I've been thinking about the different types of wordplay & linguistic flourishes used in ad copy. Here's a thread of some I like & what I think is happening in each (I may get some wrong - apologies in advance).
A classic option is re-working traditional phrases. There are quite a few of these, like this one for Ford, which I think was written by Alan Parker when he was at CDP:
Or this one for Fiat:
I hadn't seen this one for IBM:
And I definitely hadn't seen this one for Brylcreem, which re-purposed Fred Flinstone's catchphrase:
But I had seen this one for VW, which I think is still worth sharing:
This is another classic, from Porsche:
And you can always rely on The Economist:
Another type of wordplay is using contradictions, like this one from Fiat (again), which I came across listening to the @davedyecom podcast interview with Franke Lowe:
On a similar tip, opposites, like this one from Zanussi (from whom, more later):
Disappointingly, rhyme seems to have gone out of fashion, along with the jingle, but I bet everyone remembers this classic from Mars:
Thomas Cook are having a few problems, but I still love this rhyming line:
I believe words that are nouns & verbs are called gerunds, which I think is what's happening in these amazingly powerful ads from Crisis Relief. In rhetoric, I believe this device is also called antimeria:
Synonyms are different words that have the same or similar meanings (I think). Like this one, written by Charles Saatchi (which may also have some gerunding going on):
Homonyms are (& I quote) "each of two or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings & origins), which I what I think Zanussi (them again) used here:
And a classic to finish, which I think is an example of consonance - the recurrence of similar-sounding consonants:
Apologies if I've got any descriptions wrong. At the very least, you got to read some great lines.
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