David Griner of Adweek's blog Adfreak put an interesting list together of 40 agencies with strange names. Of course, I'm thrilled to see Bonehook, the company I started two years ago, on the list at #38 and humbled to be included along with some truly great shops like Taxi, Big Spaceship, Naked, Droga5, Creature, Wexley School for Girls, David & Goliath, Mother, The Barbarian Group, 72andsunny and Strawberry …
Our Cooks Don’t Make Nuggets, They Just Deep Fry Them
Popcorn Chicken. Now there's an invention. "Our cooks don't make nuggets, they make Popcorn Chicken. Real 100% off the bone premium breast meat." Does KFC really have the credibility needed to make a quality claim? …
Continue Reading about Our Cooks Don’t Make Nuggets, They Just Deep Fry Them →
Note To Self And A Reminder To Copywriters Everywhere: Dust Off That Unfinished Manuscript
Nate Hopper at The Awl has put together a nice piece on authors who were once copywriters. "We keep you clean in Muscatine," was one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's better lines for a steam cleaner in Iowa. Salman Rushdie wrote, "Look into the Mirror tomorrow—you'll like what you see," for The Daily Mirror. Dorothy Sayers wrote "Come on Colman's, light my fire"and helped to create the Mustard Club—one of the …
Advertising Rock Stars, A.K.A. Copywriters
The Idea Writers by Creativity editor Teressa Iezzi is a celebration of the copywriter's role advertising and popular culture. In her chapter "Digital Is Not A Channel" Iezzi discusses how the post-digital copywriter is a creator of ideas, a master of craft, a conversationalist and more. Describing how much more complex the job is today is a central current in her book. At one point she quotes Guy Barnett of The …
Continue Reading about Advertising Rock Stars, A.K.A. Copywriters →
One Word After The Other
Author and copywriter Ty Hutchinson, is featuring a guest post on his blog by mystery writer Chris Knopf, who is also a copywriter and CEO Mintz & Hoke. Asked if being a copywriter is an advantage to the fiction writer, Knopf replies: The greatest challenge every writer faces is the blank page. Something has to get you to start writing stuff down. This can be extremely daunting if your only motivation is …
David Droga Defends The Words, And The Wordsmiths
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Chairman of Droga5, David Droga, offers a spirited defense of the art of copywriting: Today, the glamour of the "Mad Men"-era is long gone, but great copywriting is still very much a core part of the gig. We live in an age of wild media clutter, and big ideas are more difficult to communicate than ever before. Large chunks of the public discourse are played out in 140-character …
Continue Reading about David Droga Defends The Words, And The Wordsmiths →
Stop Walking On Eggshells
In a case of bad timing, Backcountry.com sent this email solicitation yesterday--a day when tornadoes ravaged communities in Alabama: Today, the online retailer is sorry and busy backpedaling. Dear (insert customer's name), We messed up. Yesterday, as the people of Alabama dealt with the devastating aftermath of an intensely damaging and life-taking tornado, we neglected to put a stop to the …
Dropbox Is Textbook: Great Product, Spot On Brand Identity And An Awesome Rewards Program
Dropbox is growing like crazy--they went from 4 million to 25 million members in just over one year--because the cloud-based storage company provides exactly what people need, and they do it in a no-nonsense manner that people relate to and appreciate. According to Fast Company, Dropbox isn't interested in demonstrating the brilliant and endless potential of the cloud, unlike most of its competitors, which are …
