Is your brand story this good?

Isn’t there a lot of talk about storytelling these days? Marketing gurus stress its importance. Apparently, 80% of UK adults want brands to tell stories as part of their marketing. There are now annual surveys of the Best Storytelling Brands. And a recent forecast on Campaign Live, The Year Ahead in Creativity, predicted that, once […]

Less is more?

When copywriters write headlines, endlines and slogans, we normally try to keep them brief. Our thinking is that short lines are more likely to grab the reader’s attention than long ones. And like a small snack, short copy is easier to digest than a mouthful of words. Short is simple. Less is more. That’s why […]

Why Maths Men need Mad Men

Data and technology help you reach your audience. But are they enough to convert them? Google knows you’re reading this. Amazon is about to recommend the boxed set of Mad Men, the final season, to you. And Facebook has decided the name of the child you’re having next year (just kidding on that one). Isn’t […]

How to avoid a £9 million copy mistake

What is the letter s worth? About £9 million according to recent news. That’s how much Companies House has to pay out to settle a law suit. Apparently the government agency mistook Taylor and Sons, a previously financially-sound, 124-year-old Cardiff company, for Taylor and Son, a firm that ceased to trade six years ago. The […]

How well do you know your audience?

As good marketers and their agencies know, there are two essential bits of information copywriters need before starting work: 1.        A description of the people we’re selling to (your audience or market) 2.        What needs to be said to those people (your proposition) Pretty basic, you say? Well you’d be surprised by a lot of […]

Why can’t B2B be more like B2C?

Think of a consumer ad campaign, current or past, that you like or maybe even love. Easy, isn’t it? Now think of a business-to-business one you have similar positive feelings about. That’s harder, wouldn’t you say? Apart from IBM campaigns over the years, there are few b2b brands that have made an impression on me. […]

How to give your direct mail piece a fighting chance

There’s so much talk about digital these days, you might think traditional (paper) direct mail just crawled away into a corner and died. But, like radio after TV came along, paper DM is still here. If my letterbox and workload are anything to go by, there’s still plenty of DM landing on Britain’s doormats. I […]

Four things marketers can do to make their lives easier

Ever heard of Hutchison Whampoa? It’s not the catchiest name for a brand. Especially for one that arrived late in the UK mobile phone market. So when the Hutchison Whampoa company launched a new mobile brand here, they had the good sense not to use their name. They knew they needed to stand out from […]