To think that you cannot possibly use a leaflet with a typo and a spelling mistake in it

[TheMagnificentBathykolpian]

Especially when that it reads

"By using our services and adjusting your operations accordingly, you dramatically reduce your overall fuel consumption and your company's carbon footprint, while running and more efficient organisation and benefitting from larger profit margins"

??

People would laugh their bloody heads off, right?

Your reply will enable me to shut my boss/husband up.

Oh yes, I agree. If it was to members of the public, then profit margins would be ridiculous but it's to company owners.

Who do love to hear how to increase their profit margin

When I last took my dog to kennels I picked up one of their new leaflets. Kept me royally entertained on a two hour car journey. However it would not stop me using the kennels again.

Sadly, do you think that a lot of people would notice? I hate typos/bad grammar/poor spelling, but many people don't seem to care.

I open our company post. That would go straight in the bin.

The best was a posting on netmums advertisig a tutoring service for amongst other things 11 plus entry into a local private and state grammar school.

There were several grammatical and spelling errors.

A local takeaway sent out a menu offering '1/2 chips, 1/2 mice'. You think they'd have noticed that!

I agree about the corporate speak too. I run a business and I work for my parents company. We like plain English not meaningless guff about profit margins.

I once sent out a memo (in the olden days before email) informing people about their working hours. Much hilarity ensued as I missed the f out of shift in a prominent place. Oops.

Wouldn't use the company - would think that was a long waffly sentence that they CLEARLY didn't even understand themselves, hence typo.

Makes them sound out of their depth.

gawd, you lot are harsh ouch.

What about
Compelling Environmental Benefits (or just Environmental Benefits?)
By using our services to identify where changes can be made, you can significantly reduce your overall fuel consumption and carbon footprint, saving money and increasing efficiency

Even though this wasn't my AIBU I am now totally convinced that it's shit.

getting better :)

How about

Environmental and Financial Benefits
We will identify where changes can be made to significantly reduce your fuel consumption and carbon footprint, saving money and increasing efficiency.

I get really arsey about this and that sounds very similiar to a piece of copy my husband bought home last month with similiar errors. Its junk and gives the wrong impression.

ps I prefer SarkySpanners, compelling environmental benefits sounds a bit pretentious tbh.

Yes, that sounds better. Except we don't do anything. They use what we provide. Basically, they buy a unit, fit it and pay a subscription to access the monitoring, reports etc. They use those reports, look at them themselves and decide where they are wasting money. We don't advise at all.

I agree with you all. Simple is better. Big rethink time. I'm going to have to go back to all the leaflets, I think.

Spell check strikes again.

As someone who has struggled with design clients who were hellbent on dreaming up wildly complex gobbledegook statements, I'd definitely go for "saves you money". Clear, simple, unambiguous. Nobody can be arsed to pick their way through any sort of "cascaded vision". Let alone one that is littered with typos.

So YANBU. Stick to your guns and if he won't listen to commonsense, kick the blue sky thinker hard in the "low hanging fruit".

Your description is much more compelling, to me. How about basing your leaflets around that, for example:

"Identify where and why your organisation is wasting money on fuel, simply by installing an XXX unit and reviewing the clear, targeted reports."

I used to work round the corner from a takeaway which sent out endless leaflets advertising its pizza's and curry's and kebab's. A colleague once paid them a visit to offer to explain the correct use of the apostrophe, and none of them had even heard of the word 'apostrophe'...

Yes. Thanks. You have all been really helpful.

I am almost tempted to c&p the leaflet, to give you a laugh, but I won't cos I helped write it and you'll savage me

But thank you. I will go through it all and try to keep it simple.

Latte, errant apostrophes are a real bugbear of mine among many but at least in this case they were consistent. I've seen similar menus and signs advertising pizza's, curry's and kebabs. Why would someone not know the rule sometimes but suddenly know it when writing 'kebabs'?

I've designed various leaflets. One thing I always do is print out the design and check it over before sending to the printer. I usually get at least two others to check it also. When the .printer emails me proofs I check it again before okaying.

Something that annoys me in other people's work is the use of extra spaces between words. Also, it is worth checking your colour scheme is disability friendly - e.g light blue text on white and white text on light blue blue are difficult to read.

Mistakes do tend to make companies look less legit. And less competent.

Although it does provide amusement, there's a beauty parlour near where we used to live which was, according to the sign in their window, "fully equipted". Never been tempted to go in for some reason..

Well, we had a local Indian restaurant claiming on it's leaflet once:

"Some dishes may contain nits. Please ask a member of staff for more information"......

I very nearly phoned up and asked them how the nits got into the food .

At least they warned you.

I think the wording of the leaflet is more worrying than the spelling.You need to have less wordy sentences.

As the sign in the launderette said, and this is genuine:

FREE SOAP, BLEACH AND DYE
Wednesdays for blankets
Thursdays for old-age pensioners.

I agree with Grendel.
You description needs to say what you actually do rather than waffling about vague benefits.

Go on, post the whole leaflet... :)