Love it / Hate it

While I'm no fan of the "bizummy" billboard Nestea has up on I-45 (see my last post), I saw another one just the other day that I like quite a bit. Same city, same campaign, different line. The headline on this newfound billboard says-

Deliciously exotic flavors.
Strangely normal bottle.

I'm a big fan of parallel structure and I love the feeling this particular combination of words creates. They're almost like words you can eat; an ice cream Sunday of words, each presenting with a new contrasting, but complimentary flavor to create a rare and unique experience for the mental pallette. But enough brain salivating. I mostly think it's intriguing that you can have pieces in the same campaign that can draw such vastly different responses from the same audience.

Making up words is hizzard

The billboards on 45 between the Woodlands and downtown change quite a bit and there’s a new one for Nestea that just hurts me a little. I’ve recommended people leave making up words to the professionals before, but evidently we can’t even always be trusted.

The billboard’s line is, “It’s bizarre. It’s yummy. It’s bizummy.”

I’m sorry, bizummy? What are we, Snoop Dog? First of all, that word is tizzerrible. It doesn’t roll off the tongue and the phonemes are clearly from different words. It has less the effect of combining the advantages of cars and SUVs to make a crossover and more the heir of crashing the two together and selling the wreck as the next thing in automobiles.

Second, I’m not sure bizarre is a word I would want to describe my food. My clothing, sure. Decorations for my home, perhaps. But my beverage?

Third, to my understanding, Nestea is a grown-up drink, which would merit a grown-up descriptor of benefits. Some how I don’t think “yummy” is the most effective word to hit a chi and vitamin water drinking demographic.

And fourth, did I mention the word is terrible? It doesn’t combine to bring to mind any other connotations or conjure up a new twist on a familiar theme. Creating new words is a delicate art. Creating them by combining other words is no easier. I’d say leave it to the professionals, but obviously even copywriters have their bad days.