From the category archives:

Message Development Development

Ad Writing: Sweeter Words & Sharper Verbs

12.01.2009 Message Development Development

Yesterday, I shared a script I wrote that, basically, said:
Les Bourgeois is a great place to spend time with friends in a fantastic atmosphere! Experience the Les Bourgeois experience at a place that’s second-to-none! For all your get-together needs, try us.
Only … I didn’t write that.
But I’ve read and heard the equivalent about a bazillion [...]

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No Greater Gift: Understanding Time vs. Money

11.30.2009 Civics' Lessons

Whooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.
We met in 1993. In 2000, I stood up at his wedding.
Before we could sit down again, life happened.
Sound familiar?

Nearly 10 years, 250 miles and 3.3 kids later, he’s here visiting.
When you get a bit older, time tugs a little harder in the war against money.
They’re two sides of the same coin, you know?
Time and [...]

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Customers: Relational, Transactional, Social

11.24.2009 Marketing

As we peer out over the edge of the holiday season, in addition to readying ourselves for turkey and football and games, we’re thinking an awful lot about how our business, clients and customers will fare financially.
We’re also thinking about social media, or more correctly, practical applications of social media. Here in my midwestern college [...]

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“Writing the ad is then the easy bit.”

11.17.2009 Marketing

My partner, Craig Arthur, shared this yesterday from half a world away. Craig runs Wizard of Ads for all of Australia. It raises the simple issue of how to measure success:
Today I received this from one of my clients…
From: The Tint Professor
Subject: RE: Radio
Date: 17 November 2009 7:33:19 AM AEST
To: Craig [...]

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Ad Writing: iDramatizing the Benefit

11.13.2009 Message Development Development

Yesterday, I showed you how eBay demonstrated the visceral difference between showing and telling in advertising. Today, I’d like you to take a look at my favorite example from the last 10 years. While Archos was intellectually bullet-pointing the features of their new-fangly mp3 players, another company took a decidedly different approach to marketing theirs. [...]

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Ad Writing: Showing v. Telling

11.12.2009 Message Development Development

“Don’t tell her your courteous, son. Open her door.”
In other words, don’t tell her, son. Show her.
Welcome to the the fertile fields of ad writing. I was cleaning up a presentation on ad writing that once provided a dozen meaty, actionable tips for making your ads more memorable. It’s since grown to an eighteen [...]

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Social Media: Best/Worst Practices

11.06.2009 Authenticity

TopRank’s marketing blog published a fundamental foundation to grow your social media platform responsibly. If you’re struggling to grasp what it’s all about, know first you’re not alone by any stretch, but know, too, that you can use this stuff to help you for a lot less money than the cost of a big honkin’ [...]

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Communicating In A Brave New(d) World

05.28.2009 Authenticity

I got introduced to Chris Brogan’s blog by my partner and noted freaking genius on marketing to women, Michele Miller.
He’s one of those few guys I almost don’t want to share with people. His stuff’s that good, but I’m sharing today’s post with you because it’s reinforcing principles Roy Williams taught us all five years [...]

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Obama’s Speechwriter

08.29.2008 Message Development Development

Wrote earlier about the wonder that filled me when I heard Obama’s copy from his speech last night in Denver. Wondered who wrote it.
My partner and buddy Michele Miller pointed me toward a Times article about the boy wonder who writes with Obama. He’s 27. Sigh.
Oh, and it looks like he writes on [...]

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Historic Prose

08.29.2008 Authenticity

Watching last night, I couldn’t help but think about the speechwriter(s).
They sat at a keyboard much like yours or mine. Was it written on a Mac? A PC? A notebook or desktop?
Did (s)he listen to music? What? Did they wake up at 2 in the morning to write a particularly inspiried section? Which section?
What didn’t [...]

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