02 September 2008

Our requested changes were never heeded.

Email, expurgated, names deleted to protect the innocent and the guilty, italics/bold mine:

Dear Chuck,

.... I especially  bonded with what you spoke about in your presentation. Over the past three to four years, I've worked as a proofreader at *******,  ******, and ***** (major ad agencies).

Thanks to your lecture, I now know that Shirley Polykoff (and what an inserted "y" will do to Americanize what I presume was Poliakoff!) was the Clairol (campaign) innovator ....

On the subject of Baby Boomers,  I should tell you that when I walked into *****, the HR person greeted me with, "Oh, I think you're going to be very happy here -- we have people of all ages!" Nothing made me feel self-consciously older than that! However, the creative people still looked the same as they did at ***** and *****.

... So, it was especially amusing when your graphic for ***** came up and you noted that the copy was too small to read. You should have added that for some reason, more and more people are also using this light gray typeface (in the print ad you used as an example). My proofreading colleagues and I would get myopically and intellectually frustrated and rant about our changes not being acknowledged! We'd talk about the copywriters writing ads like the one you mentioned and not realize that the target audience could not read it! We couldn't read it without blowing it up! Our requested changes were never heeded.

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the presentation! I appreciated your clearcut, informative, amusing and candid delivery which was engrossing and compelling from start to finish. If you have more coming up, please let me know ...

Regards,
R---- D-----


Our requested changes were never heeded. 

I'm ... speechless.

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