Aaaarrrggghhh. I’m rubbish. Everyone is better than me. Why do I even bother? This is terrible. WAIT. STOP. Read this…
This will upset some copywriters. it will cause other copywriters joy. Find out which category you’re in…
I have a confession. Each night, around nine o’clock, my fiancée and I sit down and turn on the television. What we watch might shock you. You see, typically, we don’t watch a lot of television. I’m usually reading. At the moment I’m being very cultured reading Walter Isaacson’s obscenely heavy biography of Leonardo Da Vinci. If Ruth isn’t reading, she’ll be listing to a documentary podcast or playbacks of counselling sessions. If our dog…
At this time of year, you tend to see every man and his dog laying down their predictions for the year… I find the exercise a bit ‘meh’, to be honest. Predicting how the world will change is a real fool’s errand. Don’t get me wrong… Keeping an eye on how general trends are shifting is worth doing and can help influence your copy to make sure it remains relevant. But trying to predict specific…
A small gift for you this week… You see, I’ve been doing a little ‘work’ on the website recently in an attempt to attract some new writers to AllGoodCopy.com. But don’t worry: you’ll be seeing the benefits soon. Indeed, though it’s not officially launched yet, there’s some much cleaner and better organised design coming your way soon… And I’ll soon be telling you about a whole new feature where you’ll receive additional weekly insight from…
One thing that struck me recently is how confused some people are about the kind of copywriting I do. You see I recently sponsored the ProCopywriters Conference in London (#CopyCon17). It was an interesting day, happily spent in the company of 200 or so professional copywriters. You may well have been one of them. If so, you may have even seen me doing my best impersonation of a professional conference attendee, loitering weirdly in the…
Hurrah! I’ve finally got a chance to relax and take the time to say hello. More than that, I want to share some thoughts that I’ve been having since I attended a writing retreat in France last month. But before I do anything… I should apologise: I’ve been out of action for a little while. Sadly I had some bad news on a personal front, which meant I haven’t really had chance to think much…
“Sell, or else,” pronounced legendary ad man, David Ogilvy many a decade ago. And, ever since, this unflinching commandment has been passed down from copywriter to copywriter. It’s the great leveller; the simple reminder that whatever the media, your aim remains the same: you sell, my boy, you sell if it’s the last thing you do. But is it the right aim? Or rather, is it the right message? Is the perceived wisdom of ‘a…
Jonah Peretti – the ad-man-cum-tech-geek behind BuzzFeed – and his team of highly intelligent creatives are in the process of re-imagining online advertising as we know it. Read this recent article in New York Magazine and you’ll see what I mean. I found it equal parts inspiring and scary. Sadly, the frighteningly clever mixture of algorithms and hyper-irony at the heart of their revolution will likely leave most traditional marketers and copywriters (myself included) shivering in a…