Yesterday when I opened the main section of our newspaper, The Tennessean, I saw a full-page ad for The Tombras Group touting its national 2009 ADDY Award. I’m guessing this same ad ran in markets other than Nashville as the agency has several locations.

A national ADDY Award certainly is an honor worthy of tooting one’s own horn. However, although there was little copy, the agency managed to run two words together without a space (theSmoky) and misspell Mountain as “Mountian.”

I’ve certainly made my share of typos over the years, but how does it affect your confidence in an agency’s competence when you see something like this in an expensive ad?

There should have been a small army of proof readers going over the copy before the ad was ever released to the paper, and speaking of the paper, how come no one there caught these errors, either?!

Just running spell check would have caught these mistakes, but apparently no one took the time to bother. So, an expensive ad buy is tarnished, as is the reputation of an agency that should have been basking in the limelight for its accomplishment rather than facing embarrassment over careless mistakes that undermine the confidence it is trying to establish.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.