Okay. So, I'm concerned that I'm missing something here. Is the headline "Great taste is timeless?" Or am I completely missing some double entendre? Cuz I'm kind of freaking out over this hyphen. My question for ADs is: Given that the headline is indeed "Great taste is timeless," would you have designed your ad in such a way that you were required to add a hyphen?
Again: am I being obtuse here? Am I missing something?
Actually, I had you pegged for being acute today.
ReplyDeletei think they are playing off the whole being caffeine free as being the "less"? maybe? or maybe not? either way, I agree the hyphen is - weird.
ReplyDeleteI really, really have a problem with the hyphen. First for making the headline difficult to read (ie great [pause] taste [pause] is time [two words fast then pause] less). And secondly, I have an issue with hyphens in a headline aesthetically. (But I do have to give it to them that they hung the punctuation.) However, if they were trying to play off the caffeine free as being "less" then I would have chosen no hyphen and perhaps an italic "less". Or I would have changed the font size to fit this into two lines: 1. Great Taste 2. Is Timeless...ahhh, see how nicely that rolls off the tongue.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they want to accentuate "less," but they probably thought they were doing it in a subconscious sort of way.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the emptiness in the middle signifies the fat one avoids by drinking Diet Coke, and the lack of caffeine in the caffeine-free Diet Coke? Really, they have made caffeine-free Diet Coke look heavy, what with all of those poorly chosen, widely spaced words on top of it.
Diet Coke is presented like a vs or a competing brand, all off to the side and message-less; Diet Coke feels far more appealing, as it's as far away as it can get from the jumble of words and poor layout. It's not Diet Coke's fault it got thrown in there with all this nonsense!
Maybe that's what they want? Consumer to drink Diet Coke 'cause caffeine is addictive? In that sense, it works for me. I'd be embarrassed to be seen with this c-f Diet Coke.
Finally, low calorie sweeteners are anything but timeless to me. It so doesn't scan. They are synthetic, modern, and always changing.
Did I use too many hyphens in this post?
blankbaby out.