Not again.

Having been in advertising for 40 years, I have seen a lot of commercials and ads. I recently asked myself what is the most overused cliche in advertising, the "concept" that any art director or copywriter should be embarrassed for using? I've decided there are a few. The most pathetic cliche and the one that makes me cringe every time I see and hear it, which is still often, is any commercial using the Richard Strauss tone poem Thus Spake Zarathustra hoping to create the same kind of excitement (and always failing) as the music did in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Wow! That's 47 years of ineffective borrowed interest. Another major cliche is any ad or commercials that uses this theme: "Not all deodorants are created equal." Substitute any product, copywriters have been doing it for decades. Since there are pathetic cliches on television every night, I will add to this whenever I can. Did I ever use a cliche? Yes. When presenting a campaign to the Springfield Institution for Savings in Springfield, Mass. 30 years ago, I used the already tired theme, "The bank that wants to say "yes"" a horrible cliche that has been used in any number of commercials for any number of products. How could I have been so stupid?