The Pinnacle of Bad Marketing Copy?

"Banking…but your way." "Fitness…but your way." "Insurance…but your way."

BUT. YOUR WAY.

I saw "funeral planning, but your way" once. Which raises the question: whose way were we doing it before? Audiences have always wanted things their way. Especially death, right?

It feels like this phrase is the marketing equivalent of giving up, printing the words "we tried" on a t-shirt, and billing it as a creative concept. It’s the very definition of phoning it in.

The problem isn't just that it's lazy (although it is spectacularly lazy). The problem is that it reveals that you have absolutely no idea who your audience is.

Think about it. "...but your way" means nothing because it's addressed to everyone, which means it likely lands with no one. Real audience insight is specific. It can be uncomfortable. It makes some people go "yes, that's me" and makes other people go "nope, not for me" and that's the whole point. The moment you write copy that could theoretically apply to every human being on earth, you have written copy that will emotionally connect with exactly zero of them.

"...but your way" is copy with the risk removed. It's been sanded down until there are no edges left. It's the verbal equivalent of beige. Beige is only good when it’s hangover food.

Why do brands do it? Maybe because it feels safe? Does it feel like they’re being inclusive? I think there's a difference between speaking to everyone and meaning something to a few someones. Most "...but your way" campaigns haven't considered that distinction.

The Original Offender

Burger King's "Have It Your Way", at least meant something concrete. You could literally change your order. There was a specific, tangible, revolutionary-for-1974 thing being promised. Customise your burger. Radical. Fine. It earnt the phrase.

But somewhere between then and now, a generation of copywriters thought "your way" was the insight, when actually it was just the wrapper around an insight that Burger King had done the hard work to find. They copied the wrapper and left out the thing inside it.

Good Marketing Copy

What does good marketing copy look like?

Knowing something true about your audience that surprises them when they hear it said back. Good feels like the brand has been watching, in a non-creepy way. Good is specific enough that someone somewhere reads it and thinks "how did they know?"

"Advertising stumbled upon its greatest insight: that everybody is really two people, the person you are and the person you want to be. All marketing is squarely aimed at person number two." — Terry O'Reilly

That requires actual research. Real conversations. Probably some uncomfortable truths about who your customer is versus who you wish they were.

It definitely cannot be achieved in the last ten minutes of a strategy session by adding "but your way" to your product.

The brief deserves better. Your audience deserves better, and so does your brand.

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