Menus are advertisements.  Effectively designed menus “sell” food for their restaurants in many different ways. (you can read further on this in one of our previous blog posts What Makes a Restaurant Menu Design Effective?)  As we all know however, ads can be misleading. Advertisers will use all sorts of tricks to persuade someone to buy, sneaking in strategically ambiguous words, which have multiple or vague meanings.  Some examples would be phrases like “affordable housing”  “decent income” or “large city” which, depending on who you are, is all relative.  Another little trick is sneaking in euphemisms, which is when you replace a common sounding word with a better sounding word; such as calling the bathroom a “powder room” or extra large sizes “women’s sizes.”  This is the area in which it seems some restaurants pull out all the stops, using  vague phrases such as “world famous” “Garden Fresh” and “Homemade”  An article from the Tribune dining staff discusses all of these overused phases and more. Read this article then let us know of any more annoying menu phrases that you think should be banned.

9 Phrases to Ban From Restaurant Menus

Menus are not the only place with ambiguous phrases, restaurants put them in taglines and logos too! Here are a few examples:

Preparations for the Sysco Eastern Wisconsin’s 2009 Concept Show are in full swing.Blueprint Design Studio has partnered up with Sysco Eastern Wisconsin to present a restaurant stimulus package that offers detailed ideas and tips to maximize profitability for restaurants.

The restaurant stimulus package will help restaurant owners to discover ways to increase sales, learn cost control and bring you up to date with the latest trends.Restaurant owners, managers, executive chefs, floor managers, decision makers, food purchasers and general managers will get a peek into the deals from the Sysco Truckload Sale and rake in savings from the Warehouse Clearance Center.As well as being able to sit in on multiple stimulating seminars.

Blueprint Design Studio helps restaurants to become more profitable with effective menu designs, or by creating a website design to increase exposure online with proper marketing being implemented.

The show will be held at:

Wisconsin Exposition Center at State Fair Park
8200 W. Greenfield Ave.
West Allis, WI 53214

10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Blueprint Design Studio will be at booth 1402

Recent Resource Links:
Restaurant Stimulus Packages…
Cobra
Stimulus Plan Update
CA Restaurant & Bar Owners (not drinkers) Will Feel the Pinch of Nickel Tax
We’ve Got A Sweet Deal For You!

I found this ad made by the Leo Burnett Company (who have one of the best Flash websites I’ve seen, by the way):

I think this is a great ad, which really shows the way images, how we see those images, our world-views, and how we are situated in power structures are intertwined. I thought for a minute that there was one problem: who says that favelas are necessarily ‘bad’ places? But I don’t think the ad is connatating that. It is (re)presenting how we see and understand the favela, asking us to think about the way we think about things, itself.

On the way home from Blueprint Design every day, I see a billboard of Care’s most recent ad campaign, using the slogan ‘I Am Powerful’

I have mixed feelings about this strategy. I see how they’re trying to not show the subject as a victim, thus changing the traditional power structure of the ad audience and the recipient of Care’s aid. I’m not sure if this achieves their aim however, in fact, it may be patronizing or even reiterate the power structure.