bad grammer in ads

[Billy_Blue]

ok i know youre gonna think im silly because i cant spell etc and then say this but i am gettin really bugged on it

ok here goes:

the ads have bad grammer they say like Cd disc instead of CD discs and generally look weird i find it odd

why they advertisers not know english?

[david_uk]

Because many advertisers are not big players, they are just like me and you. That also explains the severe lack of imagination for producing good ad copy that many advertisers have.

[Billy_Blue]

hmm i see you have a point there.

but why dont they "brush it up" before accepting?

[peewhy]

The othe trend is to place the telephone number in the hope that people won't click but call.

[Billy_Blue]

WHAT they really do that?!?!? isnt that against TOS? also who the hell phones on an ad when you can click?

sheesh

plus isnt that off topci?

[Billy_Blue]

ya actually now i noticed an ad with phone number in it

aint that illegal?!

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Yes, bad speling and nOT knoWing HOw CAPitaL letterS shoulD BE uSED BUGS ME too!

As to phone numbers in ads; that's perfectly legit and is thought to increase customer confidence and thus possibly CTR. If it made CTR fall the ad would stop showing automatically.

Rgds

Damon

[PCInk]

If you use AdWords yourself you will realise that to create a valid advert, you sometimes need to use bad 'grammar'. Part numbers (that people will often know) are a disaster: using a part number with three uppercase letters and some numbers will cause the advert to be refused for using an uppercase word in the advert. The only way around this is to use lower case or a leading capital with the rest in lower case. Words like CD, should be exceptions, but I wouldn't guarantee this. Then there are dynamic titles which cause a whole new set of grammar problems on their own, plus you can only use a set number of characters, so squeezing your advert in can be quite difficult.

Phone numbers in ads are a different story altogether - they often make people MORE likely to click (not phone). I would never phone a company after I had searched for their item online, I would click, see what they had to offer and maybe then phone. But I would click first, phone later.

[Billy_Blue]

thanks to all replies especially PCInk

[Inquire]

There is bad ad copy for the same reason that bad copy appears everywhere else you look these days: because they don't hire me to edit it ;-)

[OptiRex]

It is also a well-known marketing ploy to get people to react and contact.

Consider "FC UK" as one of the most controversial campaigns of the last decade when it was first introduced and now no one bats an eyelid.

I've done it deliberately myself and done correctly it can work well, it can also fail miserably!

[jimbeetle]

You actually should not see ads with typos, spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Ads are not supposed to run on the content network until they are approved, and that process is supposed to catch all of that.

I haven't seen any blatant examples, but if you continue to spot them it might be worthwhile to give the Adsense people a holler so they nudge their compadres to deliver quality ads.

[remove]

heh heh heh, anybody find irony in the fact that the thread title is spelled "grammer" instead of grammar? :-p

[peewhy]

"why they advertisers not know english? "

Keh?

[jomaxx]

Sad to think that in a hundred years that garbage WILL be considered grammatically correct, and most people will be no more able to read a properly constructed sentence than a passage from Shakespeare.

[OptiRex]

Sad to think that in a hundred years that garbage WILL be considered grammatically correct, and most people will be no more able to read a properly constructed sentence than a passage from Shakespeare.

That's the reality of life and progression of the most expressive language ever known, however there is one very redeeming factor about the English expressionisms, and that is generally as people get older they insist more for correct grammar than whilst being young.

I still speak my own local dialect, I also speak my recognisable regional dialect with a very pronounced brogue. I also speak several other languages, one of which, Italian, I had to learn three dialects as well as the "official" Tuscanan Italian! And...(grammatically incorrect)

And, do not even ask me about German/Austrian/Swiss dialects etc.

Sure, we all hear this bastardised mid-Atlantic/American/Ozzie mish-mash of a rising diclension, which personally drives me crazy, but at the end of the day, globally we have a lot of very talented people who are driving education and understanding forwards.

At times I have thought I was incorrect with my youngest daughter however I have been proven totally unjustified!

The English language is very well and extremely alive.

[StatiX]

When creating a new ad on Adwords, they are spellchecked. At least at the time of creation, they will not let you continue to the bid page unless the grammer is corrected. This applies to the title of the ad, but not sure about the description.

[peewhy]

Over the years I have seen strange things done in the name of marketing, some call it creativity.

Inverting an ad was one method and forming cryptic headers was another.

I'm still scratching my head as to why anyone feels that mis-spellings and poor grammar provides an incentive for customers to click on their advertisement....unless of course the customers cannot spell either?