I’ll admit it. Before I started my own marketing firm, I worked in other advertising and PR firms and often hated what we produced: pithy, uppity ads that sounded super clever and trendy, like a bunch of skinny, uber-hipster millennials wearing tight jeans and thick-rimmed glasses came up with them while drinking their fifth nonfat soy green-tea lattes and smirking ironically. I think this actually happened. A lot.

To me the ads, brochures, taglines, marketing “collateral” and other “stuff” we produced seemed vapid and clever for the sake of being clever — like we were trying to impress ourselves and other marketing people. Plain language, simplicity and directness were dismissed for their lack of creativity and artistic flair.