Words Without Meaning.

When I was a boy, I don't think I ever heard the word "crafted," unless it was in the context of some pine-needled agglomeration called summer camp. There, there was usually an out-of-the-way cabin with paste and thick primary-colors of paint, called Arts & Crafts.

I suppose burning your name into an old piece of birch or glueing noodles onto an old Savarin coffee tin-can counted in those days. But with apologies to R. Mutt, my arts and crafts didn't stand the test of time.

Today, no matter where you go, everyone claims everything is crafted.

The coffee at a chain store at extortionate prices: crafted.
The artisanal bread, usually stale: crafted.
The breakfast burrito from the Greek diner: crafted.
The sewing of a new button on an old pair of jeans: crafted.
The LinkedIn announcement that says you're humbled: crafted.

And of course the copy we read, even if it says what 93-percent of all copy says today, "Buy one and get one free during our daffy-dollar-days triple-play-bundle-St. Patrick's day blow-out": crafted.

The word crafted is what I call a "check-list" word. Clients, or bosses, or both need to see it. 

Because of all of the above, it no longer has any meaning. The act of craft was supposed to distinguish how you did things. But if everyone is saying crafted, by saying crafted, you're just asserting your commoditization and undifferentiation. You have to say it because everyone says it. 

It's an entry-ticket to invisibility.

Like most other words and phrases we see in advertising today.

We're agile.

Nimble.
We're here for you.

How can we help you?

Have a nice day.

They're all meaningless because their ubiquity has detached them from meaning.

It's attending a casting session for fashion models and describing someone as pretty. It's just not distinguishing. 

Or seeing the pyramids in Egypt and proclaiming them "awesome," when just last week you said the same about your tuna salad sandwich--the free one you cadged after a meeting had let out of conference room B.

I just now had a Chobani low-sugar strawberry yogurt. The tin-foil cover said "Crafted with real fruit."

That's what precipitated this post.

As creatives, our job is to create. To put things together, words, ideas, images, sounds, to create meaning, differentiation and impact. In doing that we shouldn't use words, ideas, images and sounds people are used to seeing. If we do, we're not giving viewers anything new to read. So, since familiarity breeds ignorability, they'll likely be bored by the trite and ignore it all together.

From Eric Arthur Blair's 1948 essay, "Politics and the English Language."
If you write for a living, it should be on your desk.

Being ignored is the enemy of our entire industry. But, somehow we accept that 99-percent of all people ignore 99-percent of all ads.

Years ago, I did some work for a high-end cruise line. The CMO kept saying "we want to redefine European luxury." 

What does that mean, I asked?

She looked at me like I stuck her kitten in a Cuisinart. Which I seldom do anymore.

"Well," she finally said, "we don't rush you from activity to activity. The pace is a little bit slower."

I came back with something like this:

I could have said "Sea Swirl. Crafted in the craft tradition of European cruising luxury." They would have been happy with that.

Back to my yogurt. 

What if it didn't say "crafted"?

What if it said, "Mixed at low-speed for 11 minutes. With strawberries and love."

I've referred to the VW ad below a dozen times in this space. They could have said the finish was crafted.

They didn't.

They investigated the product. Found a meaningful differentiator. And created something that sold cars and added to the long-term value of the brand.

This is a plea to anyone reading this to start doing that again.

It's our job.

Besides, A.I. can't.

Job security.

After we paint the car we paint the paint.

  You should see what we do to a Volks-
wagen even before we paint it.

  We bathe it in steam, we bathe it in
alkali, we bathe it in phosphate. Then we
bathe it in a neutralizing solution.

   If it got any cleaner, there wouldn't be
much left to paint.

   Then we dunk the whole thing into a
vat of slate grey primer until every square
inch of metal is covered, inside and out.  

    Only one domestic car maker does this.
And his cars sell for 3 or 4 times as much
as a Volkswagen.

    (We think the best way to make an
economy car is expensively.)

    After all that dunking, we bake it and sand
it by hand.

    Then we paint it.

    Then we bake it again, and sand it again
by hand.

    Then we paint it again.

    And bake it again.

    And sand it again by hand.

    So after 3 times, you'd think
we wouldn't bother to paint it
again and bake it again. Right? 

    Wrong.