Entries Tagged 'Copywriting' ↓

A company called ThinkMap has invented a Visual Thesaurus, a kind of road map of word meanings — with word dots linked by straight lines.

It’s looks useful, practical, efficient, usable, but my online trial lasted two lookups which is hardly enough to demonstrate its usefulness. (Oops, apparently the trial limits the daily uses to two.)

There’s another catch for me, at least. The language is very British, both in written and spoken forms. (There is an audio pronunciation feature. But because I’m American, I really don’t speak like that.) Then, too, a synonym for dessert is “afters.” Say what? Again, this is British English. It might help me translate British to American English.

It found “copywriting” was related to “copy editing” as well as “typewriting, ” and distantly “employee.” (This last word looks like a full day’s drive from “copywriting.”)

As Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac’s work: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” (I don’t view “typewriting” as a close synonym of “copywriting.”)

I will consider this as a possible addition to my huge Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale. The Visual Thesaurus may equal Rodale, but I don’t think it can beat that dog-eared old friend.

Prices? The online version of the new product is $20 a year or $3 a month; the product on your desktop with no internet connection needed is $30. At those prices, it is worth trying out, if you live in the UK or want to talk as if you do.

Apparently, the FCC is getting hot under the collar about product placements.

You know the type: James Bond doesn’t just have a cool watch, he has a recognizable Omega Seamaster ™.

Or famously, because of one of my clients didn’t want the gig, ET doesn’t just follow a trail of small candies to the fridge, he follows a trail of Reese’s Pieces. ™

But this fuss is about paid product placement on TV shows, which is against FCC rules.

“The use of covert commercial pitches is penetrating deeper and deeper into media,” said Jonathan Adelstein, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission, quoted in a Reuters article.

For more on this, see AdRants.

William Safire, of The New York Times , has written an enlightening little history of pop-ups, both online and off.

In it, he traces the pop-up ad back to children’s books of yesteryear as well real paper-and-glue pop-up print ads.The first mention he finds in the Times, is May 4th, 1967 when the Butler Manufacturing Company ran a pop-up ad in Nations Business.

I thought it was rather limited of Mr. Safire to simply review references in his own newspaper. But now I see why: Internet search engines do not know about print ads that pop up when the page is turned, only those pop-ups on the net.

Safire finds another early use of pop-up in describing the menus in Apple’s Lisa computer (Remember them? Think of a Macintosh’s ™ mom.) John Markoff wrote of this in InfoWorld in July, 1983.

Last month, Rep. Markey of Massachusetts decried the use of pop-up ads on the Internet. He has introduced a bill called the “Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass” act.

Why the bad translation sound? It’s called the SPYACT, for short.

A Belgian company has begun releasing one-second commercials, complete with soundtrack.

The product is a new breath freshener called One Second. It is a gel you apply to the tongue for instant breath freshening that lasts for 20 to 30 minutes.

The spot, by the Duval Guillaume agency of Antwerp, will run on every commercial break on Belgian TV.

Heineken has a new spot out in Europe, promoting their smaller beer cans, I guess, just for a quick sip. They use a video game format as Mr. Pixel fights evil and enjoys the new can size. (It’s just another available can; they’re not doing away with twelve-ounce ones.)

In the US, Coors has several new spots. They have a Plastic Cooler box which is a 12-pack of plastic long necks just right for the beach. An attractive blonde explains the virtues of plastic to the young men who are entranced by the sight of the beer bottles, I think. (While the spot is not politically correct, I bet it gets remembered by the male target audience.)

And I’ve broken a few bottles in my time, so I’m glad to see plastic bottles. (Miller Brewing tried this a while ago. The product disappeared from our local shelves, so I don’t know if it’s still being offered or if it was a summer season item.)

A British firm, Asa Bailey Viral Advertising, is selling a viral marketing film on eBay UK.

If I had the 5,000 plus pounds sterling, I’d buy it. The commercials are super weird and strangely compelling. Look at their star, Victoria Beckham.

Viral marketing, apparently, is a full-fledged TV commercial that is shared for free by zillions all over the Internet. (Now I realize why I need a translator when I talk to my kids.)

A commercial out now shows Ms. Beckham shoplifting baby clothes from a department store and leaves a trail of baby things. As she is filmed leaving the store, she gets instant justice. She’s hit by a bus. Really.

I suppose they didn’t want to glamorize shoplifting?

Geico Insurance has changed its tv spots some lately. I’ve seen several. One shows bikers waiting for the guy with the new bike his wife bought him.

The good news, of course, it’s insured by Geico ™. The bad news: is it a scooter or a moped? “Nice color” as they say in the spot. Whatever it is, it’s no Harley.

I do like the mnemonic, the sound connection between Geico and gecko, but it’s beginning to get a little stale too — like paying an actor to dress up like Colonel Sanders to sell us more KFC. (Yes, Virginia there was a real colonel and he did do commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken ™.)

A Bell South competitor, Dialog Teleommunications, has set the old belle ringing with its “take the BS out of phone service” campaign.

The campaign in several media including outdoor, newspaper, TV and direct mail, has ads headlined “Ell Outh.” The copy further states “no hidden fees, no extra charges, no BS.” The work was created by BOONE/OAKLEY, of Charlotte, N.C.

The reaction at Bell South was immediate fury. The campaign broke April 29th, and that day Bell sent Dialog a request to stop running the ads. (It is believed that someone tipped Bell South to the upcoming campaign.)

The phone giant has already gotten a cease-and-desist order. Moreover, Dialog, rather than digging deep for litigation fees, has begun pulling the ads.

Because the full campaign broke on May 2nd, maybe it should be called the 11-day ” give em ell” campaign.

Adbusters, the anti-ad magazine, likes an ad so much it not only runs it, it runs free! (Adbusters does not accept paid advertising.)

It’s by Equal Exchange, and it supports Fair Trade coffee, about as lily white as business can get, I think. (Their products arefrequently sold by churches.)

The ad headline is is “Power to the Farmers” and was created in-house by Equal Exchange.

I just read an older article in Fortune magazine.

We all know about the growth of its stock with a lofty 65 (no! 95) PE ratio that make conservative investors blanch.

But what is stunning is that webmasters with a good idea, fresh content, serious traffic and a Google AdSense account have work-from-home businesses. Not stuffing envelopes or medical transcription or even clearing out their attics on eBay.

No, if you can get droves of people to visit your site, you don’t have to market the latest widgets. You sell Google ad clicks. AdSense places ads on your site for your visitors to see and click. And every month Google sends you a check for the use of your advertising medium.

OK, maybe a few hundred dollars , if you’re good?

No, try $5,000 a month for the clicks from visitors to mobiletracker.net, a popular site about cell phones. It gets about 200,000 visitors a month, as the owner updates a few items every day. From his parents’ livingroom by laptop.

The owner of the site is Jon Gales and he lives with his folks, because he’s only 19.

Or another site started by an engineer tired of cruddy airline seats. He designed the brilliant seatguru.com. Then he set up Google AdSense for of course, travel ads. (That’s a very cutthroat category, so there are lots of deep-pocket advertisers waiting for a busy site to showcase their ads.) He started the site as a hobby and now generates mucho traffic. Zap! Google AdSense made the site a $120,000 a year business.

Got a new idea for a website that will bring in the crowds? Watch your big traffic stats click you to a Google fortune.