Katie Price and Rio Ferdinand are facing a probe by the Advertising Standards Authority for their part in a wicked spoof by Snickers that quickly went viral across the ‘net. The celebrities posted a series of out-of-character tweets: Katie, whose breasts are bigger than her head and, almost certainly, than her brain – posted about quantitative easing, liquidity in the bond market, and the political economy, while footballer Rio Ferdinand posted about the joys of knitting.
Several tweets later, it was revealed to be a marketing ploy by Snickers: the celebrities tweeted ‘you’re not yourself…
You can’t hurry love. But as a copywriter, can you rush creativity? Is it possible to have too many ideas? Or is more always more?
- Is it better to go to the client with just one idea?
- Is it better to go to the client with two or three of the best?
- …or does your client want to pick and choose from a hundred different options?
The answer depends on the client — and on how well you can read them.
Some clients want to be told what to do. They’re paying you, the expert, to tell them…
Wordplay can be a fantastic thing. Several years ago, in an effort to convince my not-entirely-computer-literate parents to migrate to Firefox from IE5, I renamed the desktop shortcut from “Internet Explorer” to “Internet Exploder” and solemnly warned them “if you use this program, you will destroy the internet.” I think they got the message.
Sometimes wordplay is subtle. Sometimes it’s not. The pun, that most maligned staple of Englsh language humour, can be both.
More importantly sometimes it works in copywriting and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes a pun can liven up a dull sentence and keep your client’s message in…
Editors. Hard drinking, hard smoking, hard to deal with. When I was just starting out as a journalist, my editor took ten seconds to finish his drink, stub out his cigarette, and offer me a few words of advice.
‘You’re a good writer,’ he said. ‘But your stuff won’t be great until it has a through line.’
It’s the best writing advice anyone ever gave me. And it’s advice I’m still using as a freelance copywriter today.
Whose through line is it anyway?
A through line is a single message, or set of messages, that’s repeated throughout your copy. Whether…
I started my first blog, a Livejournal, in late 1999. Back then, the word “blog” didn’t even exist.
Twelve years ago, I never could have predicted I’d have a successful career using the same techniques I learned while writing teenage ramblings for my friends. Yet here I am.
I guess I’ve always been an early adopter. Yet it never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there who still don’t understand the value of digital.
The ad industry is changing, whether you like it or not.
I read this fascinating piece on…
I never cease to be amazed by the stupidity of very smart people: unfortunately, hard experience has taught me that business sense and marketing sense very rarely mix.
Of course really smart businessmen hire marketing professionals — because they realise they’re good at making money, not at selling things.
They don’t think hey, I can manage a million dollar business so I can write a strapline, they think — hey, I’m smart enough to manage a million dollar business, which means I can afford to pay a professional to write my strapline.
KFC, in the UK at least, is changing…
I’ve spoken before about how much I rate Tom Albrighton’s work as a copywriter. I’m also a fan of Ben Locker, in Colchester (Glad you’re not in London, Ben!). What have these two guys got in common? They’re both big fans of the “father of modern advertising,” David Ogilvy. So much so, in fact, that Ben recently produced a long-copy print ad in Ogilvy’s style as an experiment, testing whether or not long copy works. Well, I’ve decided to put my money where my…
As regular readers of my blog know, I’m a big snooker fan. Snooker is a quiet, slow, complicated cue sport played in auditoriums so silent you could hear a pin drop. Power snooker is played on the same table, but other than that, everything’s different.
A year ago I suggested that snooker had an image problem and that bringing back a ‘game show’ format like Big Break could rejuvenate interest in the sport and allow the players to show off their personalities. The launch of Power Snooker at London’s O2 Arena seems to have taken a…
What makes an effective ad campaign — and can these principles be applied to social media?
It’s impossible to avoid being bombarded with advertising in London. As a copywriter working in London, it’s even harder to not stop and take notice. Like a surgeon holding his knife like a scalpel and listlessly cutting into his Sunday roast, it’s hard for a copywriter to avoid dissecting other people’s work.
I see thousands of posters every morning. Sometimes the copy is good, sometimes it’s very bad. Sometimes it’s short and sometimes it’s long. Sometimes, I’m only looking at an idea, three…
How effective is long copy?
The London Long Copy challenge is underway. For those of you who haven’t seen the ads yet, it’s a competition for copywriters and creatives based in London to design London Underground posters led by copy of between 50-200 words. Which isn’t much for a sales brochure, but it’s a hell of a lot for a great big print ad.
Who reads sales brochures anyway?
There are two schools of thought in copywriting. One: you get a little information in quickly. It’s better than trying to get it all in and…