In the 2010s, a new trend in corporate communication re-emerged. Namely, the number of exclamation marks at the end of sentences quadrupled. Right!!!!
Everything was aligning to make the exclamation mark great again, and again, especially on social media, but the long story started when miserable Victor Hugo, famously, asked his publisher about the sales of his book with a single “?” in his text message, to which the publisher replied with a single “!” indicating he was on top. Très bien.
Back in the ‘10s, I worked for an in-house marketing team at a large auto-finance corporation; the writers there did not hesitate to incorporate new trends into their writing styles, thereby creating their own recognizable styles.
What having a recognizable style means is that when a writer constructs a piece of email communication, or an edict in Jeff’s name, then Jeff’s email may sound very much like that of his writer, Rachel, who loved to use extra exclamation marks. Remarketing!!!! Vehicle sales!!!! Spounge Bob!!!!
This shift coincided with the incorporation of emoji into professional discourse and the subsequent lexicalization of internet initialisms such as “LOL,” which entered spoken language as “lawl.” I digress, but not as long as Victor Hugo in the aforementioned Les Misérables.
The question behind all this is, how do you manage your communication? Does somebody else write your emails? How about ads? Campaigns? Do you want your message to be trendy, like Rachel’s? No, right!!!!?
You really want someone who will reply with “!” when all you have is “?”. That would be us, the Miller Ad Agency in Dallas, with over forty years of experience in delivering exclamation marks. Be on top.
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