It is 3:00 in the morning, my brain has oozed into the consistency of refried beans, and surely my eyeballs must have loosened in their sockets… Here I am attempting to write copy for the hotel’s restaurant brochure. It’s been a slog of hours now and, by Jove, the words have turned off the Muzak and taken to dancing on the table. What d’ya think, as an introduction to a major offering of victuals:
“The world reeks of flavors. All kinds. And the flavors come with food. All kinds, too. There’re hot flavors, cold flavors, Japanese flavors, French flavors, Korean flavors, and even Karaoke flavors. And they’re all good. Really good. Nothing bad. All really, really good. Cooked by good cooks who can cook good. No really, no one bad. Well, at least not where you can see them. And the seats are straight and the tables don’t wobble. No really. Sturdy as Gigantor. The restaurants are good. You can enjoy food. Come and eat.”
So what do you think? Simple, straight, to the point. Can’t be anything wrong with that! Ugh, gotta get back to the notebook…
Sleep a wink for me, ye Ramblers of the Land of Dreams…
Laughing Knees 
6 replies on “Copy that?”
Have a good night’s rest! Then read it yourself, as if you were a customer.
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Is the brochure to be in Japanese or English? Perhaps it translates better than it reads in English 😉
Isn’t it sad though: something so unpolished, though utterly direct and honest, is not acceptable; instead you must strive for “proper” prose that, ultimately, says absolutely nothing.
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Oh dear me! It seems people have taken my little “excerpt” literally! Please note: this was just tongue in cheek! I could never submit something as boorish as that to a Japanese firm, especially to a group as self-conscious as a major hotel chain! I was just playing with the fact that it was 3:00 in the morning and I was getting a little punchy. But, as you say Andrew, what I finally submitted was pretty vacuous; I didn’t believe anything that I wrote. And that says as much about this kind of business as it does about my future prospects in it… this is not what I want to use my writing for. Graphic design might be all right (only maybe… though does it allow me more chances to simply play with aesthetic elements), but not my writing.
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Hey, I did see the humour within. It was simply that I immediately saw that your words could easily have been written as a recommendation from one friend to another, yet this direct and honest mode of communication will never be acceptable to mainstream corporations, preferring as they do gorgeously crafted vacuousness (word?).
Which tells us that the real market for these words is not potential customers, but perhaps the dodos within upper management, or other corporations.
I tend to assume everyone on the Web has read Cluetrain, but if you haven’t: Cluetrain.
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And my question about Japanese was a dig at the way that Japanese marketing spiels read when translated to English.
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I thought it was hilarious. I particularly liked your use of “reeks” and the “Karaoke flavors” and the fact that the tables don’t wobble. I write marketing copy for a living so I know how you feel. Sometimes it feels like it’s so much blah blah blah state-of-the-art blah blah industry-leading blah blah blah superior service blah blah…
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