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Kelly


Hermes

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people who ignore the rules of grammar (long)
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I am going CRAZY. I'm currently working for my "family" business, which I've done since I was 12 years old. Keep in mind that just because it was started and currently run by my family, it is still a good-sized company and especially big considering our industry.

Since I've graduated (with two of the most proofreading-intensive degrees [not that you can tell from some of my posts, but just trust me wink.gif]), I've been doing more of the marketing/PR stuff. But my aunt, the VP of marketing, is driving me up the wall. I went to my uncle, the president, with a stack of ads from the past couple years, all marked up and basically ripped apart because I proofread them for grammar errors. And there were TONS. He said that he was thrilled with my attention to detail, and that we especially can't afford to be sloppy about these things because we are getting so big. He said to follow up with my aunt whenever I found errors, and said I should be allowed to proofread everything before it goes out now.

Except that my aunt completely ignored the stack of ads I gave her. So I decided another approach, and just marked up one of the new ones and brought it to her, saying it was important for her to look at it ASAP because it will be going out soon. She basically told me that she had a good reason for everything she did, and that our company had its own set of "special grammar rules" which somehow means that she thinks we're allowed to ignore REAL grammar in favor of random capitalizations, bad punctuation, poor word choice, and pointless sentence fragments. Everyone in the room at the time was just looking at her like she was crazy while he was telling me this, and the guy who designed the ad even sarcastically said, "yeah, it's not like ttara123 has a degree in English or anything" - a statement she completely ignored.

Meanwhile, every other person in the company sends me almost everything they work on, and everything important that goes outside of the company, to proofread it before it goes out. And they're actually thankful for this. I get that not everyone in the company is going to be great with writing, which is exactly why people get different degrees in different things and we help each other out! But some of the most important external messages we're sending to our customers, i.e. our ads, are littered with embarassing mistakes. A couple people have suggested that my aunt is jealous or afraid of me, because I actually have shiny new degrees in what she does for a living (and she never finished college). But I'm not trying to usurp her position or anything, I'm just trying to ensure that our ads and press releases don't make us look like a bunch of idiots. If I was a customer reading our ads, I wouldn't buy our products simply because of these errors. I wouldn't trust a company without that attention to detail.

I need a new job.

-- Edited by ttara123 at 13:34, 2007-10-13

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Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
HeatherLynn


Gucci

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I would handle this like you would in a normal company (without all the family members) and go back to the person (President/uncle) who told you to bring it up with the VP of Marketing (aunt). Let him know that you did speak with her and she doesn't seem interested in your help. Ultimately it is up to the supervisor to work out this situation. I know since it is working with family you feel like everyone should listen to each other more, but since they aren't I would just resort back to how you would handle this if you didn't know the VP really well. Good luck!

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pollyjean23


Marc Jacobs

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Oooo...that is so frustrating. It's great that you were heard by at least one person, but I cannot imagine how hard it is to accomplish results in this situation with family involved. People can be touchy about their writing.

Marketing/copy writing can usually get away with skirting the rules of grammar by a wide margin; but, bad is still bad- -regardless of the purpose. At the very least, the press releases should be compliant to grammar rules.

I work for a college that continues to short-change itself (the state helps) with regard to budgets, so there is a lot of self-service marketing going on in my area- -Yikes! OH WAIT! I think it looks better with three exclamation points!!!

Check this out. This is my favorite, recent example. My hub and I found this on the back of a local magazine. Pay special attention to the last line of text.



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kenzie


Chanel

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AAAAAH! I feel your pain. I'm a writer/graphic designer at a large, international company. Prior to my hiring, there had never been a creative writer/copy writer working for the company, in the US or any of the international subsidiaries. There were a few technical writers, but that's a totally different animal than promotional writing. And let me tell you, the writing was B.A.D. in most of the ads that were produced prior to my arrival. Bad grammar, poor word choice, terrible punctuation- to the point where some of the messages were almost lost.

Since I've been working there, I've been getting really good feedback about my writing, editing and proofreading skills. I've had a few discussions with some of the product managers who wanted things worded differently than I had them, but managed to talk them out of the bad grammar choice and make them stick with what I wrote. It is possible to write advertising copy in a creative and interesting manner and still adhere to grammar and punctuation rules.

I agree that you need to just go back to the person who originally gave you the authority to proofread/edit and make them aware of the situation. Good luck!

-- Edited by kenzie at 17:37, 2007-10-14

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Kelly


Hermes

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pollyjean23 wrote:
Marketing/copy writing can usually get away with skirting the rules of grammar by a wide margin; but, bad is still bad- -regardless of the purpose.

I totally understand that marketing and ads can sometimes skirt grammar rules. I loathe that fact, but I understand it. But these mistakes are ridiculous. A good approximation of something we might have in our ads would be a bullet point (under a heading like "why we're the best" or whatever) that said something like:

-So our Product's are Good and "work Well"
random capitalization, pointless sentence fragment, disregard for what apostrophes and quotation marks MEAN, etc. And then when I try to explain this, I get some severely illogical reason about why we should and will continue to purposefully make these mistakes.


-- Edited by ttara123 at 18:11, 2007-10-14

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Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
pollyjean23


Marc Jacobs

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ouch, ttara.

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Suasoria


Chanel

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Ad copy is different from PR copy, within reason; the errors you describe are unjustifiable.

I think it's important to fight for this since it's the company's image you're dealing with, but bear in mind you may not always win the fight considering the seniority of the one you're fighting. 

I agree with HeatherLynn about going to the president again (after an ad with errors runs) with a 'help me help you' approach. Ask him how the two of you can impress upon her the importance of communicating the company's image properly. Maybe a strong email from him about not wanting to see these types of mistakes again is all it would take.



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greendiamond


Marc Jacobs

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Maybe you can start small by only fixing the grammer and spelling errors and then later, once your aunt has adjusted to that idea, you can suggest rewording and capitalization issues which might be more effective as advertising.

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-gd
kenzie


Chanel

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Wow, ttara. That example you gave us is horrible! There is just no excuse for that. Creative license definitely applies in advertising, but that is not creative! It just makes it hard (and annoying) to read.

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Kelly


Hermes

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I know! and it's not like these people are stupid, they're just working really hard and can't pay attention to the details. I'm the one who is supposed to pick up that slack, but she won't let me, I suspect out of pride.

grrrr.

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Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
squishy


Coach

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ttara123 wrote:

 

So our Product's are Good and "work Well"

 

i think i died a little.

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nonsense!
halleybird


Hermes

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Poor ttara! The examples in this thread are hilarious.

In my job, I happen to see all sorts of hilarious errors. (But they're from students and are therefore more forgivable). Some of my favorites:

"He was cited for wreckless driving."
"Guten Tag! Bonjour! Holla! These are all ways to say hello."


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"We live in an age where unnecessary things are our only necessities." --Oscar Wilde
Kelly


Hermes

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halleybird wrote:
"Guten Tag! Bonjour! Holla! These are all ways to say hello."


 rofl.gif



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Fashion is art you live your life in. - Devil Wears Prada | formerly ttara123
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