word processing programs have always been weak. But just because it’s been a chronic problem for two decades doesn’t mean we have to endure it forever.

In our Web 2.0 world, why can’t MSW’s dictionary link to a reputable online source? User-generated dictionaries could still be an adjunct to the main, authoritative source.

As personal publishing explodes, online writers everywhere need the proper tools to create credible content. The alternative is an increasing babelization of the English language.

We suggest the good folks in Redmond do all writers everywhere a big favor and fix their dictionary once and for all by hooking up with the Oxford English Dictionary or another recognized authority.

Sorry, T. No such word. There is no gerund form of “intersession,” a noun meaning “the time between two academic sessions or semesters.”

On the positive side, this story generated active debate with 36 posts in just 5 hours. On the negative side, the mistaken usage in the headline lead to further confusion in the comments. One blogger asked “WHERE will these intercessions be held?” That’s a different word meaning “pleading on behalf of another.”

Here at Online Copywriter, we’re as willing to make up words as anyone else. Just this week, we wrote with joy about “astroturfing.”

But “intersessing?” No. That’s just ugly.

The N&O needs to set some minimum standards for online writing by it’s staff. Start with “use real words.”

Heard this on TV this morning at the gym:

“Cingular is now the new AT&T”

I had my back to the TV and thought to myself “what does that mean? Which brand died?”

It reminds me of the evergreen pitch from the fashionistas:

“Brown is the new black.”

Every season, a new variation on the same tired admonition: “gray is the new black,” “green is the new black,” “blue is the new black.” Translation:

Brown has replaced black.

So if Cingular is now the new AT&T, has Cingular replaced AT&T?

Au contraire. AT&T has replaced Cingular.

How can such a big company full of smart people make such a silly mistake? Answer: navel gazing. We’re guessing the original line was “Cingular is now AT&T.” Simple, functional, communicative.

But then some genius said “add the word new, Bob. We want people to know we’re the new AT&T. Not that stodgy old company we used to be.”

So Cingular is now the new AT&T. Red is the new black. And we miss the old Ma Bell.