What’s the single most useful word for a copywriter? Free? You? And? Find out which gets my vote….
It’s not everyday you’re able to chat to a legend of the direct marketing world… But on the day I recorded this second episode of The All Good Copy Podcast, that’s exactly what I did. Brian Kurtz has been in the game for nearly 40 years and has pretty much seen it all. He’s worked with almost every recognised name in the US marketing scene and counts the likes of Jay Abraham and Clayton Makepeace…
It’s the early 1900s. You’re in Paris. Specifically, you’re in Gertrude Stein’s home at 27 Rue de Fleurus. On the walls surrounding you are hung what will become some of the most important works of art ever to have existed. But that’s all to come. Right now, the talk around you concerns two specific artists. Both have pictures hanging on Gertrude’s walls… Both are considered geniuses… And both are pushing the boundaries of art to…
“All my experience says that for a great many products, long copy sells more than short…” Those are the words of David Ogilvy, in Ogilvy on Advertising. He was a pretty experienced guy when it came to copywriting… Did a few good things, apparently. Interestingly, Ogilvy went on to suggest one of the reasons behind this idea is “advertisements with long copy convey the impression that you have something important to say, whether people read the copy…
When we talk about disruption, we usually think of that initial moment when we aim to grab someone’s attention. We think about an intriguing subject line… A bold and shocking headline. Or perhaps a controversial opening paragraph. We know by saying something weird or wonderful in that opening gambit – or even something strange and awful – we stand a good chance of being noticed. But as we work our way through the copy, we…
I was recently in the hot seat for a monthly live Twitter event organised by ProCopywriters called #ProCopyChat. It’s basically an hour where the guest fields questions about copy. It was pretty intense with chatter flying all over the shop, but it was also a lot of fun. In case you didn’t get to catch the event live, or wanted to review my answers all in one place, I thought it would be a good…
Something a little different this week… Rather than sharing some insight with you here in this article, we’re going to delve inside my brand new book – The Art of the Click – and quarry some insight from there. You see, my publisher has set up a cool little thing were you can access and read a sample chapter of the book. The chapter I’ve made available is a chapter that delves into the importance of ideas.…
I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who said it… “If you can’t explain your story to a fourteen-year-old in one sentence, you’ve got a problem with your story.” Something like that. Possibly. And hell, if he didn’t say it, he should have. It sounds like something he’d say. Anyway, it’s a useful little thought. Indeed, I had it in the back of my mind all through my years studying creative writing and it served me…
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…
Hello! I recorded a quick video message while I took Pablo for his morning walk. You can watch the video here: Meanwhile, I also wanted to share a link to a piece I wrote about creative anxiety that has resonated with a lot of people. You can read it here: Don’t let anxiety get in the way of your own creativity. The piece is all about the feeling a lot of people get -…