copywriting

    Be fresh.

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    So I’m reading an article this morning in USA Today featuring interviews with some top hospitality CEOs, and their answers are peppered with language like: “price of entry,” “customer-for-life,” “providing value” and “surprise and delight.” A marko-babble fest.  Not implying these aren’t smart people, they clearly are. What I’m saying is marketing has become filled with terms of art that are nice on the ear but meaningless. 

    Do a Google or Bing search of “whatstheidea+surprise and delight” and if this blog pops up, break out a can of whoop ass. Jargon may be acceptable in meetings but it is the antichrist in external communications. It was copywriting great Walter Weir, I think, who said “if it sounds like copy, it’s good copy.”  Dear old Walter was born in ’06.  The industry has published 10 trillion words copy since then. There is an entire class of ad agencies called “creative hot shops” whose sole reason for being is to break away from Mr. Weir’s premise.

    So what should we do?  Drop the babble.  Invent your own selling premise and selling language. Be fresh. Freshies (Sorry, racing a storm to Whiteface today.) And it is okay to be a little fresh in a non-puritanical sense.  We are at 10 trillion words and counting. There are only so many pairings – as Google will tell you. Peace!

    Fresh.

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    “The hardest thing to realize in fashion is that the future lies in the past.  The second hardest thing is to forget the past.”    Cathy Horyn, NYT 7/5/12

    These words are true for branding and advertising as well. Creative ideas that break through must be new and unique. Retreads are boring.  Yet, it’s important for ideas to offer some attendant context. It’s easier to remember numbers in patterns; the same is true for ideas.  That’s why alliterations are common idea conventions. ZDNet’s original strategy “content, commerce and community,” for instance.

    How does one explain the Higgs boson (creating matter out of nothing) without some context?  Not very easily. Same thing with string theory.  These are some of the world’s most heady concepts. They need context.  Conversely, how do you give life to a new lemonade that is less sweet, or a cookie dough that is more natural?  As Cathy Horyn suggests “forget the past.”  Find context for selling premise (create bias toward purchase) then be fresh. Really fresh. Uncomfortably fresh.

    Either Walter Weir or John Caples (godfathers of copywriting) once said “good copy sounds like copy.”  That was then.  Seventeen billion words of copy ago. Today fresh wins the day.  Peace.  

    Toxic Words in Copy.

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    toxic

    If you were to do a Google search of all the copy written by professional copywriters, freelancers, content marketing peeps and business owners – and I mean all the copy, from websites to brochures, to press releases, etc. – I bet there would be about 40 benefit/feature words that would make up 10% of the entire count. Words like “innovative,” “best,” “superior service,” “new” and “% off.” These words as toxic. Overused and over promised, they tend to fall on deaf consumer ears. They inure consumers to other important copy that actually tell a story; the good words that convey a sense of identity and differentiation.

    Play copy editor for a moment. Read you work, circle the words that sounds like copy — that sound like common promise – and remove them.  See what you have. Toxic words when used in a story are more palatable. But in copy or selling – they shut down our brains. This is why storytelling or, as Co:Collective’s Ty Montague puts it, “story doing” is the haps these days.

    Just as playing a favorite song too many times or eating too much strawberry shortcake in one sitting can burn a person out, use of toxic copy words must be carefully watched. Peace.

     

    Tossing Copy Poems.

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    I was just listening to a radio commercial for lawn mulch.  The main idea the commercial was that a person got a delivery containing nails and other foreign thingies. A start. 

    But then two copywriting issues.  One was the line “all bark no bite” which seemed to play to the aforementioned purity point. And another tagline sounding ditty: “You can see the difference.” Or something to that effect.

    First, I have no idea who the company was, so the commercial failed immediately. No brand or name recognition. As mentioned, the heart of the ad was the offer of clean mulch — a problem I didn’t know existed. But at least it’s a believable problem. As for “all bark no bite” it sounds fun and tips its hat to the strategy, yet what does bite refer to? And lastly, the idea of mulch for which “you can see the difference” is silly. A waste of words. All mulch looks the same. Colors may differ but that’s it.

    This is an example of a copywriter without any sales skill. Perhaps a radio station copywriter doing spots by the pound. Tossing out copy poems.

    Ask yourself what’s the idea?  Build a story around the idea. Prove the story claim. Then get credit for the idea by repeating your name a few times. And a few more times.

    Peace.