oppositional proof-reading.
Walking to work today I saw a Tim Horton's billboard that got me thinking.
The ad consists of the Tim's logo, a full pot of coffee with the time '10:27' written on it, and handwriting-style text to the tune of 'this pot of coffee has 20 minutes to live'. Simple, fairly easy to understand - they are letting you know that any coffee you buy at Timmy Ho's will be no more than 20 minutes old.
However, my immediate thought was 1) 'What an absurd waste of coffee', and 2) 'I wonder how much energy that wastes?'
Clearly, this wasn't the reading that the creators of the ad intended. And it was easy to see the meaning they had intended the ad to create. But at the same time, I have to wonder if I wouldn't do better work if I looked at every sentence I wrote, and considered the knee-jerk oppositional readings that are most likely, when I created it.
All any of us can do is create something, and make it available to others. At that point, we lose control over meaning. If I can make it even slightly harder to find a point of disagreement with what I create, it's probably worth it. I do this to a certain extent already, but I'm going to endeavour to make it a more standard part of my creative process / workflow.
2 comments:
Would argue that doing so neuters the potential zip of your ad. Looking for negative interpretations is like buying a hedge against your position, which reduces the risk, but also the upside.
You're making the assumption that looking for a negative interpretation inherently means you will avoid anything that could be misinterpreted.
Nearly anything has a potential negative interpretation, but the Tim's ad I mentioned manages to call to mind waste that is in direct opposition with a world that's focused heavily on economic concerns and the environment.
Looking for negative interpretation helps you to identify which risks to take, and which ones are likely to backfire.
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