Wrong, wrong, wrong
Someone is always going to find a reason to say no.
I no longer hang out on X/Twitter, but last week editor/friend Mike Pope cheered me up by linking to an amusing thread there. (Good to know the place hasn’t completely devolved into Musky emanations — hurrah!)
Here’s the first tweet, from “Girl Fieri”:
“We haven’t played this game in a while. I’m going to make an innocuous parenting statement. Respond to it as though you are the worst person on this app:
‘I’m going to take my kids to the children’s museum and then out for ice cream.’”
Girl Fieri’s followers rose to the challenge. Some typical “worst person” responses:
“Must be nice to have to money to pay for a museum and ice cream in this economy, some people can’t afford to take their kids out for bougie little day trips.”
“commercial ice cream is full of chemicals. i only make ice cream at home with organic milk and sugar-free sugar.”
“Wow this is so insensitive. Some people struggle with infertility.”
“So you have something against Sherbet??? You’re teaching your children to hate Sherbet?!?!?! Omg!”
“If you want them to develop their imaginations, you should take them out in nature. But if you just want them to be cogs in the machine, I guess that’s fine.”
“Hopefully they’re quiet because children’s museums are actually one of the few places that neurodiverse individuals can freely be themselves and explore their special interests. Maybe reconsider and just keep your kids HOME.”
And my favorite: “Never happened. You don’t even have kids.”
You may notice here the thin line between parody and the stuff you can actually find, every day, on social media and in the comments section of regular media. The self-righteousness. The pearl-clutching. The utter, unshakeable confidence in one’s own knowledge and moral superiority. The abiding impulse to, as the saying goes, yuck someone else’s yum.
I laughed, but I also had a rueful recollection of a real-life interaction I’d had with a client quite a few years ago.
I would never call this client “the worst person” — on the contrary, everyone I met on the client team was well intentioned and kind. But just as in the Twitter game, they were looking for ways to say “gotcha,” and they found them. Oh, how they found them. In the end, they nitpicked their way off a cliff.
My assignment was to develop a tagline for a big new student health center at a large public university. (Am I being vague enough? I hope so.) A designer had been hired to create print collateral, and together we worked on a creative brief for the tagline. We toured the gorgeous, light-filled new building and were inspired. This was going to be a great project.
A couple of weeks later we presented a set of taglines to the client team. We gave each tagline candidate equal weight, but privately we thought one tagline was a frontrunner. It was short and simple and as inspiring as the building itself: BE WELL1.
“BE WELL,” I said enthusiastically to the executives sitting around the conference table. “It speaks to your mission and to the goals of everyone who uses the center’s services.”
I looked around the table, expecting smiles. I didn’t see them.
Instead, everyone was fiddling with stacks of papers and clearing their throats. The guy in charge looked downright mournful.
Finally, Guy In Charge spoke.
“Some of our patients,” he said somberly, “will never be well.”
Silence.
I was stunned into silence as well. Inside, I was churning. Part of me was thinking, Oy, how could I have been so insensitive? I’m a monster! And from another part of my brain: Really? This is a medical center! Isn’t wellness the whole fucking point?
It went that way with every tagline we presented. Everyone was as nice as could be, but no, sorry, can’t say this, mustn’t say that, someone might take offense if we said this other thing.
We came back a week or so later with more options. Same impasse. We tried to accentuate the positive, but these clients weren’t in the mood. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt — the dreaded FUD — paralyzed them and prevented them from seeing an upside. From taking a chance.
In the end, they just gave up on the tagline. They simply could not commit to a short, clear statement of purpose. (They did pay and thank us, though.)
I regret to say that this sort of thing happens more frequently than brand consultants care to admit. Instead of seeing the potential in a new name or tagline or creative direction, the client is determined to find fault. To say “Well, but” instead of “Yes, and.” To tell you what’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sometimes the impasse results in bland, meaningless slogans with zero distinctiveness: EXCEPTIONAL CARE. YOU BELONG HERE. A PASSION FOR PROGRESS.
And sometimes it results in . . . nothing.
There’s a postscript to this story. A couple of years after our disappointment, I started noticing a new ad campaign for Kaiser Permanente, the largest healthcare organization in the United States. I don’t remember the images or the copy on the ads, but I definitely remember the tagline.
It was BE WELL.
This is so funny. And so sad.
I relate. So much.