Is a greeting card better than an e-card?

I often hear people debating the relative merits of paper cards and e-cards. It usually comes down to a discussion about price. E-cards are faster, cheaper to send and easily customisable. What’s not to like?

Well, how about impact? I remember visiting an office and seeing a paper card I had produced pinned to the wall SIX MONTHS AFTER CHRISTMAS. Compare that to the lifespan of an e-card: roughly 2 seconds. No matter how naff they might be, I always keep paper cards lined up on a shelf for at least a few weeks after Christmas. For me, there is no comparison. Remember also that you usually sign paper Christmas cards, creating a direct human link to the person you are sending it to. Personalise it. Say something nice. Say something simple.

Why not benefit from a seasonal offer?

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to move my finger to the “delete” button, it’s the e-card that comes with a special offer. Is this a sales pitch or seasonal wishes? Make up your mind. Do you send cards to your family and mention in passing that you have an affiliate link at a hotel or a good money-making deal that expires in 72 hours? Why should I be different? Do you think people will react in any other way than to scrub the e-mail?

Separate those messages. A good sales pitch with a special offer is always welcome. Greeting cards that sound like a flaky second-hand car salesman routine I find insulting. And irritating. And clumsy. And amateurish. Are you sure you want that to be the message you are sending?

I was quickly nauseated by all the recent Thanksgiving messages I received with special offers as 1) no-one  celebrates Thanksgiving outside the US (don’t forget to target within your list) and 2) if I wanted to buy an e-mail list/consultancy/software upgrade I’d use Google or Bing, thanks. I wouldn’t buy it from someone that tricked me into reading their message. I want to feel upbeat, not that I’m getting an upsell.

In a word: thanks

So take this opportunity to say thank you, to tell people you think of them occasionally outside the sales cycle, to share a little thought about life or the world. On a more philosophical note, remember that giving is good for your own morale. And the simplest thing we have to offer is thanks.

But typically for our age, this revolution has its corporate sponsor. The tone, the simplicity and the concept of this ad are almost perfect as an exercise in zeitgeist. The cameras are all hand-held. Instead of copywriting, we get the poem “Go Forth” by Charles Bukowski. The images are fleeting, liberating, breathless. The mad aspiration of youth is magically caught in just 60 seconds. It would take a cold heart not to be touched by them.

Could a brand like Levis condone protest?

Released in August 2011, could Levis have known there would be so many riots (referenced several times in the clip) and the importance they would play? I doubt it very much. Could Levis be seen to condone – even implicitly – the Arab Spring, the London riots, the Occupy movement or Madrid’s Indignants? Whatever the merits of these movements, the answer is clearly “no”.

There are limits, as Levis found. The spot, released a week after the London riots, was promptly banned in the UK. The timing, clearly, was off. But was the intention? Do we think this is appropriate?

What do you do when looking for potential partners?

If you’re like me, you inspect their website to see who they are, what exactly they do and what their current priorities are. When asked to list their company’s activities, a surprising number of people tick ALL the boxes. So we’re supposed to believe they are producers, distributors, video production companies, publishers, composers and managers that also do licensing and soundtrack supervision. Yeah, right.

A quick look at their website will tell you what they actually do to pay the rent, which is more useful. Why the confusion? Although the companies probably have a fair idea of why they are attending a trade fair, why don’t they think it through and tell the other participants clearly what they have and what they want? Small companies often say they don’t have the time to work on their websites. But bigger companies are just as bad at targeting their events for other reasons.

So here are four simple steps to focusing your trade fair communications.

1. It might seem obvious, but it’s worth sitting down with a partner to list your top three priorities, such as “finding licensors for our work”, “finding material to release locally” and “hooking up with a mobile platform”. Now go and look at your company website. Is it clear what your priorities are? And what you have to offer? How recent is the latest news?
2. Update and adapt your website to clearly tell people that you are attending – and why. If your website is both for consumers and business, create a dedicated page with the key points to get across.  A page I created for the Cannes Festival 2009 continues to get direct hits due to the keywords (needless to say I have since updated it to reflect current priorities). When sending out e-mails, create a signature that links directly to this page rather than the homepage.
3. Check and re-check all data entered into the event database. I’d say about 10% of e-mail addresses in event databases bounce due to having being badly spelled. Check them once. Check them twice. And check all the websites you mention.
4. Make sure you keep pounding out Twitter (using the right hashtags) and Facebook announcements leading up to the events. Be consistent, be specific and ask for people to get in touch. Link to your business page. Never mind that people don’t answer; you only need a handful of good connections to make a trade fair an astounding success. And nothing attracts attention like success.

