Where good ideas come from
Well worth a watch, this is a very nicely presented speculation on the creative process.
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Radio Paradise
As a freelance copywriter, it’s sometimes necessary to make sure the radio station you’re listening to is a commercial one just to keep up with things. (I favour BRMB, a Birmingham station, that has a good variety of local and national commercials).
But the truth is my favourite radio stations are mostly commercial-free and web based. Just recently I came across a terrific source of virtually non-stop music that has become a permanent resident on the Squeezebox in our kitchen.
It’s called Radio Paradise and, to quote, “is a blend of many styles and genres of music, carefully selected and mixed by two real human beings.” What’s amazing is that such an eclectic mix, with so many not-so-famous artists, can hit the sweet spot of the inner ear with just about every track.
If you want to give it a try, you’ll find Radio Paradise right here. Happy listening!
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SEO to the nth degree
Every so often I naturally go and take a sneak peak at what the competition is doing, which basically involves typing ‘freelance copywriter’ into my search engine of choice and seeing what rears its head, ugly or otherwise.
Of course, copywriters are desperate to prove their Search Engine Optimisation credentials through the use of keywords, but will generally keep on the right side of readability. However I couldn’t help but notice this particular passage on one of the sites that came up in my search:
A freelance copywriter is a copywriter who supplies the services of a copywriter direct to clients. The freelance copywriter is self-employed, in contrast with a copywriter in the employ of an advertising or marketing company. A freelance copywriter must combine the skills of a conventional copywriter with a sound commercial understanding. Over time, a freelance copywriter may be called on to serve as a web copywriter, dm copywriter, print copywriter and broadcast media copywriter.
Now that’s what I call SEO!
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A marketing lesson from Google
Not so long ago a letter from Google AdWords came thudding onto my doormat. Even though Google epitomise cutting-edge online marketing, they had decided to use an old fashioned mailshot to recover lapsed customers like me.
They also sent an email with the same message, but the mailshot with it’s detachable credit-card size voucher for £100 free advertising was much more impactful.
Marketing emails are of course extremely cheap, whereas printing and posting a traditional mass marketing mailshot is massively more expensive.
But it you want to know which is more effective – email or snail-mail – maybe it’s worth asking an unlikely source: Google.
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Firefox and UTF-8
Well I’ve finally managed to get the new version of WordStorm, my main freelance copywriting website up and running. Not without problems though – and this is really just a technical note in case somebody is suffering the same problems as I had, specifically where UTF-8 character coding doesn’t work in Firefox or Opera.
My experience was that the website worked fine across all browsers on my computer, but when uploaded to the server it served up gobbledegook for certain characters such apostrophes, long dashes and copyright symbols in the two above mentioned browsers. (Everything was fine in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari).
When I searched for solutions it was clear that there were a lot similar sufferers, but very little helpful advice. However, when I checked out my server’s forums it appeared the problem lay with the server not dishing out UTF-8 character sets unless prompted to do so.
The solution, in my particular case, was to create an .htaccess file directing my Linux server to add UTF-8 as the default character set.
So if you’re finding your web content doesn’t render correctly in Firefox, I’d suggest contacting your webspace provider first with the problem. It might save you hours of fruitless searching or re-coding.
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Brand name generators
Technology can have a tendency to make people redundant, but as a creative copywriter you feel pretty damn confident there will never be a machine that can do your job properly. Well, I’ve been doing a lot brand naming recently, so was a bit shocked when I stumbled across a whole host of brand name generators on t’internet
Mind you, judging by the results you’d probably be better off buying a typewriter and hiring a proverbial monkey. Here’s a small selection of snappy, memorable brand names from quick-name-generator.com
Suckumn
Sughumu
Suezzew
Suistyc
Suri
Suildfu
Supleof
Sucobre
Social media #Fail
I’m a bit of an agnostic when it comes to social media. I know it’s a massive revolution, a social revolution, but I’ve never understood how you get any significant control over it from a marketing point of view, particularly if you don’t have a sexy or fashionable business.
