Choosing the Right Words

As a copywriter I spend a large part of my day thinking about words.

As a human I spend a large part of my day using words.

The difference between the two situations is that in the first I analyse each individual word that I use over and over again whereas in the second I usually use the first word or collection of words that come into my head.

But in advertising we would like to think that our copy sounds more like the second scenario than the first.

We want to write stuff that sounds natural and real, speak to people as we speak to each other.

But it doesn’t always work out that way.

I mean when was the last time you heard an ad on the radio that made you want to punch walls it sounded so ludicrous? Or saw a TV ad with such moronic dialogue that you ended up wanting to throw the remote at the telly, only stopping yourself because it's a fancy new 48inch widescreen HDTV?

I'll take a wild guess and say that it was the last time you listened to the radio or watched TV. Am I right?

As advertising copywriters we spend hours poring over each and every word in a radio commercial or outdoor poster. We let so many people have their say in what word should be used here or how this sentence should be phrased that we often end up removing any hint of naturalness that was there in the first place.

Natural sounding copy should be just that - natural. Dissecting each individual word under a microscope is not conducive to natural sounding writing.

That’s not to say that analysis, editing and revision of what you’re writing is a waste of time. I'm not that brainless.

At the end of the day we’re not writing for the sake of writing, we have a job to do. We have to sell stuff.

So it’s no good writing the most natural sounding copy if people aren’t going to pay a blind bit of attention to it or be motivated to take action.

But it’s also no good editing and overthinking copy to within an inch of its life in the pursuit of natural sounding copy.

People very quickly see through contrived ‘natural’ writing.

And they’re very quick to shut it out and ignore it as well.

The secret to good advertising (he says as if he has decades of experience and it were the easiest thing in the world) is having something good and worthwhile to say. If you have that as your starting point then natural copy should, well, naturally follow.

But just because the writing should be natural doesn’t mean the situations always need to be completely natural.

The latest John Lewis Christmas ad (which I think is great) has been criticised by a lot of people who say that you’d never see a real kid acting like that.

And they’re not wrong.

But when has anything creative been bound to rely on real characters?

Engaging, well developed characters, yes, but real?

Have the characters in every good movie, play or music video you’ve seen acted exactly the way people in the real world do?

No, of course they haven’t.

But if the characters are written well they can still draw you in and feel real and believable in the context in which they appear.

Whether it's in advertising or another creative discipline choosing the right words to put in the mouths of your characters can make you. But trying too hard to choose the right words will definitely break you.

An Interesting Concept

I’ve never been a particular Metallica fan. That’s not to say I dislike them. They have a bunch of great tunes - you'd have to be musically numb not to want to rock out to 'Enter Sandman' or 'Master of Puppets', and 'Nothing Else Matters' is one of the best tunes from the past 20 years, particularly when it's performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, but that's about as far as it goes for me when it comes to their music.

The same can be said for Lou Reed - who doesn't automatically think of 'Perfect Day' when they hear a mention of something that happened back in 1997? But again, I'm no hardcore Lou Reed lover.

And for me these two acts have always been in completely separate musical spheres, travelling on different orbits, never even threatening to collide.

I’m sure I’m not unique in thinking that.

That’s why my ears pricked up when I heard that Lou Reed had invited Metallica to collaborate on a concept album inspired by 2 plays by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

On first appearances it’s not exactly a musical combination crafted by the hands of the great Apollo himself.

I’ve been dipping in and out of the album for most of today and my initial reaction is, well, I don’t quite know what my initial reaction is.

Concept albums themselves can be dodgy territory. Sometimes they’re sensational, groundbreaking, era defining albums. Sometimes they’re annoying, musical wankery, full of their own self worth. Other times they’re just pure musical sludge.

Where Lulu falls I’m really not sure. Apologies for planting my arse so firmly on the fence on this one but all I can say for now is that, for me, it sits somewhere in the triangle of those three extremes. It’s exact position in that triangle? I’m currently undecided.

Lou Reed supposedly claims it’s the greatest thing he’s ever done. Album sales would beg to differ (it sold only 15,000 copies in its first week on sale).

Reviews can't seem to find a consensus. Some say it's 'excellent', while others claim it's the 'worst piece of junk to be produced in album form in the last 20 years.'

Luckily for us recovering students and people with security codes on our wallets we don't need to fork out hard-earned cash to figure out who we agree with because Lou, James, Lars, Kirk and Robert have kindly put it all online here, for free. Why, I don't know.

