Website Copywriter Blog 2010
6 October 2010
Whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy
The site above (just add a .com to the end) is quite amusing. Essentially it's about using random words or phrases from one list and then putting random words or phrases from another list next to them.
The result is pure marketing speak, or as they put it: 'How to sound like a social media expert'. The generated lines nevertheless kind of make sense - or at least could be slipped into a PowerPoint presentation without raising too many eyebrows.
As a website copywriter, I'm sad to say this nonsense is all too prevalent. In fact it's been around in different forms for many years. Other forms could include 'How to sound like a direct marketing expert', 'How to be a PR professional' or even simply 'How to be an expert seller of creative work'.
In fact one of the best things, I find, about website copywriting is when I do search engine optimisation copywriting. Because the results - or lack of them - are all there to see a few months down the line, when you're either on near the top of Google for your chosen keyword or you're not.
And if you're not, no amount of marketing doublespeak is going to let you off the hook.
5 October 2010
How to upset almost everyone, including your own supporters and sponsors
There's been a lot of furore over a video released last week by environmental group 10:10.
It shows people, including schoolchildren, who aren't convinced by their environmental message getting blown up - very graphically.
That one sentence says it all.
What is staggering is that of the hundreds and hundreds of people involved, including people such as Richard Curtis and actress Gillian Anderson, no-one seemed to have grasped the simple message they're giving off. People who don't agree with us get blown up.
You can argue about the humour or otherwise of exploding people in any context. You can argue whether it encourages extremists to do something similar.
What you can't argue with is their fundamental attitude that this film so vividly displays - extreme arrogance and intolerance at the very least - towards anyone disagreeing with their message.
Did no-one actually stop for one moment to think about that for one moment? Or they were all so caught up in their self-righteousness and excitement of working with celebrities and doing something 'edgy' that what they were actually saying got overlooked?
As a copywriter, I have seen 'group think' in action. A forceful person in a position of authority can put forward an idea and receive universal acceptance from people who in other circumstances would laugh it out of sight immediately.
But in advertising agencies, there are checks and balances, especially when it comes to making a commercial, which a video like this essentially is.
For a start there's the planner, thinking about what needs to be said as a strategy. There's the account handler, talking to the client and finding out their wishes and needs. There's the brief, written by the account handler in consultation with the planner (and the client, in many agencies). There may also be the market researcher, who has talked to the public to find out what they want and what the right message is for them.
There's the creative team, who bounce ideas off each other, trying to create the best, most relevant concepts.
And there's the creative director, ensuring that any presented idea meets the brief.
Finally, it's back to the client. And the client's colleagues. And the client's boss. And the boss's boss. And maybe the market research people again.
Until finally, the commercial gets the go-ahead. At which point the film director will also have his or her input. And then the whole approval process will be gone through again.
Finally, the ad is released.
Nearly all commercials work well to some extent; that is they have a positive effect on sales. Of course, many are uninspiring, others irritating. Very occasionally they can give a misleading impression.
But to get it so utterly, utterly wrong as 10:10 has done, takes a real mixture of arrogance, self-righteousness, carelessness, narcissism and amateurishness.
Next time (if there is a next time, as sponsors are rapidly ditching 10:10) they should get a proper advertising agency to do it.
28 May 2010
Website copywriting for another whisky distillery
Twelve years after doing my first whisky website, Edradour, I've just finished writing another one. Another large job of 30 - 40 pages. You can see it at the Bowmore website
Here's hoping that it lasts as long as the Edradour one (see below).
February 2010
12 years and counting - a business website record?
One of the first website projects I wrote as a freelance copywriter, around 12 years ago, was for Edradour, which has the distinction of being the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland.
I was asked to write some little stories for the website, following the theme of 'Enjoy life's small victories". This I did, writing half a dozen short stories, around golf, chess, shooting, fishing, skimming stones and toy soldiers.
Each of these stories comes up at random when you enter the URL: www.edradour.com By refreshing the page, you can read more of the introductory stories if you want to. Otherwise you just click through to the main website.
I also wrote the content for the main site. Most of it has gone or changed over the years (and Edradour has swapped digital agencies at least once during that time). But 12 years on, those introductory stories still remain. I can't think of any other business website which has remained as constant in the way it presents itself.
A bit like one of those 'control' letters or ads for direct response communications that continues to out-pull all the new routes that are tried, they remain unchanging, yet effective as ever. For such a transient and fast-changing medium as the web, it's rather reassuring.