A writer trusts his gut. She listens to her in-the-moment instinct. Use this word but not that one. Jump at that topic while avoiding another. You need a sense of what fits, what doesn't, what's right, what wrong.
So I'm sitting in the car on Wabash Avenue, just north of Cermak Road, waiting for my younger son to come down so we can go to dinner in Chinatown. And I look across the street and see this billboard for Fannie May candies. And think, "Bleh." Then take a picture to document the marvel, to make sure I'm not hallucinating. To check that this isn't some errant, one-off billboard test.
It isn't. A big branding campaign, launched last Christmas.
"Together is Timeless."
Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm overreacting by even remarking upon its meh-ness. I'm not their target audience. To me, Fannie May candy is barely worth eating, like Hershey's milk chocolate. A palpable substitute for actual candy if nothing better is at hand. A form of pica, only using confectionary instead of plaster of paris.
I tried to think of how to illustrate its wrongness, and the first phrase I thought of is Sartre's "Hell is other people." The problem must be the word "timeless." It's not an adjective that evokes anything, especially not chocolate. The slogan is close in meaning to "Together is an Eternity," which doesn't sound like a situation you want to enter willingly. "Timeless" is such a tired bit of boosterism. "This heirloom plate from the Franklin Mint will become a timeless treasure your family will cherish for generations..."
I wondered what Fannie May, based in Chicago, thought it was doing, and am glad that Candy & Snack Today did the heavy lifting for me, reaching out to Ferraro Group's Fannie May Confection Brands Inc.
“Together Is Timeless showcases how Fannie May takes classic ingredients like caramel, pecans, grahams, marshmallows and chocolate, and brings them together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Just like the memories that are made while celebrating with loved ones,” Kari Fisch, senior brand manager at Fannie May told the publication. “We are very excited to unveil our new campaign and look forward to becoming a staple of family celebrations nationwide for decades to come.”
They pay people for that. (And what's a "graham"? Perhaps the word you use when you can't call an ingredient a "graham cracker" for legal reasons. Did you ever in your life say, "I'd like a graham"? Me neither).
“Together Is Timeless showcases how Fannie May takes classic ingredients like caramel, pecans, grahams, marshmallows and chocolate, and brings them together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Just like the memories that are made while celebrating with loved ones,” Kari Fisch, senior brand manager at Fannie May told the publication. “We are very excited to unveil our new campaign and look forward to becoming a staple of family celebrations nationwide for decades to come.”
They pay people for that. (And what's a "graham"? Perhaps the word you use when you can't call an ingredient a "graham cracker" for legal reasons. Did you ever in your life say, "I'd like a graham"? Me neither).
We are in such a blizzard of communication, a 24-hour wordstorm as big as the Crab Nebula. So if you are going to coin a phrase, buy billboards, you jolly well...
Enough. Anyone who gets it understood at first glance, and if they haven't, they never will.
I'd be reluctant to jump on somebody's brain child — I'm tempted to go into LinkedIn and find someone claiming "Together is Timeless" on their resume — except that not caring is how these things are flung at the public in the first place. Nobody is going to cry into their pillow over this.
I try not to criticize a headline without coming up with a better one and that holds true for commercial catchphrases. A superior slogan can be concocted in the time it takes me to type the words. "Together is Timeless." Hmmm... Drop the "Timeless" as pejorative, keep "Together" as something that sounds halfway appealing. Remembering this is candy. How about "Sweeter Together?" Maybe they tried that and "sweet" didn't test well: implies calories. "Savor Together," with an echo of "Safer Together" which is on everybody's mind nowadays. Or "Choose Together" since Fannie May are famous for their big assortments where you pick the ones you can best stomach. No, abortion rights killed off the concept of choice, at least for timorous marketers.
I'd be reluctant to jump on somebody's brain child — I'm tempted to go into LinkedIn and find someone claiming "Together is Timeless" on their resume — except that not caring is how these things are flung at the public in the first place. Nobody is going to cry into their pillow over this.
I try not to criticize a headline without coming up with a better one and that holds true for commercial catchphrases. A superior slogan can be concocted in the time it takes me to type the words. "Together is Timeless." Hmmm... Drop the "Timeless" as pejorative, keep "Together" as something that sounds halfway appealing. Remembering this is candy. How about "Sweeter Together?" Maybe they tried that and "sweet" didn't test well: implies calories. "Savor Together," with an echo of "Safer Together" which is on everybody's mind nowadays. Or "Choose Together" since Fannie May are famous for their big assortments where you pick the ones you can best stomach. No, abortion rights killed off the concept of choice, at least for timorous marketers.
I'd stick with my first idea, "Sweeter Together." It's candy. It's supposed to be a little sweet or, in the case of Fannie May, way too sweet. If you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna. If you're a candy company, be sweet, or "Together is Sweetness."