The Never-Ending Two-Letter Switcheroo

I’ll admit it. I used to be an all-you-can-eat fiend. As a kid, every
birthday dinner was spent at OCB. In college, bottomless pasta became the cheap way to chow carbs. Now that I’m out, and my metabolism couldn’t beat Zach Galifinakis in a foot race, the never-ending eating ended (unless you consider Jethros’ Emmenecker never-ending).

But the other day, I drove by an old gorging ground and noticed an
emerging trend. All-you-can-eat is now all-you-care-to-eat. Phew. Good
thing I got out before the industry made that change. Back during
sophomore year, I didn’t always care to eat that fifth bowl of shrimp
alfredo. But I could, so I did. No wonder that place went out of
business.

To me, this two-letter switcheroo signifies the ignorant arrogance of
so many marketers. Deep down, they believe if they say it, consumers
will do it. If that’s the case, every ad should say, “Stop what you’re
doing. Buy our product. Twice.” But it doesn’t. I’m not going to take
one less slice at Local Pizza Buffet because it says care instead of
can. I am going to think they are cheap. And that they think they’re
smarter than me. And unless I’m buying a lawyer, I don’t need anything
with those two attributes.

Don’t get me wrong. What we say is important. But so is how we say it,
why we say it, and when we say it. Look at VW’s Lemon. History’s
favorite ad. Why? Was it because the auto industry desperately needed
to address the bevy of bunk cars making it to showroom floors? Hardly.
Lemon was honest. VW acknowledged they aren’t perfect, but they’ll
make sure your product is.

Their primary message hits a brand feature. Great. “A” for the day.
But the underlying message—that’s what put it in textbooks.

So who cares? I do. We creatives ward off bad ideas every day. It’s
one of our biggest battles. The feared client mandate. The punny
headline from a senior AE. Even we aren’t immune to a stale idea now
and again. You hear it and sit there thinking, “Good Bogusky that’s
stupid.” But really, unless we can provide a proper argument as to why
it’s not effective, we’ll get stuck executing more bad work than we
care to create.