So take the time. You’ll find it helps focus any marketing you are doing and creates a loop that will attract the right sort of contacts. If you have questions about communication at trade fairs, call on our copywriting and experience.

The Write Stuff has specialised in trade fairs for 15 years, providing marketing and copywriting services, as well as business development during trade fairs. For 7 years, it developed marketing campaigns for Midem,  Mipcom, Mip Junior, MipTV, Mipim Asia as well as finding names for Mipim Horizons and Amazia.

Car manufacturer Aston Martin (photo) came out tops. But I’d like to fast-forward to a thought that struck me.

A look at the top 20 brands reveals a few interesting nuggets. No less than 9 are the names of people: Aston Martin, Bang & Olufsen, Harley-Davidson, Ferrari, Dom Pérignon, Viviane Westwood, Chanel, Alexander McQueen and Jimmy Choo. There are three “I” names: iPhone, iPod and BBC’s iPlayer (I’m sure Apple are kicking themselves for not trademarking that one!). Four are descriptive: iPhone, iPlayer, Mini and, arguably, YouTube. And lastly, only one acronym is in there, and even that is part of a fuller name, BBC iPlayer. It’s also worth noting that only one of the makey-uppy names that are so fashionable these days makes it into the top 20: Google.

Choose your brand name carefully

If you’re launching a consumer product, I can only repeat how careful you should be in finding a name that has legs – one that will be able to walk tall. The Superbrand review is not a scientific analysis of branding. And there is also more to branding than the name; don’t forget superior products, great positioning and a marketing budget! But it certainly provides a little food for thought if you’re thinking of launching a new brand.

The “cool” factor is not the only one to bear in mind (RyanAir does not need it to be successful, for example). But the results do echo The Write Stuff’s experience using our naming methodology. The names that survive the process are names that enable marketers to build on the connotations and emotions that are relevant to their audiences – and this is as valid for paint as it is for a petrochemical product.

More about product naming and research

Copywriters love carrots. They’re good for the eyes and we think that readers will always jump at them. So when developing a headline, body copy or e-mail shot, we’re always looking for exciting carrots to dangle in front of the readers’ eyes.

E-commerce is not a carrot any more. It means nothing. Whereas once the very idea of enabling e-commerce was supposed to start a drool of anticipation, it now gets blank looks. Why? Because it’s a fake promise, a hollow tube that leads somewhere else. Holiday destinations don’t try and sell you the excitement of air travel. That’s just the way to get there. They sell you a relaxing sunset dinner with a view of the bay. They sell the most exhilarating peak experience of your life. Or the most enjoyable time with your family.

There is always a risk that when trying to find the right carrot – the promise that will get readers excited – we don’t dig far enough. What is e-commerce? It’s a way of doing business. What’s really interesting is either the money it brings in, or the new avenues it opens up. So go for that as a carrot. “This gizmo enables e-commerce” is a debatable fact. “Try the gizmo that drives sales while you sleep” is a headline (not a very good one, but you get the point).

There are lots of fake carrots out there. “Followers” and “friends” are two that spring to mind. How deeply did you research your latest marketing communication?

When faced with the need for a name, the possibilities are almost limitless – from functional descriptive names such as Northwest Airlines, to evocative names such as Virgin and Twitter to acronyms (a special mention goes to FCUK) and family names such as Cadbury’s.

Somewhere within all those choices there is a best option for the product and market you are entering. Getting to it certainly requires some creative thinking on the part of the writers, but also -crucially – the full involvement of the marketing and product developers. How do they see the product now, three years from now and what is the end game? What makes it stand out and if the answer is nothing, how will it survive in the market? And how can we find a consensus amongst the dozens of suggestions that can arise?

In the most recent project we worked on, the option was simply to change one letter in the spelling of a common word to create the extra character needed to brand the product. We got to it using a fairly precise methodology that helped us focus on and then filter suggestions at every level. That one letter actually says a lot in this case. It makes the name unique enough to stand out, while clearly announcing the product’s one key feature.

Ultimately, we will only run out of brand names when we are faced with a completely commoditised way of producing and marketing goods and services. I’m pretty use that won’t be any time soon.

