A Unique Plea

This morning, I started looking through all the collateral information I have on various boutique and independent hotels. Most of them have high-end brochures and websites.

I assume most of these places have hired expensive public relations firms to produce both the images and copy for their collaterals. (Collaterals are websites, brochures, one-sheets, press releases.) And let me just say this to all of them: You are paying the copywriters too much.

Every website. Every brochure. Every ad. All describe. Every property. As. UNIQUE.

Now, I wouldn’t be writing about these hotels if they weren’t unique. I know they are unique. But unique as a vocabulary word is hackneyed, overused and says precisely nothing beyond the place not being a Holiday Inn Express.

Let me send out a plea to the copywriters of the world. When you feel tempted to describe a place as unique, please instead come up with specific details that make the property special. Does it have colonial antiques or was it designed by Philippe Starck? Does Brad Pitt stay there or did James Dean once stay there? Is it painted pink? Or made of ice?

So, dear reader, I hereby pledge never to use the word unique in any of my hotel reviews. If I’m listing a property here, you may assume the place has qualities that set it apart from the homogenized norm.

Comments

[Scott]

very unique post :-) Haha. Actually, good point..I always talk to my copywriters about this very thing!

[Melissa]

Ha. Ha. It's just a pet peeve...if everything is unique, then nothing is. Or maybe that makes the Holiday Inn Express the most unique thing ever...