A reader sent in a piece of email lift copy to review and it turns out it’s for a promotion Nick wrote. What’s interesting though, is that the promotion didn’t work. Nick’s open about that and it leads to a great discussion about why some ideas don’t work, how that influences the email copy itself, […]
Almost every piece of copy has a promise in it of some kind. Some are explicit. Some are implicit. Some are direct, others indirect. Some are conditional. There’s a lot more nuance to making promises in copy than many would think. In this third part of our series of masterclasses on The Four Ps, I […]
No doubt in this world of tired businesses and even more tired (and often fraudulent) consultants, you’ve come across the concept of a vision statement. A statement, usually compiled by committee, that describes the “vision” of the company. Here’s the truth though… Vision statements suck. Why? Well, we explain exactly why, and what you can […]
We’re back. Hurrah! After the wonderful carnage of Fix Fest, Nick and I thought it would be a good idea to do a bit of a debrief on the event. And, because we didn’t get a chance on the day (due to there being so much good stuff going on), we’re opening the judging for […]
You’re teetering on the edge of a cliff… Behind you, Nick O’Connor is on his knees, pleading. “Let me tell you about the first of the four Ps,” he begs. You look out to sea, the vast nothingness that lies beyond. You feel tired. You find Nick’s presence a little creepy. But you would like […]
He’s a self-confessed “weirdy beardy”. He hates charity. And yet he’s the Dean of one of the most celebrated advertising schools in the world, the School of Communication Arts 2.0 in London. Who is he? He’s called Marc Lewis, and it was my pleasure to finally get some time to speak to him about all […]
In this latest episode in our Industry Insight series, we’re looking at copy from the other side of the fence… From the viewpoint of the marketer. It’s all well and good spending all our time on the words, but if we don’t understand what happens to those words once we’ve spewed them from our creative […]
WATCH THE MASTERCLASS ONLINE HERE. Fellow Fixer, As Nick and I have both said on many occasions… we hate “copywriting systems” and don’t like how prescriptive they can be. The Four Ps comes damn close to being one of those systems, but like everything that informs our copywriting, it’s much looser. For a start, it’s […]
Whenever I see the number 68, I always think of 1968 and the student riots in Paris. I know, I know — I’m a pretentious old ham. I just watched too many French films in my youth. Gimme a break, OK? Still, it does seem apt that in Episode 68 of The Fix, we’re kind of […]
WATCH THE EPISODE ON YOUTUBE HERE. The idea that people from Canada are nice is a bit of a cliché. But Dan Nelken… Well, he’s not helping change the record anytime soon. Nick and I spent a wonderful half an hour or so chatting with the extremely nice author of A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters […]