The Lord Coe's Prayer

With overzealous officials turning the London 2012 brand into almost a religion let us pray to the Lord Coe himself that the Games will do Britain proud...

The Lord Coe’s Prayer

Our Olympic Games which art in London,

hallowed be thy name and logo.

Thy freedom is none.

Thy will be done

on using them as it is infringement.

Give us this month our daily breadcrumb McNuggets®,

and forgive us our security apprentices,

as we forgive those with free tickets in front of us,

and lead us not into VIP Lane temptation,

but deliver us from mass upheaval.

For thine sponsors London is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Why doing a DIY copy job doesn’t always pay

Image: Keattikorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Getting the world to wake up and notice your company has never been easier.  Off-the-shelf software makes publishing your own site fool-proof. Bang out a few words and the templates will slot them into a smart-looking site in no time. It’s so incredibly quick and easy - just like it says on the box. Throw social media and blogs into the mix and the speed of getting your message out there is only limited by how fast you can type.

This advancement, however, comes with an unfortunate side effect. It seduces us into thinking that we can all write when obviously not all of us can. Trawl the web for companies and you’ll be sure to catch among the good ones a few dud ones - sites that are dull or difficult to read, or riddled with typos, bringing the company’s professionalism and competency into question.

The sites were probably created in a hurry. Just as in the rest of the online world, there appears to be a hunger for spontaneous communication. Take Twitter and Facebook. They encourage the outpouring of our every thought (without us putting any thought into it). And so we end up with users hastily posting messages and regretting them later after finding their unfortunate choice of words was misinterpreted and created offence.

Why employ a copywriter?
 
As a SME on a tight budget doing a DIY job on your own brand communications may seem like the sensible thing to do. After all, no-one knows your brand as well as you do. However, being close to it can be a disadvantage. Buoyed by the excitement of having so many great things to tell the consumer company directors can be inclined to waffle on too much. Or to show they are at the top of their game, pepper the copy with buzzwords or boastful statements. There is only so much a reader can take in before they switch off and if endless copy doesn’t do it, the perceived arrogance of overselling or the confusion created by meaningless buzzwords will.

Copywriters know how to switch the reader on. They know what points will float the reader’s boat and what won’t. Copywriters are skilled at making every word matter so that the copy is engaging, clear and is driven to get a good response. Being an outsider they can also take a fresh angle you may have never thought of.

Thanks to the internet it’s easy to get a brand get noticed but getting it noticed in a good way? Now that’s more tricky.

Coming soon… why companies employ my services at Motive Copywriting

New ASA regulations to root out misleading online marketing

From March 1st 2011 all marketing messages on websites and social media will have to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. New regulations from the ASA called The British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (the CAP Code) will cover:

• Advertisers’ own marketing messages on their own websites, regardless of sector, type of businesses or size of organisation
• Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under the advertiser’s control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

This will mean that the online world will soon have the same rigorous protection as other media in rooting out misleading messages.

Don't be caught out by the code
It’s not just unscrupulous organisations that will have to tread carefully. Any company acting honestly and in good faith may find itself in breach of the code by simply having online marketing messages that could potentially (in the eyes of the law) be wrongly misinterpreted by the reader (and thereby be deemed ‘misleading’). That’s why it is critical that your copy is crystal clear.

How can Motive Copywriting help?
Using my copywriting expertise I can assess your current online marketing copy to suggest improvements that will help improve its clarity, readability and its effectiveness too. So your marketing messages will not only be compliant with the new ruling but will be more powerful as a result.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Gordon’s grin

The campaign that plays on Gordon’s grin because we all know it’s false. So who is the real man behind the dental veneers? Is he far from whiter than white and could that smile be really a smirk? Is he what the Tories want us to believe - a scheming Bond villain?

All very implausible. The Tories followed a similar tact last time round in giving Tony demon eyes and that didn’t work. It is playground politics again but at least this one is actually an assassination on policy as well as character.

Just one more point. Why is the ‘Vote for change’ line so small? And it’s change with a small ‘c’...

Hate the 80s?

The ad that, like an Audi Quattro pumped with the wrong fuel, backfired, dammit, rather badly for Labour when the Tories spoofed it (despite their ‘ Let’s fire up the Quattro...’ line making Cameron’s real persona trickier to fathom than a Rubik’s Cube). That’s the trouble with playground politics; no-one looks good from a bystander’s point of view when a scrap kicks off from petty name calling. Why can’t politicians rise above it and give it to us straight Gene Hunt style?

The main thing is do you want to go back to the 80s? Well it depends what part you remember. The bit when the pits closed down or when we apparently had loadsamoney in our pockets. The decade that brought us body warmers and body poppers is rather fashionable now so Labour have done themselves no favours in making the Tories (with an average member age of 50) more hip than hip-replacement.