Thursday July 31st 2008
O.K. so you've probably heard this story already but as a copywriter I simply had to blog about it. Basically the restaurant critic for the Times, Giles Coran has written a fantastically vitriolic e-mail to the sub-editors at the newspaper complaining, with the liberal aid of very bad swear words, that his copy was edited a) badly and b) edited at all. And that e-mail was leaked to the Guardian who did the only decent thing they could and put it straight online for the whole world to see.
Now reading it, his colourful language might shock you. You might think he is being a petulant child. But you can't deny he has a way with words (he does after all have a first in English from Oxford). And for me you can't deny that he makes a flawless argument. As a result a lot of other writers who have had their copy edited badly, have celebrated Coran's "brave" stand and wished they'd had the balls to write that e-mail. The really positive thing I took from this correspondence however is that Coren is passionate about his craft and that he spells out how much effort goes into writing a piece of copy.
If you're doing your job properly then every sentence flows into the next and every single word counts. No wonder then that writers get annoyed when someone who doesn't write for a living, slashes away at your copy as if they were that other one time resident of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd.
Tuesday July 22nd 2008
Click on image to zoom inHelping my wife's mum and Dad to lift a carpet this weekend, (who says advertising isn't as exciting as it used to be?) I found the Scotsman newspaper they'd used to line the floor. The date on the paper was July 17th 1983. Twenty-five years ago almost to the day. As usual with time capsules like this the whole family had a lot of fun reading the articles. Britain was in the throws of a heat wave (lucky them). House prices were comically low (there was a whole section for houses under £15,000). And of course it was interesting to look back at the ads. The one for Kwik Fit had the obligatory shot of Tom Farmer, my how young he looked. And Scanning through the other ads it was clear that the UK advertising industry was smitten with illustrations and cartoons. Almost every ad had one, including two ads for British Rail with the famous strapline “this is the age of the train” (it wasn’t). But there was one ad that stood out a mile.
This one for BMW, it showed no attempt to follow fashion, it was above all that. Instead it persuaded the reader with great copy; high production values; classic art direction; and an idea that is eerily topical today, Fuel economy.
Which just goes to show, there’s no hiding a great ad, even under the Axminster.
Friday July 4th 2008
We've recently made a new friend and her name is Darcie Condie. She's a woman with, as they like to call it nowadays, a career portfolio: Photographer; creative thinker; social network early adopter; and serial blogger.
Next she's setting her sights on becoming a top notch advertising copywriter. We look forward to reading her work.
You can tell she loves words from her t-shirt which reads:
" Fuck Y'all I'm from Texas" (fair enough,since she is).
She only wears it on Independence Day so if you happen to bump into her today,you're in for a treat.
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