I rue the day the dairy industry launched its "Got Milk?" campaign. It spawned a decade of unoriginal ad campaigns that nauseate and bore millions of marketing-conscious Americans.

Got Church?
Got Plaque?
Got gastro-intestinal trouble?

Got an original thought?

Think how effective and refreshing signs that read, "Do you need a new transmission? We offer transmissions at a fair price" are. Or, " First-Time Patients: Free Teeth Cleaning. Call 555-5555."

Nearly everything else exhausts me.

Cleverness only works if you're clever. Remember that your competitors are also trying to attract consumers, and most of them don't know how to do it either. They are resorting to the trite "Got ?" campaigns. Join them and you will be fatally commonplace.

We all try too hard sometimes; we all miscalculate. But failure is no excuse to keep it up. If you don't have the budget or prowess to compete with the dairy industry's million dollar advertising campaigns, don't. Offer a good product or service, sell it professionally and with class. Work to retain your clients and gain referrals. When drafting advertisements use simple, declarative sentence. When in doubt remember that less is more.

If you need help eliminating unnecessary text, Bullfighter is one resource. It is an inconspicuous tool that, with the push of a button, will review your text for "bull." It will even rate your document and explain the rating.

Another helpful document that I've frequently referenced is, "Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes." It's hard to overstate the usefulness of Bad Ads, which was originally published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help nonprofits build meaningful public service campaigns. Click here to download (PDF ALERT) Bad Ads. You're not a non-profit, but you'll still benefit.

Extra tip: If you have long-winded friends, Fight the Bull offers a deliciously creepy tool called the Mystery Matador that "sends an anonymous message measuring the amount of jargon and verbosity" in your friend's document. Ouch!

Good luck. It's a crazy, but strangely boring world out there.

Portions of this were first posted here on our team blog. It remains one of my favorites. (Should I be ashamed that I have favorites of my own stuff?)