Naughty words in Ads and Banned Advertisers

This caught my eye recently about a Realtor's plight in being banned from a number of local publications and boards for his "creative and descriptive" use of the English language.

Jules Bending of the Real Ralph Bending, an estate agent in Glastonbury, has been banned from advertising in a local paper and taken down from property websites Rightmove and Primelocation.comfor an unconventional approach to marketing properties. Here are some examples of his style:

• "Lease available for what can only be described as a prime piece of retail crumpet."

• "Three bedroom former school house with everything except the randy old teacher and fag butts down the loo."

• "Cheap but not particularly cheerful ground floor apartment."

• "Characterful as a vegetarian's fart, this Victorian beauty hums to the rhythm of a well soaked mung bean."

It may not be to everyone's taste and there's a touch of innuendo, but how offensive is it? It's not obscene, racist or classist; it doesn't attack people with disabilities. And none of it contravenes the Property Misdescriptions Act - claiming a tenant could "stare out of the window at Morrisons superstore in sheer delight" is a matter of fact. Well, maybe not the delight part.

Rightmove says Bending's listings on its site were removed after "public complaints", although it's a bit confused over the nature and number of them, as well as what sort of appeal Bending was offered against the decision. Of course, these "members of the public" could be rival estate agents. Whoever they are, should they have the right to ban slightly colourful language in a world where bland is the norm?

Whether they are offensive or not is not for me to decide. They have their own council and standards. The point that strikes me is that a REALTOR's purpose is to fill your housing need. This does include getting your property noticed. Has this realtor been effective? Absolutely. Impact advertising does get noticed on Google. You can search for yourselves or click here.

Its not the common place event that gets you noticed; Remember Talk is cheap.
If you would like some help getting noticed Give me a call.