If you're not bothered listening to the whole thing here's one of the tracks, 'The View', for your aural pleasure:



Now, to go find someone I can pitch that Leonard Cohen/Slipknot duet album to.

There's a War on. See Twitter for Updates

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I've written before about why I think it's so great and some of the incredible things people have done using Twitter as their foundation.

Well lately I’ve come across a great new account that's my latest obsession: @RealTimeWWII

It’s a fantastic idea. Someone (my guess is that it's a group of people) started tweeting on September 1st, the day in 1939 when the Germans invaded Gdansk in Poland and World War 2 began, real time updates as if we were back in 1939 and the war were taking place.

Something similar was done through Facebook a while back (you can see a jpeg of it here) and while it was impressive and well done, it wasn’t nearly as detailed or as engaging as this Twitter account.

This guy (or these guys) tweet several updates a day including quotes, pictures and videos. The amount of information and the level of detail is astonishing. We get tweets about the famous speeches and actions of Hitler at the major Nazi rallies as well as quotes and pictures from individuals you've never heard of who were living in the ghettos or concentration camps. It literally covers the whole spectrum, from the major turning points in the war to the daily lives of those suffering through it.

Here's just a small sample of some of the tweets:










Aside from being a really interesting account of the events of World War II it also gets you thinking; we’re so used to instant updates on major world events through Twitter, what would it have been like had Twitter been around for other historical events? Would it have shaped their progress and outcome, as Twitter has done with major events like the current ‘Occupy Protests’ or the political movements in the Middle East over the past few months?

Wouldn’t it be great to see similar accounts for other historical events – the Irish Civil War, Columbus’ voyage to America, the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course the thing about WWII is that it was in the very recent past so there are lots of video, photographic and documentary footage and resources available, that’s why this one works so well.

To say that something is ‘brought to life’ is a bit of a cliché but it definitely presents the events of the war in a way that hasn't been done before and a way that is really engaging and captivating.

There's also huge potential here to use Twitter as an educational tool. I reckon social media is going to be used more and more in education in the future and this is a great example of how it can be done.

So go and check out RealWorldWWII and if you know of any other Twitter accounts doing somehing similar involving different events from history please let me know.

Facebook - You're off the Christmas Card List

Here, Facebook, Zuckerberg, listen up.

I’m angry. And it’s your fault.

I know how this game works. I sign up. You collect as much data on me as you can possibly get your money-filled hands on and then use that to sell access to me and my mates to advertisers.

Then you give me the option to choose exactly what updates I see from each of my friends so it seems like it's actually for my benefit that you're making all these changes.

I get that. Welcome to 21st Century internet, please leave your privacy at the door. I’m not totally cool with it but I don’t lose sleep over it.

And I’m still a Facebook user so I obviously don’t have too much of a problem with it.

But where I do have a problem, Mr. Zee, is when you make me miss out on cool shit. Cool shit like this:



I don't understand exactly how you’re doing it but you’re only showing me the things YOU think I’LL be interested in.

How do you know what I’m interested in? All your delicious data tells you everything you need to know about what I like, doesn't it?

Sure it does.

My brother posted that video by funny Ozzie Tim Minchin to Facebook a few days ago. It didn’t appear in my timeline because I’m automatically subscribed to most of his updates instead of all of them. Facebook decided that this was one I wouldn’t like so it kept it hidden from me (or maybe they decided I’d be offended by the repeated use of the most vulgar of words – boobies). When my brother asked had I seen it I went to find it on his page – no sign of it. So I signed out, my brother signed in and lo and behold the video was there.

Back the truck up a bit. Now you’re not even showing me everything on someone’s own profile page? What the hell is going on here? What's the point in posting anything if you get to decide who sees it and who doesn't? Are you only showing me what you think I’ll like or are you only showing me what you want me to like?

The thing is Mark (do you mind if I call you Mark? Mr. Zuckerberg is so formal), you can gather all the data you want on someone but it’s very bloody difficult to predict what they’re gonna like and not like. Start doing that and you might start pissing people off. Sometimes we only know what we do or don't like after we've seen it.

If I'm friends with someone I generally have something in common with them and want to see what they share. If I don't like it I'll unfriend them or else I'll comment and tell them that their tastes are far inferior to mine could they please stop wasting my time with mindless links and updates.

I don't need you to do it for me.

I know, I know. I can go and change the settings for each of my friends so that I see ALL of their updates instead of just MOST, but why make it so complicated? How about you just let me choose who to be friends with and who not to?

