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29-DEC-2025 | Excerpt from Tom McElligott’s Ad on Advertising

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Dan Bogachek
December 29, 2025

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Excerpt from Tom McElligott’s Ad on Advertising

For the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

Your reactions to advertising are tabulated by highly sophisticated equipment.

Every time you shop, you have the opportunity to express your exact feelings about advertising. Not just by talking about them. But by putting your money where your mouth is.

Look at it this way. Whenever you go to the store, you make a cartload of buying decisions. And you’re free to base those decisions on anything you choose. Including the advertising you’ve seen.

If you like a product’s advertising — if you find it informative, honest and interesting — we suggest that you buy.

If you don’t like the advertising — if it’s misleading, tasteless or just plain boring — we suggest that you not buy. 🏁

  • Heavy on the “you.” Talk to your reader.

  • Complete ideas >> complete sentences. We see multiple places where sentences are split to present one idea at a time. They could have easily been a single but longer sentence, but it’s easier to understand with the separation.

  • Repetition with contrast: “If you like… if you don’t like.” Pleasant symmetry while reaffirming the reader’s agency as a consumer to establish trust.