Want to watch an entertaining video? It’s an infomercial for Chatbooks. I had nothing to do with it; US agency Harmon Brothers made the ad. They claim it’s had 75 million views and 467,000 shares. The version I saw on YouTube had only 16 million views. Even so, that’s a figure you’d expect of a […]
When you’re trying to solve a problem, do you just work on it flat out, come up with a solution, then move on to your next challenge? Probably not if you’ve got time. If you’re not under pressure to crack it, you’ll think about it a bit. Then put it to one side while you […]
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 […]
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 […]
What I learned judging copy at D&AD 2012 – plus some tips if you’re entering next year. If you’re a copywriter, art director or designer, you know that it’s easier to criticise than it is to create. I was reminded of that back in April when, instead of creating, I spent a day in the […]
Over the past few decades, I’ve noticed a lot of the products, services and offers I write about have become have become increasingly complicated. Take, for example, the average smartphone. If you’re looking to buy one, you need to consider all sorts of things, like speed, screen size, camera and which network tariff to get. […]
You’ve probably heard it a million times: “No one reads long copy.” But is it true? Copy is text. People read long text all the time, in the form of news articles and blog posts – like the one you’re reading now. And they read it because it’s interesting (to them at least). So maybe […]
The UK bookseller Waterstones [sic] has been doing some odd things lately. Last week, much to the horror of grammarians, the store announced it was dropping its apostrophe. This is not the first instance of the company’s strange behaviour though. Just before Christmas I spotted one of its posters, shown on the left. So, what’s […]
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