The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~Tom Clancy

What they want you to hear.

It’s gift-buying season and the ads are EV-ER-Ywhere. Sales, sales, sales. One of my favorite (as-in laughable) advertising gimmicks is: BLOW OUT SALE!

In the advertising world this type of copy means that someone is screaming at me to come and buy their product at rock-bottom prices and I’d better hurry or else it will all be GONE and I will have missed my chance.

As soon as I hear this phrase I quickly skip through what they mean (mentioned above) and get to what images form in my mind.

First, a picked-over store with nothing of value that I want to buy. Leftover sizes too big or too small for what or who I want. This thought happens in a nano-second and it is clear that it doesn’t matter who threw this ad in my face,  I am not going to shop there.

What does blow-out mean to you?

Second, and more enduring and endearing…Let me digress – I am a mother of three children. When I hear the words : “Blow-out”, my first thought doesn’t stay on your huge clearance sale. What I think of is a diaper that has failed and leaked the nasty contents all over the clothes, the car seat, and perhaps the bystanders nearby.

That’s a Blow-Out. And that’s what I think of when you try to get me into your store using this phrase. That or a tire that just exploded on the highway and left me careening perilously towards the median or God-forbid the side-wall with my three children screaming in the back seat.

Copywriters Beware: Audience. Meaning. Context. Message. They all matter. WHO are you trying to reach this holiday season? WHAT are you really trying to say?