Your What?

- Contributed by Jeff C.

" I thought that Seagate -- one of the world's biggest names in digital storage -- would have enough money to hire someone to check its grammar. Apparently they blew all of that dough when making their snazzy 'Your On' ad campaign.

 

"Graphic attached, and I did check their website to verify that this was in fact perpetrated by Seagate and not one of its resellers: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/"

(click photo to enlarge)

Comments

[Jeff C.]

I'm glad you followed up, Steve - I'd been wondering about whether the "error" was intended to be clever.

But if so, they're violating a marketing rule: if you're playing with words, you can't confuse your audience. Who would just assume that "on" is a noun? Certainly more people would fail to notice the difference between "your" and "you're". And nitpickers like me are merely left confused.

Well, I've said my peace: I'm off.

[Brett]

This is why I'm glad I'm not in marketing. If you have to explain the premise to someone (like explaining a joke) they won't get it.

All I can respond is no, "I'm off" (or should I say "I be off") since the product says take your desktop with you and I can't take Outlook where most of my work gets transacted. I hope they didn't pay much for this marketing campaign.

[Steve]

Oh, I agree that it is ridiculous. Just more evidence of the dumbing-down of America.

[Kristy]

Ridiculous! Whether they intentionally meant to say that Seagate is "your ANYTHING," the meaning is obscured because most people look at this and think it's a glaring misuse of the contraction, "you're" on. Poor marketing!

[Steve]

Actually, the "typo" is intentional. I asked them about this when I saw it and they responded:

""Your On" is spelled this way to indicate that Seagate is your (possessive) access to being "on." In essence, Seagate = On.

This version ties with the connection more closely to Seagate (as your access to being 'on') as opposed to the more traditional spelling of "You're On," which places the emphasis more closely on the consumer and away from Seagate itself."