I used to work in a bookshop. At one time, a management type decided that it would be a good idea if we published a newsletter to inform customers of signings, new releases etc. I liked the idea.
Until I saw the first draft. Which was, to put it mildly, rubbish. Phrases like “Comic sans is a bad choice for body copy” and “that lo-res image blown up 300% makes you look silly” sprang to mind, only for me to realise that this was somewhat overanalysing the problem. Which was that this was something just shy of the competence level of a homework project from a seven year old schoolchild.
Instead, I went with
Anyone impressed by that would be impressed by anything.
& is therefore never worth going out of your way to be impress
Which is a phrase that I have re-used extensively since. In fact, I use it as a rule for all of the marketing initiatives that I have to deal with. Who exactly is going to be impressed by this? if the answer is ‘a teenager circa 1997′ then we probably haven’t got this right yet.
Moral of my story: If you aim higher, you impress all those other people by default. Just about good enough leaves you alienating the more discerning people out there, and actively damages your brand.