We’re re-launching the Carphone help site in a couple of weeks. In preparation for this, I’ve been writing and re-writing reams of copy. And one of the things I’ve been trying to do is make it more amusing. We had a survey of the current site done you see, and a common piece of feedback was that it was dry and lacked personality.
This is a mobile phone retailer’s help and support site remember. Humour isn’t exactly a natural bedfellow. And corporate humour is a very difficult thing to pull off. If you make cheap beer it’s just about possible, but there are thousands of terrible attempts for every half decent ‘Carlsberg don’t do nightclubs’ gag.
A big part of the problem is that anything even remotely risqué is bound to offend someone. And the last thing you can afford to be is offensive. Which traps you in the tricky region between cracker jokes and coming up with something genuinely witty. Regular readers will realise I’ve got no chance of the latter.
The following example illustrates the problem eloquently. I needed to write a strapline for a page explaining what happens if a customer isn’t at home to receive a delivery. I wrote:
What happens if I’m not at home when my delivery comes?
We’ll break a window to get in.
Naturally I was delighted my effort. I strode over to my fellow copywriters to show them my good work and was met with the snotty, short-sighted and probably entirely correct response that I couldn’t write that in a million years. Our target audience is not 20-something drinkers of Danish lager. It’s absolutely anybody, and there’s always a risk that one of these people might get the wrong end of the stick and start taping up their windows using methods unseen since the blitz.
In the end I settled on ‘Don’t worry – we won’t break any windows’, which isn’t nearly as funny (though I’m aware my first idea was hardly something to have Jimmy Carr fretfully turning over to the cold side of the pillow).
Ultimately I hope I can persuade the company that the (slightly) edgier tone is the way to go. I’ve been working a lot on our tone of voice over the last few months, and I think it’s the companies who take the risks that manage to develop a real ‘personality’. There’s a big difference between saying ‘let’s be spiky and out there’ and actually meaning it.
This post doesn’t really have a conclusion. It just goes to show the travails I’m going through to bring you the funniest mobile phone site in the world. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring you a more considered solution in a few weeks’ time.
Categories: Copywriting
Tagged: being edgy, humour, tone of voice
I’ve reached that stage that most bloggers seem to get to. The stage where they realise that writing a new blog every few days is pretty hard work, and give up.
This lack of self-discipline is pretty disappointing, but I can console myself with the fact that not I’m not the first blogger this has happened to. What I’m planning to do now is to concentrate on quality, not quantity, and write a few decent posts each month, rather than kidding anyone that I’m the kind of blogging king who’s going to be knocking out three posts a day.
So keep checking back for more thrilling insights into the glamorous world of this hard-living, rule-breaking, self-deluding copywriter. Just don’t check back too often.
Categories: Copywriting · Social media and the web
Tagged: blog, laziness
Everyone needs heroes. Without them there’d be no one to learn from, nothing to strive for, and the Nazis would always end up winning in 1950s war movies. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of writers I admire. The list is by no means exhaustive, and it’s heavily influenced by my recent reading. But all of the following are affecting the way I’m thinking at the at the moment.
Gideon Haigh
English born but Australian bred, Haigh’s Ashes blog was one of the best reads of the summer. A wry writer with a great eye for quirks, his blog always provided original insight and stepped off the beaten track – exactly what a good blog should do.
Mike Skinner
The fleeting nature of pop music means lyricists never have time to build a detailed story. All they can do is throw out an image using a few words and hope it captures the scene. Presumably, Ezra Pound would have been a great frontman for a rock band.
Mike Skinner (leader singer of The Streets) is brilliant at these images – listen to his account of first date awkwardness on Could well be in. I especially like ‘I’m trying to think what else I could say / Peeling the label off, spinning the ashtray.’ For fans, Skinner’s Twitter account is well worth following too.
Sir Winston Churchill
I’ve been gradually working my way through Churchill’s The Second World War since Christmas. That’s not to say it’s not great, but it was a very long war and the book is too heavy to take on the tube.
Churchill has a fittingly majestic style but is always very readable. The part where he goes to Russia to persuade Stalin to change sides is extraordinary. He weaves the domestic details of the trip in amongst an account of a conversation that ultimately decided the fate of the entire world. Very rarely do we get such a personal insight into history.
Seth Godin
I know this is hardly an original choice. And I know there’s already more than enough Godin fawning on the internet, especially as he spends most of his time recycling the same ideas over and over again.
But Godin is massively successful, and I think his great secret is his accessibility. He writes plainly, avoids getting overly technical, and above all he keeps things brief. His 200 word posts are perfect for skim-reading during a working day, and then discussing endlessly around the water cooler or on Twitter. If there ’s one thing I will do with this blog, it’s to start writing entries of less than 300 words where at all possible.
Categories: Books · Copywriting
Tagged: ezra pound, gideon haigh, heroes, influences, lyrics, mike skinner, seth godin, the streets, winston churchill, writers, writing
We’re re-launching the Carphone help site in a couple of weeks. In preparation for this, I’ve been writing and re-writing reams of copy. And one of the things I’ve been trying to do is make it more amusing. We had a survey of the current site done you see, and a common piece of feedback was that it was dry and lacked personality.
