Now when Cuppy and I did this freelance gig down in Richmond, Virginia, the agency put us up in an old Victorian estate with a beautiful wrap-around porch in front.(1) The estate belonged to the agency’s ECD(2) and Cuppy and I spent eight glorious months taking full advantage of supping and drinking on that porch as often as possible.

Cuppy’s grandpa lived in Old Gun, VA and more often than not, we’d find him luxuriating on our porch – even on times when Cuppy and I were not home. He’d be smoking, drinking whiskey and even though Cuppy made him an ashtray at a Color Me Mine(3), he insisted on extinguishing his butts directly on the porch’s wavy grained cedar planks. Around the rocking chair he claimed as his own, it looked like someone had neglected to connect-the-dots.

Now to call Cuppy’s grandpa a character would be an insult to people with even the slightest inclination towards restraint and decorum. But you gotta take Grandpa TC for what he is – and that man is one ornery tin cup.

Grandpa TC, “What on God’s green earth is a ‘friend with benefits’ Cuppy? Isn’t that what you call your Cousin Ashlee? “

Cuppy, “What? No! Cousin Ashlee is my cousin. Vomit. But anyway, it’s kinda like dating a girl, but without all the bad stuff that comes with attached to that whole deal. Basically, you get to leave whenever you want, do whatever you want to whomever you want and if she ever asks you if she looks fat in her jeans you can say yes without hesitation.”

“Oh. Well we had that when I was in high school. It was called ‘HAVING A FUCKING GIRLFRIEND.’ You’d kiss girl in homeroom and by the time third period rolled around she’d have all her shit moved into your locker. When you’d walk down to lunch she’d wear your varsity jacket and all your friends would laugh and throw rocks at you. It was fucking horrible. You kids have it so easy now. Running wild and free with your STDs and what not. Back then you’d get stuck with ONE girl. And that was it. No options. No choices. No searching your little girl feelings to see if you two were meant to be. ‘Meant to be’ back then meant she was the girl that lived closest to where you lived. Shit, how do you think I ended up your Grandmother? Friends with benefits – bullshit. You should be thankful girls even look at your ugly mug.”

“Wow Grandpa. That’s the most romantic and tender love story I’ve ever heard. It’s like ‘The Notebook,’ if all the characters were drunk and angry the entire time.”

“Son, you do know you’re the reason your Father left your Mother, right?”

“Thanks Grandpa.”

And that’s basically what Grandpa TC was like – when he was mostly sober.

—

1 That porch could  have easily held five Mini Coopers.

2 When we moved in the estate was vacant as it was tied up in the ECD’s bitter divorce settlement to his then 3rd wife/ex-mistress/babysitter/skank du jour.

3 Now I’ve never been to a Color Me Mine, but I’d love to buy a beer for any guy ballsy/dumb enough to think that would be a great first date.

For Immediate Release

The Who’s Who of SoCal DJs

Performing at the House of Blues on December 3, 2009!

Alicia Gatto latest efforts on “Remix 4 $Change.00″ have been compared to Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor and was recently featured on one of the top 100 electro music blogs EQ (Electroqueer) for her music video Jaded Girl. Her music video, The Search, won an award for best independent pop music video.

DJ Ayla Simone’s unique and eclectic style is taking the club circuit by storm. Originating from San Diego, she is in high demand for her vocal talent and for her musical selection which she drops on eager crowds.

Blue Insomnia has been DJ’ing locally and internationally for five years at top clubs, playing alongside world class DJ/Producers like Sasha, John 00 Flemming, Marco V and DJ Dan, to name just a few. Blue is currently producing an exclusive album that bridges electronic music, with world class musicians.

DJ Jacques The Ripper is native of Bordeaux, France. Now living in Los Angeles, this multi-dimensional DJ deftly navigates the currents and genres of electronic music. While his diverse music library will stretch all over, they all share a common love – BASS! Jacques own label, Heargasm Productions, has released 3 mixes since being founded in 2007.

DJ Lea Luna’s inspiration for this scene is nothing short of her life passion for music, dancing and art. As a singer, songwriter and a producer, Lea’s unique style, skills, stage presence and love of music has left dancers and club goers from around the world inspired.

Oscure established The Los Angeles Breakbeat Association In 1996, a collection of L.A. DJs who support and promote the Breakbeat sound. His first record entitled, Oscure Presents FunkyGhettoPhonics, was released on his own independent label, L.A.B.A.

DJ Theron is a name that those familiar with San Diego Nightlife know very well. His impact on the music scene is not limited to Southern California, nor simply across the country but throughout the world! He has DJ’ed venues from L.A. to Vegas, to Miami, from the U.S. to Switzerland playing for anxious crowds along side such industry legends as Donald Glaude, DJ Dan, DJ Icey, Bad Boy Bill, Beej, and Tiesto.

