The shocking truth about copywriters, content marketers and exclamation marks!
Good heavens! Copywriters turn out to be big fat liars! My newsletter yesterday was on the (thorny) subject of exclamation marks. I tested, as I always do, two subject lines: [A] OMG!!! This month’s newsletter!!! versus [B] This month’s newsletter I had …
Puzzled by infographics? Calculate their true value here
Ah, infographics, doncha just love ’em? All those pixels – all that effort. So little content. Here is my simple method for calculating the value of the next infographic that crosses your transom. Method Step 1 Calculate the area of infographic in …
Annals of really crap email marketing #21,875
Oh, Lordy, where shall we start with this one? The hopeless headline? The passive voice? The grammar meltdown? The exclamation mark? For me it’s not even the two different misspellings of special. Or the use of Comic Sans. Can you spot it? …
The 7 telltale signs you’re reading “zombie copy”
She stands, screaming. Her feet refuse to move. She is rooted to the spot with terror. Slowly, inevitably, the bloody, walking corpse approaches. Arms outstretched, snarling, it reaches for her. It is hungry. Actually, that’s a metaphor. It’s not going to eat …
When car salesmen attack – a very funny video
Why you should never cross your star salesman … This is an ad from the days when everything was broadcast live. Oh, and listen out for the camera crew laughing at the end. Thanks to my friend and guru Drayton Bird for …
The true meaning of “Baby on Board”
What is it with those little yellow squares new parents stick to their rear windscreens? Baby on board. Cute little person on board. Cheeky monkey on board. At a copywriter’s gathering this morning we got to discussing this twinky little sign. Clearly …
A sales blunder so huge it still makes me sweat 25 years later
I was 26, a fledgling marketeer with a research publisher. And I was about to commit a sales crime so horrible my clients would have left the building immediately if they’d known what was coming. Frankfurt Messe is the big exhibition space …
When Beavis and Butthead wrote an ad…
Last time I checked, we were living in 2013, not 1973. Yet out there in the world of dimwitted company management and their complaisant and complacent copywriters, this sort of crass “advertising” is still perpetuated. Beavis: “Racking. You know, like ‘rack’. Hu-huh-uh-huh-hu-hu-hu-uh-huh. …
It’s a pink bra. It’s on an ad for hearing aids. Why? #FAIL
I am at a loss for words at the staggering ineptitude, sexism and downright laziness of this ad for a hearing instrument company. (We will leave, for now, the egregious use of “instrument” for “aid”.) Do they imagine women will see a …
Wireless bras? Er, not sure this is meant for me…
The subject line said New underwear range – buy 2 get 1 free. Somehow, though, I don’t think I am in the target demographic. To my female readers: where do you stand on the phrase “Lady lumps”? …
I guess it’s obvious where you stick this…
From the ‘Does what it says on the tin’ school of product naming. From my cousin Shmuel Bollen (@Shmuelb). …
The Stupid Mistake That Made Me a Better Copywriter
Like Mary Poppins, many copywriting ‘experts’ are practically perfect in every way. Well, not this one. Over the years I have made some honking great mistakes. But I have, I hope, learned from them. Here is one of my top five (believe …
“Shower toilet?” Really?
This is currently my least favourite ad EVER. The copy (what there is of it) is woeful. The image incomprehensible. The typography a disgrace. The little heart-shaped bottom creepy. …
Annals of REALLY bad email marketing #730,873
The entire content of an email I just received. Note the non-ironic company name. …
What copywriter wrote this?
Today’s Grand Prize – £50 off Breakthrough Copywriting if you can correctly guess what the heck this sign in our local Marks & Spencer was referring to. …
Murdered. In public. The English language.
[music] screeching violins from Psycho. [Close-up] English language falls to floor screaming as the dagger of bad grammar, punctuation, spelling and just about everything else plunges again and again into its heaving chest. …
For the woman who has everything. Almost.
Yes. I know this would make my wife feel special. …
Terrible punctuation. And such large portions.
We can’t punctuate and we’re proud of it. Proud, d’ya hear! …
Four-wheel drive car. No-wheel drive copywriter.
Leaving aside the worst typography I have ever seen in a press ad (ranged right, reversed-out, white all caps) this is an egregious example of the misplaced apostrophe. Forget greengrocers, what about global brand managers? …
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