There have always been niche markets for bizarre things. Believe it or not, some people want to buy wolf urine. Apparently it’s good for warding off deer. Which is why it’s for sale on Amazon. And there are willing buyers for practically everything offered on eBay. One of its customers bought a man’s entire life […]
If you haven’t worked directly with a copywriter before, or would like a better experience the next time you do, you should find the following advice helpful. I just turned down a job. I hated having to do it. My prospective client, an entrepreneur launching a start-up, was a nice enough chap. But his business […]
Wasn’t that a brilliant, inventive show Danny Boyle put on for the Olympics? Beijing’s opening ceremony was a tough act to follow in terms of spectacle. And Boyle had a relatively modest budget of £27 million. So he needed to make his money work hard to create a memorable show. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Unless […]
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. […]
The past few weeks, I’ve been working in The Tea Building, the former Lipton Tea warehouse, in Shoreditch, E1, an interesting, edgy area: a mixture of dilapidation and gentrification. There are quite a few new businesses here, but no central gathering place where everyone goes to shop and eat. So the retailers in the Box […]
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 […]
An error marketers sometimes make when judging creative work. The other day an agency asked me to do something odd. They wanted me to rewrite the endline of a new campaign that was at concept stage. It was strange because I reckoned the existing one was very good. So did they. Unfortunately their client didn’t. […]
By visiting this site you agree to the use of cookies that make for a better site experience.
Accept settingsWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds: