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We have a VW billboard in here Melbourne advertising

Deals you'll want to tell everyone

It's a fairly big-budget campaign so I assume the grammar has been thought out, but it just sounds off to me - can you 'tell everyone deals' or do you 'tell everyone about deals' or 'tell everyone of deals'? Can I tell someone deals the same way I could, say, tell someone facts?

The page I linked to above actually has the about in the title, but for the most part the campaign doesn't use prepositions in that location.

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    I wouldn't assume they thought it out well. In advertising, syntax and usage are often secondary (or tertiary, quaternary, or entirely off the radar). So you're right—the grammar is wrong on the billboard. Just don't expect to get a result if you point this out to the advertiser. (Go ahead and try, but don't get your hopes up.)
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Aug 4, 2015 at 8:29
  • I actually think that this is one of those cases when someone perfectly fluent in English wrote up a perfectly grammatical sentence, and then some idiot came along and removed the last word to make it ungrammatical, and when asked why, replied "because it's a preposition" rather than "because I'm an idiot", because he's an idiot. I am 100% sure it went down exactly like that.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Aug 4, 2015 at 12:11
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    I agree with you and @BrianHitchcock. The phrase has some emptyness. If I were you, I'd show the deal to everyone. 😂 LOL
    – Tabrez Ahmed
    Commented Aug 4, 2015 at 12:15

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It could have been:

  1. Deals you'll want to talk about
  2. Deals you'll want everyone to know (of)
  3. Deals you'll want to tell everyone (about)

The about in the last option has been omitted to keep the sentence short in the form of a tagline which still withholds the basic idea of the line. Taglines are preferred to be short and catchy. The omitted about only highlights its informal call and urgency to tell people to hurry and have a look. It is just similar to saying "Hurry! Offer valid while stock lasts" instead of "Hurry! Offer is valid while the stock lasts".

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