A billboard that says “Eat. Better. Beef.”
A magazine ad that says “Nice. Pants.”
A TV ad that closes with the words “Hey. Beer. Man.”
You know, an otherwise normal sentence/tag line, broken up with annoying periods to be clever or something. Is there a term for this type of ad sloganing? I would think there would be as I see it everywhere these days.
Do you have a real life example you could link to? I haven’t seen punctuation used in quite the way you describe.
Where I have seen the periods-after-every-word style is in an attempt to emulate Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, in his dissmissive put-down of something, as in “Worst. Episode. Ever.”
This is the one that I found quickest, but I see this type of tagline on billboards everywhere it seems. And newspaper ads, and tv ads.
Not a general term but what they’re trying to do is place an emphatic stress on every word. So call it overemphatic stress.
A baby clothes store near me has this on their window: “Happy. Healthy. Baby.”
Quite annoying.
Wild. Assed. Guess.
I’m guessing they are heavily influenced by tricolons (and bi- and tetra-). Some ad-type discovered tricolons and decided to apply the concept to standard, short, slogans and ended up liking the result.
Is there a term for this?
Yes.
Utter. Non-creative. Shit.
Thanks for the responses, those seem to be right on. The TV Trope is especially funny.
Still curious to get any info from someone in the ad industry. Is there an industry term for this type of thing?
I’Ve seen a local fry restaurant, New York Fries, use ‘‘Real. Fresh.Fries.’’ in their ads.
I agree with Flywheel’s TVTropes term.
I’m old enough to remember the first time I saw a period at the end of a headline. I was working in advertising at the time, and people at work were complaining about how odd it looked.
Least. Exciting. Story. Ev. Er.
Nuprin was using this back in the 80’s with “Little. Yellow. Different.” (and later “Better.” at the end).
Those are three separate sentences. (or facsimiles of sentences) Totally different from what the OP is talking about.
But it could have evolved from that. The “Real. Comfortable. Jeans.” ad is also three sentences. It’s not a big leap from there to Punctuated! For! Emphasis!
He! Might! Just! Go! All! The! Way!
I rarely see it in advertising, but often see it used on this board. Often to nice effect, I should like to add!
I think it may have something to do with search words, my generation doesn’t really think in terms of search words that much but some of the younger ones do.
Why would separating the words with a period make searching any less difficult? I don’t think it has anything to do with searching. It’s a form of advertising that I’ve noticed for at least 10 years. What it’s really implying is that although these three (or whatever) words are independently meaningful, you can also place them together to increase their worth.
Real. Bull. Shit.
You can call it stress, but I’d read it more as a pause between each word, with maybe the last one having a slightly longer pause. I’ve heard that way of speaking in ads before, and I think this is just the print representation.
Real [beat] comfortable [beat] jeans.
Eat [beat] better [beat] beef.
Nice [beat] pants.
Hey [half-beat] bear [half-beat] man!
Depending on your definition of “sentence,” they are all separate sentences. At least, they have that necessary pause when read aloud. Newer versions may not be in the same style, but the pauses are still there.