So unless you can get Stephen Fry or Lady Gaga to take a sudden interest in your materials handling company what chance have you got? There has been some interesting research by Group MSearch which you can find here
I quote:
“The leading companies of the social ecosystem, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, appear to have a minimal role in the purchase pathway at present. Less than 1% of all converters engage with either brand-controlled social media from these properties or promoted/sponsored social ads in the 90 days prior to purchase.”
Less than 1%!
Now to be fair the research does talk about the benefits of engaging with consumers post-purchase through social media – it’s well worth reading. But it still seems to me that you have to be very wary of marketeers and ad people who make big promises about big sales from social media.
Twitter and Facebook may seem shiny and new but they’re basically just a means of facilitating good old social interaction – having a chat with your mates or sounding off on a soap box, which may or may not then filter through to a much larger audience. And who thinks they can control or predict what comes of that?
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Court on Canvas exhibition
Just read about an exhibition ‘Court on Canvas’ at the Barber institute, Birmingham, which is themed around tennis in art. One of the exhibits will be the famous Tennis Girl poster shot by Martin Elliot, who was a photographer I met briefly on a couple of occasions when he worked for Birmingham ad agencies.
Didn’t realise he had died last year. All I really remember about him was bags of enthusiasm and the ability to tell the anecdote of how he shot the world’s bestselling poster as if he was delivering it for the first time. Also remember feeling a little ache of envy when he revealed that the Tennis Girl was his girlfriend at the time.
Windows phony creative concept
From a marketing point of view, Windows Phone 7 is a fascinating case study. It’s a product that has been generally very well reviewed, but is entering a rapidly growing marketing arena that seems to be already occupied by two fully armed and extremely fit gladiators – Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
Will Windows Phone ever get the a thumbs up from the public in this company?
Back in November I wrote about how Microsoft, for all their wealth and resources, were still going to be victims of social media when it came to their phone. There are lots of bods who love to hate Microsoft, many of them in the blogosphere as well as mainstream press. Negative stories spread like wildfire.
Of course one way you can try to counter social media is with traditional media. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s how Microsoft launched their phone with a commercial called ‘Really’.
Personally I was a bit sceptical about this approach. It’s just too easy to concentrate on a negative, which in this case is a questionable one, and then say ‘Ha, ha! But look how much better we are.’
People actually love using their phones like worry beads, and the outtake for many was definitely that the Windows Phone just wasn’t as absorbing or attention grabbing as the competition. We want to be saved from our phones? Really?
Recently in the States a new Windows Phone commercial has been released, and nearly everywhere you see it posted there are comments about how this is the ad Microsoft should have run first time. It’s called ‘What if?’
Now the interesting thing for me as an advertising copywriter is that the first commercial is probably the one you’d be pleased to have done because it at least has some kind of concept in it – let’s blame the strategy on the planning department – and the second commercial is just a straight product sell, albeit very nicely scripted and produced.
But for the majority of people the product as hero is what they like in this case. My feeling is that it’s mainly because the ‘Really’ commercial didn’t really hit the mark. It was an idea that allowed for a lot of amusing cameos but wasn’t built on solid foundations. Never underestimate your audience – they can sniff out a phony concept in seconds.
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Words are crap at their job
Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
I love that line from Hamlet, and it can be delivered in so many different ways, but however you say it, it’s hard not to make it sound dismissive.
Personally I’ve got a love/hate relationship with words. It would be so much better if we could communicate by some kind of mental osmosis. The thing I hate most about words is their lack of precision.
I think that’s one reason I’m so inarticulate. Every time I think of a word when I’m speaking, I start to wonder if it really has any chance of conveying what I mean. The result: I end up sounding as if I’ve had a 1960’s style lobotomy.
I’m much better at writing rather than talking because there’s time to weigh up the merits of each word and construct the sentence just so.
Like a lot of people, I sometimes wonder if animals have some secret telepathic way of communicating which we lost when we became all civilised through language.
It’s language and creativity that makes us different from the dumb critters. And it’s language that make us so fucking complicated, because we’re using such crap, crude tools to express ourselves.
Ever felt misunderstood? No wonder.
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