When copywriters tear out their hair
27 December 2009
I see that British Transport Police has dropped the word ‘Christmas’ from a national publicity poster to avoid upsetting people who do not ‘buy into’ the festival.
Unfortunately, the word ‘Christmas’ had been followed by the word ‘presence’, which was quite a neat play on words. Much neater, in fact, than ‘Holiday presence’, which is how the poster ended up after the over-sensitive BTP Marketing Department had finished with it.
My complete and utter lack of hair is entirely due to situations like this. Copywriters are quite worldly-wise, media-savvy people, and analysing the political correctness or otherwise of our messages is one of our many skills. Please just let us do our jobs.
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