Visit our website for complete details at WWW.PINKPARTYSD.COM

Now in its 4th year, The 2009 Pink Party is one of San Diego’s premiere events to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer (www.pinkpartysd.com). Directly benefiting the Breast Cancer Fund (www.breastcancerfund.com), the leading national organization working solely on eliminating the environmental and other preventable causes of the disease, and The Breast Cancer Network of Strength (www.networkofstrength.org), which offers comprehensive support to those newly diagnosed, survivors, their families and loved ones, ensuring no one faces breast cancer alone.

###

ARE YOU READY FOR THE UPTURN?

Sorry, it’s been a while since my last blog – although I have been writing occasional blogs on Ecademy. In this blog, I want to focus on the delicate issue of the recession – and how you can get yourself ready for the inevitable upturn.

Going for growth

There has been a lot of speculation in the media about the ’green shoots’ of recovery from the recession – although these seem to be taking a long time to appear in the UK! One big mistake that many companies make during a recession is that they immediately cut down on their marketing. That means that when an upturn comes, they’re not really ready for it.

So, if you’re not already cranking up your marketing activities, now’s the time to start. And it doesn’t have to cost the earth. There are some low cost but very effective ways of raising awareness of your company and its solutions. So why not start getting your products and services in front of potential customers before your competitors?

Keeping the costs down

One good and very cost-effective way of keeping your name in front of customers is by using monthly email newsletters (or ezines). These don’t have to be long – each issue could include four or five articles, each of which is just two or three paragraphs long. These can have links to ‘landing pages’ that contain a more detailed version for people who are interested enough to read further. Just make sure that you ezine is targeted at the right people and that it has a subject line that will grab their attention.

Even if the customer doesn’t always read the ezine, you’re at least getting your name in front of them on a regular basis. Then, when they do need something that you can provide, they’re more likely to remember you. You can even get very low cost templates that you could use (‘Constant Contact’ is one that is very popular)

Staying on an Internet theme, you could also write a regular blog. This can help to raise your profile and increase your ratings with search engines such as Google. A blog is just an informal, chatty article – you can use it to impart information or just to talk about something that you think might interest your customers.

Press releases are another inexpensive option – although you may not have much control over whether or not they get used.  Similarly, articles for trade magazines can help to increase your credibility as a company.

Help is at hand

If you need help with copywriting – at competitive rates – please contact me for further details.

Meanwhile, start marketing!

Phil

Freelance copywriter

Web: www.phila.co.uk

Email: info@phila.co.uk

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philallcock

Below are links to my work. This is only a snap shot of what I have done, so if you want to see more just ask.

>Digital work 

>TV reel

>Print work

>Digital work Part 2 

A lot of people seem to write blogs in order to vent their anger at misplaced apostrophes, French waiters or miscarriages of justice on Strictly Come Dancing. I thought of doing that, but then realised that the Interweb isn’t big enough.

One morning I got a very strange phone call related to this kind of blog. Now, I’m not really much of a morning person – I can deal with words, but not people. So I pick up the phone to hear someone ask me: “Is that Mark Herring?” I grunted in a reasonably affirmative fashion to be asked: “Were you at the breakfast meeting this morning?” Before I could answer, the mysterious caller went on to say: “Don’t read my blog dot com. Have you got that? Don’t read my blog dot com.” Slightly startled I managed to ask who I was listening to, but he clearly wasn’t much of a conversationalist either and hung up.

My first reaction was guilt. Whose blog had I been reading – and why shouldn’t I have been reading it? And even if I shouldn’t have been reading it, how did they know I had been? Then I worked out that ‘Don’t read my blog dot com’ was a web address and assumed it was some kind of bizarre sales call. But it wasn’t. Do you know what it was?

This bloke had basically been to a business breakfast club that morning, turned up early and been rudely turned away by staff working at the venue. The event was run by someone with the same name as me (I am currently seeking legal advice about this). So Mr. Nuisance Caller took matters into his own hands, wrote a scathing review on his blog (which contains other gems such as ‘Keep a little memory jogger’ and ‘The importance of reading’) and then called the organiser to let him know war had been declared. Except he didn’t, because he called me instead.

So what’s the point? Well, only make semi-threatening calls if you are 100% sure you are talking to the right person, however well you make your point. In fact, it’s the same with all your communications, especially in an age where Twitter and social media allow us to talk to a huge number of disparate groups at the same time. So when was the last time you took a good look at what you’re saying, who to – and how? Thankyouverymuch.

Mark Herring offers words, ideas and a good cup to clients across the UK, Europe and the USA. See more at www.markherring.co.uk

Det är med stor glädje och stolthet som jag kan meddela att jag från och med den 3 november arbetar som copywriter på Deasign.

Deasign har de senaste tre åren placerat sig bland topp tre i branschundersökningarna Sveriges Bästa Byrå (Resumé) och Årets Byrå (DI). 2008 tog Deasign förstaplatsen i båda undersökningarna.

