For the last, oh, ten years or so, it seems that a lot of creative departments have been just copying creative briefs and running with them – verbatim.

A perfect example is this thing that came attached to the top of my Citibank MasterCard statement.

I can imagine the boss at Citibank (or MasterCard; who is this from, anyway?) “Use this space when it’s blank to tell them we appreciate their business and if we can make their experience more rewarding, they should contact us. But don’t get all artsy fartsy on them.”

Stilted language like this is fine for a brief, we know what it means, but it lands with a clunk in the brainpan of the customer. It’s robotic, platitudinous, self-serving (we instead of you), impersonal, meaningless, a content-free zone. It’s not signed, not even with a logo.

“make your experience” … what experience? What the hell are you talking about?

“more rewarding” … than what? If you can make it more rewarding, just do it and drop me a line. Surprise me. Delight me.

“do not hesitate” … you mean “don’t hesitate” or “feel free to” or perhaps a “please” in front of either.

“contact us” … how? And who are you, anyway?

It would take a direct mail creative person about 10 minutes to make this meaningful. Otherwise, they should just put a Sudoku puzzle in any available blank space.