Katie Harland – 15th November 2011

 

 

 

 

 

The lowest form of wit?

“Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.”

I have now been at SCA two months, and something I find I constantly seem to battle with is the pun.

Coming from a family where puns are constantly batted back and fourth I feel fairly at home with this form of banter, as often as not at home, the more ridiculously silly the pun, the greater the praise received. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this is the right approach when it comes to advertising, quite the opposite. I believe that most puns used are in fact a form of sloppy copy writing.

It is commonly regarded that a pun is meant to be the lowest form of wit. However I feel that often in the advertising industry we are inevitably pushed towards it as a way to try and inject some character into a brand. Is this technique innovative, clever or original? At SCA many of us can recognise a cringingly awful tagline such as the Asia Ait one shown above, yet time and again we’re given a brief and the first copy that enters people’s heads seems to be a pun. The prime example of this was during our master class we had on taglines. The exercise we had to complete was writing a tagline for a few made up clients, one of which was ‘Staghunter’s Pies’. You can imagine the opportunity this opens up in the world of punning: ‘Dear-licious’, ‘Dear because they’re dear’, ‘Staggering quality’…the list goes on. Predictably, most people got similar lines.

Although these are often the ideas that get the most humorous response when shared between one another does this necessarily mean they are the best? I am in no way casting the blame here, as I must admit, I am one such serial punster myself.

It really hit home last week, when I sought advice from a particular Creative Director (whom I greatly admired) on a brief I was working on. It came as rather a shock when his reply to my days work was simply:

‘I think you’re better then a cheap pun’.

And I am. So why do I feel the need continually to do it?! It seems to come up like word vomit: I know how tacky it sounds in my head but I can’t escape the desire to blurt it out. A good pun is almost an oxymoron in its self. On a par with ‘knock knock’ jokes, which is certainly a realm I don’t want to be delving into with my copy.

One source I believe could be responsible for this compulsion is my daily reading of the Metro. Maybe it’s having a subliminal effect on my brain and its use of language due to the fact I read it in bed in the evening, so it has time to soak in while I sleep.

I must be a very malleable person, as remarkably a similar situation happened before when I was at University.  My viewing of the films Kidulthood and Adulthood seem to coincide with a bought of insomnia I had for about a month. A real drag most people would think, however for me, it was somewhat eye opening. Bizarrely I found at about 3am each morning I transformed into some sort of lyrical genius, seemingly heavily influenced by the language in the films I’d watched. During these early hours my alter ego from the hood could write lines I challenge even Eminem to beat in a rap battle. My lyrics were off the chain; finding rhymes for words at the cutting edge of the urban dictionary with ease, I wondered if a career change was maybe in order?!

Sadly now I’m sleeping well again and the films have filtered from my mind, my lyrical past has left me. It was a short-lived talent! So maybe the future of copywriting (I am myself an art director) for me lies in cutting the Metro out of my life? We all enjoy hearing a pun now and then, but that doesn’t mean they form a compelling or persuasive reason to buy the product advertised. In fact, how often do you remember a joke when you are told it? You may laugh at it, but it is rare you will remember it. The same goes for taglines that revolve around puns. The most memorable lines of copy from past years inevitably are the ones that revolve around a truth:

Avis- ‘We try harder’

Ronseal – ‘Does exactly what it says on the tin’

Compare the Market – ‘Simples’

The only exception of this rule in my opinion is Heinz’s ‘Beanz, Meanz, Heinz’, which is excellent word play.

Hopefully from now on I will look back on this episode in my life as one that I’ve moved on and learnt from: placing it next inline to flares and hair dye and cheese strings.