Never use the personal pronouns “I”, “me”, “we”, “us”, or “our” in advertising, packaging, sales literature, or anywhere else in marketing communications. “We” is about the marketer. Customers do not care about the marketer; they care only about themselves. “We” is in the first person. The only person that is first to the customer is the customer. “We” is a bad proxy for your brand name or company name. Your job is to build brand awareness, not to build “we” awareness. “We” can be any brand, any company. “We” means nothing.
Never use “we”, “us”, or “our” in the advertisement. It is not about you, it is about the benefits of your product to your customer. When an advertiser uses “we” and not the brand name, the company must assume that the customer already knows the company, or instantly recognizes the company. If the customer already knows about the brand message, then why advertise at all? “Brand awareness” advertising means keeping customers aware of the brand, not of a personal pronoun.
Here are two key research findings: (1) in head-to-head comparisons, the ad featuring the brand name in the headline generates higher brand recall than the same exact ad using “we”; (2) copy written in the first person is perceived by customers as self-serving and not objective. Conversely, copy written in the third person is perceived as more objective
Putting “we” in the headline is no different from substituting “we” for your company’s name on co-operating signage, on stationery, or in the Yellow Pages. You would not spend money and erect a huge sign in front of your building that says “Our World Headquarters.” You would not put “Me” on your business card and omit your name. So, do not do it in advertising or anywhere else.
