Recent months have seen a swathe of articles predicting the end of the traditional, journalistic newspaper. Indeed, I have commented on the topic on Creativepool. But, as far as I’m aware, there has been no suggestion that the art of copywriting may be imperilled. Allow me to put this right.
Posts Tagged ‘Advertising’
Who’s killing copywriting?
Thursday, November 24th, 2011Hard pressed.
Thursday, October 27th, 2011
How much do you imagine a quarter page, black and white advertisement in the London edition of Metro (the free commuter newspaper) costs? A few hundred quid? A bit more? The answer is £6,636.
Perhaps I’m terribly naive or getting a bit old, but I find this remarkable. Six and a half grand buys you access to 744, 386 readers to whom you can display a 200mm high x 112mm box in mono, sharing the page with editorial and other advertisements over which you have no control. Want colour? That’ll be 25% more.
Bill of rights? Why no-one really hates advertising.
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
“Seriously. If you’re in marketing or advertising, kill yourself. There’s no punchline, just do it. You’re the spawn of Satan and the death of everything that’s good.”
That’s Bill Hicks. Angry, bitter, smoking and ranting hero of stand up comedy and – obviously – no great admirer of advertising.
Unless, of course, it was to his benefit.
Sour cream.
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Sometimes you spot something and wonder ‘What were they thinking?’ Maybe it’s that guy with a tattoo of Darth Vader talking to Pooh Bear. Perhaps it’s a celeb who’s transformed her mouth into two pink, writhing slugs. Or anything Boris Johnson says.
Well, brace yourself.
Period drama
Thursday, August 18th, 2011
From the off, I am happy to acknowledge I am male and therefore not necessarily best qualified to judge the merits or flaws in advertisements for ‘sanitary protection’. But, as media planners have yet to find a platform completely invisible to men, I glimpse such campaigns from time to time. Ever the critic, I also tend to form opinions on the work.
The artist who put down his brushes to work in advertising.
Friday, August 5th, 2011
It has become a cliché over the years: the talented young artist leaves college with ideas of becoming a great painter, does not find people beating each other to death to buy his paintings and takes a job – just for a short time – just to pay his bills.
Air cuts. Making millions out of malodorous mist.
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
I’ve never really seen the point in air fresheners myself. They’re a classic case of tackling the symptom not the problem. If your house smells fishy, farty or otherwise funny, you should really be looking for the culprit (dog, bin, partner) rather than masking the evil smelling odour with a floral fog.
However, it appears I’m in the minority. The UK market for pleasant smelling sprays is a staggering £300m. By any measure, we are all but addicted to the heavenly waft of lavender and aerosol propellant – so perhaps we shouldn’t be at all surprised by the brutality of the competition to market cans of sweet ozone to us.
Is no News good news?
Thursday, July 14th, 2011
Even a grizzled old blogger like me can call it wrong. And last week I did. My previous piece stated with confidence that the phone hacking (it’s not really hacking is it?) scandal would not spell the end of the News Of The World. Within 24 hours, the title was finished. The paper was very profitable, sold 2.6 million copies and generated about £35-40m in advertising spend every year.
But misjudgement on such a monumental scale couldn’t be carried and it died of shame.
Roar deal. Why the Brits failed at the Lions.
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
The results are in and the news is not good, I’m afraid. UK advertising agencies have failed to win a single gold at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. It’s the second year this has happened and now there’s talk of an industry that isn’t trying, losing its lustre and throwing up work that is simply not good enough.
Take your pick. Why consumer choice is not always a good thing.
Thursday, January 19th, 2012Against this backdrop, Dutch airline KLM is offering its passengers the chance to select the person they sit next to on a flight, based on their social media profile. Leaving aside the horror every good Englishman feels when faced with the prospect of making small talk with strangers, isn’t this all a bit unnecessary? Can we not be relied upon to simply ‘play nicely’ with our fellow travellers, without vetting them over the net? Don’t people just sleep and read on a flight anyway?
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Tags: Advertising, America, Ashley Morrison blogger, blog, brands, choice, coffee, consumer, deli, Magnus Shaw, milk, mobiles, New York, NHS, phones, politics, sandwich, twitter, USA
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