Who wrote this?

I worked in one ad agency whose corridors were prowled by a bearish creative director. Carrying the proof of an ad only minutes away from its absolute drop-dead copy deadline, he’d yell ‘Who wrote this?’.

The unspoken last word of his question was ‘nonsense?’. Or more likely, ‘crap?’, or ‘rubbish?’, or ‘bollocks?’. The culprit would be a writer who’d fumbled the ad’s proposition, or garbled its message, fudged its promise. Or just written plain bad English.

There was no defence in ‘but it’s just about to go to press…’ or the cowardly ‘but it’s been signed-off by the client’. The ad would be rewritten, or you’d end up working on Co-op grocery Special Offer ads for the rest of your career.

Getting it right mattered. First, there was the quite proper and simple assumption that, if it was a press ad, the audience could probably read. If the ad was in a national broadsheet, the audience might be well-educated and very literate.  That’s an audience amongst whom bad copy does most to taint the product on offer.

Second, ad agency clients are usually good at making the products they make, not at producing polished communications about those products. It’s part of the ad agency’s job to bridge the often wide gap between the clever but mumbling makers, and the critical customer. It’s the agency’s job to get it right, for the client.

More than 30 years ago, I worked at BMW’s first UK ad agency. We struggled with the account. We were better at selling corrugated asbestos and industrial pumps. But we worked hard to produce polished communications, worthy of a remarkable product trying to break out of a niche.

It was a brave effort, hobbled by our strictly rationalist view of car-buying motivations, and a gift for turning up at Munich airport sans passports.

We lost the account to the already excellent WCRS, the thinking client’s agency, founded by Robin Wight, a thinking writer.

Yesterday, more than three decades later, I found this in The Independent. It’s the copy from a current BMW ad, almost in its entirety.

A new form of space  
The BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo makes compromise a thing of the past. With strong flowing lines and sculpted surfaces, the sporty exterior is contrasted by an interior that offers maximum comfort and versatility. The dynamic design delivers the presence of The Ultimate Driving Machine whilst the luxurious and spacious cabin delivers everything you’d expect once inside. It’s a combination that allows desirability and practicality to live in perfect harmony.

You may be thinking that these are possibly the four worst-written sentences you have ever encountered in an ad for a major international brand's product.  You’d be right. Nearly.

Here’s another ad from the same campaign:

A new form of space

There is more to the new BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo than meets the eye. The flowing lines and sleek surfaces of the sporty exterior disguise the luxurious levels of comfort and space that lies (sic) inside. Delivering the dynamic handling and powerful performance you’d expect from The Ultimate Driving Machine it also offers a level or practicality and versatility that defies expectation. All of which makes this car demand a closer look.

Four slightly different sentences, all of them just as dreadful, but with the thumping bonus of a who-gives-a-damn grammatical error of sub-schoolboy wrongness.

I could spend time deconstructing these ads, line by line, teasing out clichés, lameness, dullness, sameness, limpness, laziness, hackney. So could you.

Given the continuing remarkableness of the product, it wouldn’t be hard to rewrite these ads in a way that makes the subject look interesting, different, special and desirable. None of which aims they currently achieve. Good grief, they both use the phrase ‘everything you’d expect’.  Surely, the car would be an even more rewarding acquisition if it delivered things you didn’t expect.

The one thing you don't expect, and certainly don't deserve, is the slapdash insult of 'luxurious levels - that lies inside.'

The BMW account is still with WCRS. Robin Wight is still President of the agency. I hope the man in the bow tie is, at this very moment, ploughing the corridors, waving proofs of the latest campaign, yelling ‘Who wrote this?’

Note 1: before posting this knocking piece, I did try to tell WCRS that their slip was showing. Pointless approaching anyone with creative responsibilities, or in account management – they are all complicit. Instead, I asked politely if I might email their CEO, a very youthful Matt Edwards. No, they said, we don’t give Mr Edwards’ email address to people. I asked for his PA. His lofty PA appears only ever to communicate through voicemail.

Ah. I forgot. They’re in the communications business.

Note 2: the answer to the question ‘Who wrote this?’ is in this case, of course, an estate agent.