One of my mentors, the American entrepreneur and writer Mark Ford, once taught me a simple way to improve problematic headlines using ‘the Four Us’. I’ve written about the idea many times before, but today I thought I’d put it to the test LIVE. Or rather, as I write this article. Why not, eh? Indeed, I’m […]
Tag Archives: Michael Masterson
Ideas are irritating. Sometimes they’re right there in your face, shouting at you like an arrogant teenage kid who thinks they know best… Other times they’re nowhere to be seen, like your broke mate Steve who’s always in the toilet when it’s his round at the bar. I’ll tell you what… From now on, let’s […]
It was about four years ago… Michael Masterson flew into London to meet with us young copywriters to teach us a thing or two. He actually taught me a fair bit, but one thing stuck above all else. Ironic really, because that one thing was his concept of ‘the power of one’! Seriously though, whether […]
Legend has it that direct marketing giants Bill Bonner and Mark Ford sat down to analyse all the direct mail promotions they’d written, all those that had worked and all those that had flopped. They considered what fundamental factors the successes shared. They identified what was missing from the failures. And then they put it all together. […]
Like any good copywriter, I don’t just write copy… In fact, in my experience I’ve found that all the most successful copywriters and ad men I’ve met and trained also write some form of ‘non-copy’ too. Mark Ford (Michael Masterson) and Nick Laight are poets, for example… Dave Fedash writes film scripts… Bill Bonner has published […]