Time Warner Cable is spending $80 million on an ad campaign encouraging you to “Enjoy Better.”
Better reception? Better rates? No and no. The ads will insert a direct object between “enjoy” and “better”—the name of a “content partner” like Showtime, Netflix, or ESPN.
The slogan will be unveiled on Saturday in teaser ads and in its full glory on Sunday, during the Super Bowl, in local TWC markets.
New York Times Media Decoder blogger Stuart Elliott reported on Wednesday:
The goal of the campaign, by Ogilvy & Mather North America, is “to tie the things that consumers love to do and get through us, to us,” [Time Warner Cable Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey] Hirsch said, so they understand “we help you get to things you love.”
That’s two mentions of “love.” Because, obviously, people have passionate feelings about their cable provider. And it’s almost Valentine’s Day.
“Enjoy better” sounds awkward, but why? “Better” is both an adverb and an adjective; you can do better, get better, and know better, and you can think better of something. But we never say “enjoy better”; it just isn’t idiomatic. Not yet, anyway: by pushing the limits of our grammatical expectations, TWC is saying (a) “We’re innovative” and (b) “Because we can.”
(“Because We Can” would make an excellent slogan for a cable company.)
I couldn’t help being reminded of another dubious landmark in television sloganeering:
I wrote about Syfy’s name change (from the Sci Fi Channel) back in March 2009. The new name and slogan provoked a howl of futile outrage among fans (and there ain’t no fan base like a sci-fi fan base). There was even an indignant Facebook page called “No Syfy,” which used this logo:
Maybe that’s where Time Warner Cable got the idea for “Enjoy Better.”
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Hat tip: MJF.
"We do what we must, because we can," -- Aperture Science ;->
Posted by: Aaamagnus | February 02, 2012 at 08:24 AM