Dads and Grads

It’s that time of year to get out there and buy a bunch of presents for dads and grads. Why combine the trip? Is it because you want to be environmentally conscious, saving gas while running two errands at once? Maybe because you can’t spare the time to make two separate trips for a dad and a grad? Perhaps your dad is also a grad?

No, it’s none of those reasons. Read closely as I explain it: it’s because “dads” rhymes with “grads.”

I’ve done no research at all on this, but with more than seven years in the industry, I feel I’m highly qualified to speculate based on personal experience. With that, here’s my almost-certain-to-be-accurate theory on why we’re all bombarded with this phrase:

Many years ago, someone in marketing realized people graduate in late May or early June and, sure enough, Father’s Day also takes place in the middle of June. This marketing person then asked, “How can we make money off this wonderful proximity of events?”

Many thousands of dollars were spent to analyze the fact both fathers and graduates get gifts. It was then determined they needed a nice hook to tell everyone, “You have to buy presents for people, and we make it easy for you.”

Many thousands of dollars later, someone (maybe even a copywriter—maybe—more on this in the next paragraph) came up with the phrase “Dads and grads.” The first time it was used, it probably wasn’t as hideous as it is today.

How does such a phrase get stolen so often and reused by the same companies annually? These days, the marketing people tell the creative people (designers and copywriters) “We need to develop the ads for our upcoming big sale.”

The creative people start to be creative, throwing out ideas for new concepts (and costing many thousands of dollars), until the marketing person quickly says, “We’re going with ‘dads and grads,’” rendering the thousands of dollars a waste.

And that’s that. “Dads and grads” already exists and rhymes. What else do you need?

Again, since I’ve done no research, maybe this phrase works every year. If so, these companies should keep using it, despite how aggravating it is for me to see it everywhere.

There you have it, everyone. An inside look at the ad industry. Now, lassies and lads, go read some ads about dads and grads, because they’re obviously not fads.