Every year, Cannes produces mountains of newspapers, magazines, brochures, one-sheets, newsletters, treatments and – more recently – Tweets! We’ve been lucky enough to work several times for clients at the Cannes film festival, starting with Stella Artois about six years ago. We also worked for MIPCOM, MIPTV and the Junior and documentary versions. We’ve written newsletters, pitches, treatments, produced brochures and now run the foremost web site for visitors to Cannes at Cannes-or-bust.

For television, we wrote the FilmNet movie guide for two years solid, producing what were in effect thirty 50-word pitches for their subscribers every month. I learnt something very useful doing this: it was our job to give people the impression there were loads of great movies to watch each month and turn on their TVs. But it was up to the director to hold the viewers’ attention beyond 5 minutes. And this is in essence one of the “secrets” of pitching. You first have to perfectly understand your role and your goal – and the smaller and more precise it is, the better.

What constitutes a small, attainable goal? If you’re pitching verbally – the most nerve-wrecking but potentially powerful form of  pitch – I’d say the one goal you should focus on is getting permission to follow up. Why? In a busy environment such as Cannes, people are bombarded with ideas and have to deal with pushy but often completely irrelevant people. By accepting to hear a pitch, your contact is in effect filtering. Is it worth spending time with this guy/gal? Could I see myself dealing with him twice a week for the next five years? All you want is for them to say “maybe” internally. That, largely, is the goal. If they hand you a card and say, “Sounds interesting. Get back to me next week”, you have scored.

The next step has other challenges, as the pitch is in effect just another step in the long road from page to screen. But mastering the art is one of the most useful skills a copywriter can learn.

If you’re attending Cannes or a similar event, call us on +322/644 02 30.

On the one hand, it’s patently obvious that many of the ideas being thrown about are going to fall flat. Statistics and the laws of gravity have a way of getting the upper hand every so often. But this burst of creativity and optimism is precious in that it provides great momentum. Advertisers might look at this a little askance. Don’t. It’s a fantastic lab for not just creating funky sites and applications. It’s also a real-time experiment in creating buzz and hopefully a little revenue.

It’s a fantastic lab for not just creating funky sites and applications. It’s also a real-time experiment in creating buzz and hopefully a little revenue.

Will there be tears on the road of the creative gold rush? More than likely. But unlike the dotcom boom, this one seems to be built more on fun and is solidly anchored in the social networks that will be its distribution channel. And I think most people are going into it with more realistic expectations than was the case in the nineties.

In the meantime, a bunch of creative people are hooking up with techies and creating things – and this optimism and application can’t be a bad thing.

It will come as no surprise that branding at this level follows a well-trodden path for marketers. There’s a product with a USP and a potential market. The trick is to bring the product under the noses of the right market and let the combination of product and image work its magic. So far, so good. But the product in this case is an actual person (at least at the early stages, afterwards it might become a team).

The trick is to bring the product under the noses of the right market and let the combination of product and image work its magic.

So the image being portrayed is on the front line 24 hours a day, and the person will have to live up to certain expectations on a daily basis. I’m reminded of John Cleese telling the story of when he entered a shop to buy a box of matches. On the way out, he heard the shopkeeper whisper to another client, “Not very funny, is he?”

Be useful

The root issue is that no matter how fab you are deep down as a person, you still have to be useful to others. You have to deliver. So the branding cannot allow itself to become too wrapped up in the aura of the subject. Sure, it has to be personal inasmuch as it is dealing with a person, but shouting “me-me-me” will not cut it. Not even if you shout it louder, or prettier. The branding still has to bear in mind the fundamental question facing marketers: what will this product/person do for their market? What’s in it for them?

For Gerry Murray – who takes a very practical approach to coaching (ie, the coachee has to work hard) – the branding we developed with Guy Stevens of Pix&Com is based around the phrase, “Take That Step with Gerry Murray”. He makes people do things, brings them on a journey of sorts, helps them take a step in the right direction. So the copywriting and soon-to-come website reflect this (check the layouts here). Rather than turning inwards, they have to keep the audience very much in mind. So in this respect, personal branding is not like a personal computer; it really does have to be shared – with the people it’s targetted at.

Gerry Murray will be conducting a weekend seminar called “Reset Your Compass for 2010″ in Leuven, Belgium on January 16 & 17. Follow his writing on Thinking Differently or follow the website at GerryMurray.com