I recently crashed and burned with a girl when I explained what I do for a living. As I’m used to socialising in the East London media bubble, it came as a shock to me to find that some people consider my profession to be on a par with lawyers, estate agents, and politicians: in short, that I lie for a living.
OK, so I’m not a doctor or a nurse, but she thought I was out and out evil.
It’s an accusation that’s been thrown at the advertising industry by critics since the dawn of time and, incredibly, is …
Last week I found myself doing some conversion optimization for a direct response company that markets the US equivalent of Cillit Bang. Great fun, and the potential to make a huge amount of difference — I never fail to be surprised by how few people take conversion optimization and multivariate testing seriously, so it’s great to find someone who does.
If your conversion rate is 2% but an alternate call to action increases it to 4%, don’t you owe it to yourself to test all possible variations?
But conversion science isn’t simply about design, flow, and, of course, making the …
Quick question. Have you ever used a QR code? Maybe you don’t even know what a QR code is. If you don’t, it’s one of those funny barcode things you’re supposed to take a photo of with your smartphone and it then points you in the direction of a website.
“Oh, like a link,” you say.
“Yes, almost exactly like a link, except you have to go through the rigmarole of standing up close to the QR code and taking a picture, et cetera.”
“So why not just have some text that says ‘visit http://allday.cc!’ instead?”
“Precisely.”
Okay, that’s an …
I’ve been lucky recently – getting far more offers of work than I’ve been able to take on. Of course, freelance work comes in fits and starts (I went six weeks last year without a single enquiry), but unfortunately freelancers aren’t like squirrels – most people want a copywriter today so we can’t store up work like nuts for the winter. So I’ve been giving it away.
What’s struck me as surprising is that every time I have suggested an alternative copywriter to a client, they have hired that writer – once, twice, three times – four times in the …
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 when you’re hungry’.
The campaign …
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 what will …
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 the future of advertising after it …
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 …