Are you looking for the grandfather clock in the foyer? Not as cuckoo as it may sound… If you want your product, service, or yourself to stand out, it’s about finding and highlighting the one unique feature, the bit of colour, the small, seemingly irrelevant detail that makes something truly special. (Like spotting the grandfather […]
The NYT challenged both writer Curtis Sittenfeld and ChatGPT to create a “beach read” to see which one was better. Readers voted on the short story prompts. They requested beach reads about naps and redemption and tattoos gone wrong; puppies and sharks and secrets and white linen caftans; margaritas and roller coasters and mosquitoes; yearning […]
Last week, I won a bullet-writing* competition. So what, you may say? Fair enough. Beating out a bunch of very talented copywriters… winning an award from copy chief Kevin Rogers and Australia’s best copywriter, David Throssell… or just getting the right people on the hook for your offer… It Isn’t […]
6 Ways To Use Email To Move Near-Expired Food Can you use emails to sell near-expiry food in a way that doesn’t downgrade your brand? Add 6 simple types of messaging to your promotional emails to start selling almost-expired goods like hotcakes. In the past, businesses like yours have thrown away food […]
8 Ways To Impress in SMS Here are a few thoughts on dipping into SMS marketing as an email copywriter. The first shocker: you get 160 characters to use in a message, excluding the all-important opt-out terms. So in reality, you have 139 characters to personalise your message, clearly convey your point, and encourage […]
Did you know that our decisions are made by our “lizard brain” or “old brain”, a brain that doesn’t even understand words? Some people call the old brain the first brain, because it appeared first – before we grew a middle brain and new brain. The old brain is the first to develop in utero. […]
You probably know the phrase “Pigs Might Fly” or “When Pigs Fly”. Today I discovered that the world of sarky disbelief is rife with toothy chickens, mustachioed frogs, and coughing cows. We can trace the phrase “Pigs Might Fly”back to the 17th century when mutton was mutton and pigs few “in the air with their […]
The very first author whose name we have on record was a woman. And she’s been compared to Shakespeare. Her name was Enheduanna (?????) and she lived from 2285 to 2250 BCE. Enheduanna was installed as High Priestess of Ur (now in Iraq) by her empire-building father Sargon 1, King of Akkad. So she was […]
Mars once offered a reward of 2 million dark chocolate M&M’s for the return of the recently stolen painting “The Scream”. The offer was tied to the launch of an 2006 ad campaign for Dark M&M’s. Mars added a rather terrifying red M&M playing hopscotch in their version of “The Scream” As the slogan says […]
Just before a firing squad executed him, Gary Gilmore was asked if he had any last words. “Let’s do it,” he said. Swoosh to Dan Wieden, the founder of Wieden + Kennedy agency. Wieden told Dezeen Magazine how he picked the “Just do it” slogan: “The reason I did that one was funny because I […]
Back in 2003, Plymouth University students received £2,000 from the Arts Council to give six monkeys one computer for a month. After six months, the Shakespeare monkeys had failed to produce a single word of English, broken the computer and used the keyboard as a lavatory. They pressed a lot of S’s,” researcher Mike Phillips […]
Milkshake Duck – The phrase so famous you never heard of it. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary has awarded “milkshake duck” its 2017 word of the year. On June 12, 2016, Australian cartoonist Ben Ward tweeted it to describe our tendency to foist instant celebrity on some person and its inevitable backlash. In Ward’s tweet, the cuddly duck is accused […]
Called someone a smart aleck lately? Well, you just compared them to a 19th-century pimp. Turns out that Smart Aleck was a real person – and not one you’d like to meet down a dark alley. Or any kind of alley. Missouri professor Gerald Cohen writes that the term is derived from a real-life person. Alexander Hoag was […]
Here are some gems for a real world marketing directory. Content calendar What we’ll do if everything works perfectly, you pay on time and nobody has a day off. Content. Lorem ipsum Polyfilla to anyone except the harmless drudge who has to write it. Best Practice. What everyone else pretends to do. Or, […]
A Chinese restaurant has gotten in trouble for offering discounts based on bra size. The Qianjiang Evening Post reports local complaints about the above poster for the Trendy Shrimp restaurant. One complaint said it was “vulgar advertising” and “discriminatory towards women”. The posters have already been removed. Trendy Shrimp general manager Lan Shenggang tells it straight […]
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