The thing is, you're hiding genuinely funny and interesting content from me (there were about four other posts on my brother's wall that were hidden to me) but I'm still seeing all those stupid posts about how someone had cold beans for dinner or how someone’s cat just winked at their frog and the frog smiled back.

You're doing a job I don't want you to do and you're not even doing it well.

Jeez, I’m a hard man to please, eh?

All Aboard the Bandwagon

Yes I’m jumping on the bandwagon.

The bandwagon whose name I won’t mention because that’s what they want me to do. But you all know the one I’m talking about. The one with women playing sports and eating crisps.

I’m jumping aboard because it pisses me off.

Not because it’s offensive to women or anything like that.

But because it’s just stupid, and cheap, and easy, and it gives advertising a bad name.

And God knows it already has a bad enough name as it is.

Advertising is exploitative, manipulative, lowest common denominator stuff.

Or that’s what people tell me anyway.

But it doesn’t have to be.

When it’s done properly, when it’s genuinely creative and engaging, advertising can come up with some of the most powerful and impressive stuff you’ll see.

Sure, the objective is to sell stuff. But at the end of the day we’re all trying to sell something.

It’s a bit like in school when it’s always ‘a few of the bad kids that ruin it for everyone else.’ Easy, cheap and crap advertising like this just perpetuates the bad image that advertising has.

Sure the advertising world is populated by twits and tossers just out to make as much dough as possible, but you get people like that in all walks of life.

It’s also full of genuinely creative and ambitious people who want to make something new, worthy and interesting. Guys who want to do amazing stuff like the spectacular ‘1984’ ad to launch the Apple Macintosh, Bing’s brilliant Decode Jay-Z campaign from last year or the Voyeur Project from HBO in 2007, stuff that’s about much more than just encouraging people to put their hands in their pockets and splash out on your latest moneyspinner.

I’d like to think that most people get into advertising to be a part of really cool things like these. Using a hot model with digitally enlarged knockers to sell crisps just makes it harder for everyone else to get some credit and respect for the great work they do.

Selfish gits.

But what do I know eh? I’m just a noob. This whole business could chew me up and spit me out before I’ve had a chance to use sex to sell anything. All I'll have then are my naive ambitions and a packet of crisps (come on, I had to buy the crisps, did you see that girl's chest?).

Touch, Pause...Engage: It's Rugby World Cup Time

September is just beginning and for the rugby fanatics among us that means that the long awaited Rugby World Cup is almost here. At last.

A month ago I was bursting with excitement in anticipation of this competition but after spending August watching Ireland splutter and fumble their way through four frustrating warm up losses my excitement has been slightly dampened.

But I’m not here to vent and rage about dropped passes and knock-ons. And anyway, no-one cares what a guy who gave up playing rugby when he was 13 because training clashed with Eastenders (No, I’m not proud) has to say.

But I am here to talk about ads and with a global audience of over 4 billion people advertisers are wetting themselves with excitement, not at the thought of watching six weeks of scintillating rugby, but at the opportunity to capitalise on people’s passion for the sport and its premier showpiece.

So over the past few weeks we’ve seen more and more rugger related ads grace our screens. And if you couldn’t give two hoots about 30 men putting their heads between each other’s legs and chasing an egg shaped ball around a field for 80 minutes then unfortunately September is only going to get worse for you.

So what kind of ads are people putting out there?

Well, the New Zealand company Telecom, who sponsor the All Blacks, put their heads together and came up with a foolproof plan to encourage people to get behind the competition and their team – they asked people to abstain from sex to show their support.

No really, I’m serious.



It won’t come as much of a surprise to discover that the campaign was cancelled before it even launched. What, you mean New Zealanders found the idea of abstaining from sex to support their national rugby team to be stupid and embarrassing? What’s wrong with these people?

Across the water O2 and our auld enemy England have come up with a nice little idea to encourage people to get over the early kick-off times and get behind their team – free breakfasts.



Now I actually quite like this ad and the free breakfasts idea. Sure it’s nothing special and it won’t have awards juries picking their jaws up out of their Cornflakes or grinning from ear to ear, but it’s a nice idea and it’s well done, even seeing the big happy heads on Martin Johnson and Chris Ashton doesn’t make my blood boil too much.

My only qualm would be the line ‘Get up for England.’ Maybe I’m being childish and juvenile but it just feels like there’s more than one way to interpret it, and one of those interpretations is the complete opposite to what the folks down in New Zealand were being asked to do.

