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.