There have been two high-profile incidents of spelling mistakes reported recently, raising the quality issue yet again.
Clothing giant Topshop failed to spot that William Shakespeare’s name was incorrectly spelt on a £20 T-shirt. Shoppers were quick to spot the mistake and slammed Topshop and the T-shirt design company for the blunder. One blogger posted: ‘I would feel sorry for them over this particular humiliation, but it did make me laugh at how stupid they are for putting this on their website’. Although some mistakes can be amusing, in the healthcare communications industry errors diminish from the overall quality of work. Worse, they can also reduce the scientific credibility. If work has typos in it, it’s only natural that clients start to question what else might be wrong… are the data correct, have the references been checked? Psychologically, typos are the equivalent of a good looking person asking you out. You’re flattered, until they smile and you see the green cabbage between their teeth! It’s a turn off and difficult to overcome.
In the case of Topshop, although the error is inexcusable, in fact Shakespeare spelt his name many different ways and the accepted spelling only came into practice in the late 19th century. But as Shakespeare expert Helen Hackett, Professor of English at University College London said: ‘One might like to think charitably that they are being very scholarly and sympathetic to the late 16th century style of spelling but it seems unlikely’.
Unfortunately we rarely have an excuse. Of course, we all have issues with quality from time to time. Mistakes are inevitable, but if frequent and widespread, it frustrates our clients and makes them wonder how much effort we really put into our work?
Another blunder was reported rather ironically by The Mail online last month − VisitBritain has been forced to withdraw its global poster campaign in the US after a tourist spotted a typo in the spelling of Brecon Beacons, calling the area the ‘Breacon Beacons’. A spokesman said the mistake was a proofreading error by an advertising agency in the US but the organisation ‘held its hands up to it… It was a mistake. It has been corrected’. This leads on to the issue of how to deal with mistakes? As an agency we would want to determine how it happened and learn how to avoid making a similar mistake in the future, rather than work in a culture of blame and a zero tolerance mentality. We can’t all be good at proofreading, but we can have quality processes in place.
We can’t necessarily expect to achieve complete perfection, but we can aim to be close to it. Quality is free, so let’s go back to focusing on the important stuff. ‘To be or not to be’ anyone?