Or do I just need to grow up?

Over here O2 have enlisted the help of a few of the players for their RWC campaign too and have offered fans the chance to play them next.

I’m not really sure when or where you get to play them but if you do then it’s quite a nice idea to get people involved. People always like seeing their sporting heroes in contexts other than on the pitch and of course plenty of people would sell their granny’s false teeth for a chance of a kickabout with Messrs O’Driscoll, O’Connell and Sexton.

Possibly the best ones I’ve come across are from Sky TV in New Zealand. Unlike Telecom they’ve managed to have a bit of a larf without making complete tools of themselves in the process.



No need to reinvent the wheel when you’re trying to be funny. Just take a bit of a sideways look at things and you’ll usually be onto something. There’s another one of these here.

We could go on and on here folks. Everyone wants to join the party. Mastercard have done a series of short videos celebrating rugby traditions in Samoa, New Zealand and South Africa. Quite nice they are too if you’re a rugby fan. Probably just more noise if you’re not.

Toshiba have covered your walls in crayon and colouring pencil but don’t worry, they’ve much better drawing skills than your little 4 year old terror. Powerade and Heineken have gone down the passion route. Fine, if that’s what you’re into.

And of course it wouldn’t be a global tournament without Coca Cola getting in on the act.

I’m sure there are tonnes of other RWC ads out there so feel free to share any others you find.

In the meantime I’ve got to go catch up on recordings of Eastend…eh…Britain’s Toughest Gangs. Yeah, I only watch the manly stuff me. Innit!

Moving House

Why on earth would anyone choose to move house?

Seriously, it’s so much hassle it makes planning a campaign for the upcoming presidential election and keeping past indiscretions away from public eyes and ears seem like a walk in the park.

In my case I’m moving because my better half has gotten a new job across the other side of the city and doesn’t fancy a 2 hour, 2 bus commute to and from work each day. Seeing as I work in the city centre I theoretically have an easy commute from anywhere.

So we’re packing our whole lives into boxes and moving into a smaller, more expensive apartment in a ‘cooler’ part of town, whatever the hell that is.

Packing can be quite a demoralising exercise when you realise that you’re filling box after box with clothes that no longer fit you and photos and memorabilia from your J1 trip back in ’06. I find myself wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the past 5 years, aside from eating too many Oreo Double Creams and staring at my brand new runners sitting, lonely and unused, by the door.

For sure there’s something exciting about moving house. Getting the keys to your place and beginning the process of making it home.

“Where’ll we hang this picture, the only one we have in seven years of dating where we’re both looking at the camera, eyes open, nice smiles, not looking like something that’s just been dragged through a bush backwards?”

“Yes I want to keep that oversized cardboard guitar I snuck out of the Irish bar in San Fran. We’ll find room for it somewhere. Sure isn’t it signed by yer man who was nearly the guitarist for The Strokes, we can’t throw it out.”

“Oh and make sure you leave room in the press for the smoothie maker I got for Christmas two years ago and have only used once, I’m definitely gonna start using it again once we’ve settled in.”

It’s also a big massive pain in the arse! I was happy where we were, I knew the whole setup. Rent was due the day after wages landed in my account – sweet. I knew the neighbours. OK they didn’t really speak any English and there were what seemed like 18 of them in a two-bed apartment, but at least I knew they weren’t crazies and they did give us a jug of milk that time we ran out so they must be sound.

And the recycling. Oh God, I’ll have to get used to a whole new recycling system. At least in the old place I knew that drinks cans could go with plastic bottles but food cans had to go in a separate bin. And paper always went in its own bin. What if it’s different in the new gaff? What if I end up inadvertently mixing dry recyclables and, well, not dry ones? Jeez, I could be making enemies of the bin men before I’ve even had a chance to mumble an awkward hello as I pass them in the morning – and they’re pretty menacing looking guys.

Then there’s parking. This new place only has on-street parking and, ashamed as I am to admit it, I never learned to parallel park. I’ll probably end up using a car park in town and getting a bus out to the apartment. Sod the expense, it’s easier than having a queue of angry drivers beeping at me as I try for the fifth time to reverse my little Corsa into a space the size of a village in Kerry.

OK my panic levels are beginning to get a little too high. Time to take a deep breath, lie down and maybe watch some telly to relax.

GODDAMMIT! This couch doesn’t have my groove in it and I haven’t a clue how to work this bloody remote.

Call the old landlord, tell him we’ve had a change of heart.