
Puns – a punishable offence – By @DrewDavies94
By Drew Davies
Puns – a punishable offence
Hey, what’s hapuning?
Once a pun a time I liked puns, now I love them.
But I’m afraid the relationship is toxic.
It started as a brief affair, but now they are affecting
my briefs.
To be honest I don’t even notice it hapuning anymore.
At least three of my current campaigns rest on the
use of puns and today I was punished in a book crit.
Ask any punter and they’ll tell you puns are great,
and I can’t disagree, but they can’t be substituted for proper thinking.
Sure they might make a punchy strapline but if the
right thinking isn’t backing it up (the proposition) then it’s all hot air.
Campaigns based on them may even work sometimes but
it’s just luck.
To improve my work I need to stop trying to make
propositions with clever wordplay and ones with clever thinking.
Stu seemed to make repositioning a product seem really
simple.
Look at the product in a new way that can’t be argued
with.
AA – the fourth emergency service.
Brilliant. Simple. Let’s go home and write out a
list of propositions. Easy.
Except it’s not.
The best propositions seem obvious but this means
they are difficult to come across.
People already have perceptions of things and we
can find a new angle but this angle can’t stray too far.
If it does the campaign doesn’t make sense. It’s
not longer obvious.
The best propositions ride that line of between obvious
and different.
Puns don’t scratch the surface and I will be punished if I keep on using them. I’m sure Pete will vouch for that.