Craig | Ashley | Russell

Author: Me

  • The Secret to Writing Great Copy…

    … is not using typographical tricks like placing an ellipsis at the end of a headline to “lure” the reader in.

    I mention this because I have just received another marketing/spam email offering me the opportunity to learn the ‘Top Tips’ of a master sales copywriter. I’ve already learned the craft of copywriting from some of the legends of the industry; writers who can take the smallest or most seemingly insignificant benefit of a product or service and create a big idea to entertain and persuade their audience to change their behaviour. No easy task.

    In the email I received there are at least another 30 “Top Tips” that the so called expert copywriter is willing to teach ordinary people. (I’ve never meet an ordinary human especially as there are 6 billion unique models running around the planet).

    Let’s be very clear; the best copywriters in the world work for the best advertising agencies in the world. They do not write spam emails about how to write spam emails under the guise of Internet marketing.

    So here is my three top tips for spotting scam copy online or in an email;

    1. It’s very, very, very long – You’re halfway through it before you have any idea what it’s about except you’re promised that your salary or penis will be much larger for little cost and/or effort just by clicking a link.
    2. It’s too good to be true – turn your annual salary into your monthly, weekly or daily salary. Quadruple your profits overnight. But you only get to the ‘offer’ after reading a type of prose which is a written is a style that is half evangelical and half brain washing.
    3. It’s full of praise – Typically the praise is for a person or system that the sender is trying to convince you to use.

    What I really hate about this kind of Internet marketing is that it preys on the naive, gullible, simple or desperate. And for this reason alone I will do my best to educate people as to the different types of deplorable tricks that the majority of Internet marketers use.

  • Truth told not so well

    In late April of this year two young creatives from the advertising agency George Patterson/Y&R created the attached video. It’s all very funny. Their premise is that by taking an ordinary item on eBay and reselling that item on eBay but by adding ‘creativity’ they can increase profits.

    So that’s what their little video proves. But we’re also asked to suspend reality because there is no way in Hell that any of the statements made in their eBay ad could be applied or translated in any way whatsoever to a real world product. And not get fined by the relative governing authorities or ridiculed by the public. Contrary to the belief of some PR hacks, controversy does NOT create cash.

    Rather then demonstrating how ‘creativity’ can help sell, I think all this exercise does is to further portray advertising as a profession based on telling falsehoods; that we lie for a living. Real advertising is so much more and it’s a pity that these two kids, and their bosses at what was once the largest agency in the country, think lying is what advertising is all about.

    McCann-Erickson have a great corporate motto which I have always tried to live up to in my advertising days; truth told well.

  • Product review

    This is a review I posted of a product on the manufacturer’s website. Will be interesting to see if they post it.Worst Product Ever

  • Australian advertising creativity gets sponsored into the 21st century

    Google’s creative push sees it become AWARD School’s main sponsor

    With the new sponsorship arrangement between AWARD and Google there is a high probablilit that future copywriters and art directors will be taught beyond the full page ad or 60 sec TVC.

    For many years these formats have been the holy grail of a creatives’ career. The effectiveness as a marketing tool however has been sliding for almost the same time.

  • New Dyson Product Blows

    I wish I could take credit for that headline but I’m paraphrasing a couple of sub-editors from different print and online media outlets.

    In King George’s diary on July 4th 1776 he wrote, “Nothing important happened today”. Considering it took weeks or months for news from the colonies to arrive in London he was of course unaware that the American colonists had revolted against English rule and were in the process of claiming independence from his reign.

    Perhaps the same could be written for 13/14th October 2009 because it appears that the biggest story of the day was that a bloke who makes vaccum cleaners is now making fans.

    I woke up to this ‘breaking news’ as the lead story on SMH.com and News.com.au. It stayed the feature story for most of the day. Are you kidding me? It’s a product story. It deserves no more pixels than, well, it deserves no pixels. Are editors so stuck for content that press releases for gadgets now count as news.

    And now as I wind down for the evening, Fast Company is featuring the product on their homepage. I don’t know who Sir James is paying for this PR hackery but as a news story it sux. And every editor and sub-editor who has contributed to this spin needs to have a rethink about their career and responsibility to their readers.

    So very, very sad.

  • Kate Miller Heidke on Social Media

  • Behind the scenes with Stephen Colbert. And some dude with big ears.

    So some back story. In June 09 Stephen Colbert packed up his late night political satire show, Colbert Nation,  and took it on the road to Camp Victory, Iraq. It was brilliant. Just 4 eps but each one brilliant. On night one he interviews General Raymond Odierno (Commanding General, Multi-National Force—Iraq). Watch it here from Comedy Channel. Then watch the video below. And wait to the end to see what Stephen does…

  • Very rubbery figures from ANZ

    In the first week of each month the ANZ Job Advertisements report is presented to the media as if it is some kind of key indicator (and predictor) of the health of the Australian economy. Two things have always struck me about this monthly event;

    1. Each and every month the news outlets jump on this data, and
    2. It is complete rubbish.

    Let me explain. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with the recruitment industry knows that for numerous reasons some ads just aren’t real. They do not exist. These jobs never have existed and never will. They are creative figments of the recruiter to lure candidates into their databases. Bait to create the illusion of a talent pool to be used to further entice companies into the client list.

    This is not all jobs put forward by recruiters of course but let us do some conservative assuming…

    There are in this country around 10,000 recruitment consultants. Now let’s assume that just 50% of these place a bait ad every second month (50% of the time). That’s 2,500 jobs every month that never, ever existed except inside the mind of a recruiter.

    Is that a big deal? 2,500 is surely not going to make any impact. Wrong. The September 2009 report had a total of 10,863 ads. That means the conservative 2,500 extra ads calculated here accounts for an error of about 25%.

    I have more faith in astrology as an economic predictor than the ANZ Job Advertisement report.

    For many years Reuters, one of the finest media outlets in the world, didn’t bother to even report the fiction that is the ANZ JAR.  But the Australian news media is so devoid of original thinking that they pounce on these rubbery figures and say, ‘thank you, thank you ANZ PR hack for not making me have to think today.’

  • The Best of YouTube. By YouTube.

  • What’s Your TweetRate?

    I think a new metric needs to be added to the social media mix. Actually a slew of new metrics to better understand your own tweet/ing habbits.

    Your +TweetRate is the number of tweets you average (create) in a 24 hour period. Easy to calculate and easy to compare account v account.

    Next is your -TweetRate. This is the number of tweets you are receiving from the people you follow in a 24 hour period. Again, easy to calculate. I hope some geek is writing an API for this right now!

    Lastly, and most importantly, your =TweetRate. This is the number of tweets in a 24 hour period that you have read and, if appropriate, clicked on the link and read the contents of that link.

    All these metrics provide fascinating insight for the individual twiterer so you can easily delete followees who fill your timeline with “having coffee”, “need beer”, or “my boss is a <insert expletive here>”

    My rationale for wanting to clean the timeline is simple; it’s easy to miss the gold when the stream is full of shit.

    But until some geek or nerd creates the above tools it’s a manual chore that most people haven’t the time for and subsequently great tweets get lost. Cleaning your timeline may even mean unfollowing friends or colleagues who ‘tweet because they can’.

    In my timeline, these are the first to go.