Det är med stor ödmjukhet jag tar mig an den här uppgiften. Vi ses på Guldägget.

Today, when I was giving a colleague an introduction to PR, it made me take a fresh look at what we always considered to be the basics of PR and they still hold true.  Journalists still want good, reliable information in a timely manner.  And what’s the first thing you say when you speak to them, whatever medium it is through?  Have you got a minute or are you on deadline?  And if they contact you, what’s one of the most important things, as well as knowing what they need?  What’s your deadline?  It’s amazing how many people either aren’t aware of it, or forget it.  Even those who know a lot about marketing generally.  As I said before, PR isn’t rocket science – it’s mainly common sense.

Resumes, that is … at the very least.

Some of the sagest career advice I’ve ever heard is “Specialize.” It was told to me by a jack-of-all-trades boss who suffered the consequences. It’s as grating as “plastics” in its simplicity, but as far as earning power and job security goes, you can’t beat it.

In a perfect world, we would all be hyper-specialists, having mastered our one little corner of the marketplace, and no one could touch us. In this perfect world, all we would need was one resume. (OK, OK, in a perfect world we wouldn’t need resumes at all, but make this leap with me, people.) We would only need one because there would be only one type of job we would be suited for, and we would be the only person who could do it.

To anyone who’s actually achieved this in the real world, I salute you. (I’m looking at you, Richard Simmons, Gene Simmons and this woman.) But for the rest of us, we will at some point have to capitulate to market demands, which means we will have to look at different ways to apply our skills if we’re going to continue to put food on the table (or more food on the table, or have dinner in Paris … whatever it is you’re looking for). For instance, journalists may have to apply for marketing copywriting jobs, scientists may have to seque from academia into defense, and artists may have to see if Starbucks is hiring. The same resume simply won’t do for both, and rarely are the choices as simple as Mrs. Robinson vs. Elaine. Lucky are the few who only need two!

Don’t even get me started on cover letters.

Many businesses typically include testimonials on their website as a way to convince potential clients to buy their products or services.

But if you want to go the extra mile to promote your business, a much stronger marketing  tool to use is the case study. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. A case study allows you to go into detail about why your product or service is superior to your competitor’s. Instead of relying on a customer quote, you can use specific facts and figures to demonstrate how you were able to enhance your customer’s sales,  productivity, etc.
2. A case study allows you to paint a compelling story for a potential client by illustrating the challenge your customer faced, the solution your company provided, and the results.
3. A case study is a powerful sales tool, since the more case studies you have to show to a potential client, the easier it will be to convince that client to do business with you.

How do you go about producing a case study?  The first thing you should do is interview your best customers to see if they’d be willing to be featured in a case study. If you’ve got a client who raves about your product or service, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get them to talk about their experiences.  Ask the client to provide concrete details on how their company benefited from your product/service.

After that, the format is straight forward. The case study should include the company’s background, the challenge it faced in the marketplace, the solution your company provided, and the results.

The finished product can be displayed on your company website, or printed for inclusion in an information packet you hand out to potential clients.

A case study is only a great tool if it’s written in a manner that will enable it to convert your leads into sales.  If you’re a small business owner who isn’t comfortable writing this type of marketing material, hire a professional copywriter to do it for you.

Copywriters need their own bible. Each one of us has a model copywriter whom we admire and respect, and to some extend, replicate. They are our guide and guru.

And many of us have several. One of mine is the writer of www.webinknow.com.

He is the author of The New Rules Of Marketing and PR. When I first stumbled on his book, I rolled my eyes and went, “So you want to teach me how to open a Facebook account?”.

The next moment, my eyes are firmly fixated on the pages of the book.

I won’t say whatever the author says in the book is new to me, but I do know this. It is new to many business owners. Yes, to many business owners whom I have had the privilege of copywriting for, many are very resistant to the new rules of marketing and PR. To them, I’d strongly suggest this book. It argues a very strong case for social media and its importance, and I promise you it will be an eye opener even if you’re already quite convinced of its powers.

Certainly a must read for all business owners and marketers.

Jag skriver rubriker. I detta nu. En svenska i Indien som skriver rubriker. Det ni! Det trodde ni inte va! Ingen mer tvålförsäljning! Mot storkovan och mäklarbranschen!
Och pappa, vi får gå hem först vid klockan 18.

Ghostwriting a 300 page manuscript, on average, takes 3 to 4 months to complete. And while the time and dedication needed to complete a book seems out of reach to most, turning into a recurring New Year’s resolution, there is hope: me! From the initial concept meetings, through development of the project, to a finished manuscript that is polished and ready for publication through a Print On Demand service, I help people fulfill their goal of getting their book written!

As an example, the fee for a 300 page, non-fiction project starts at $25,000.00.

Please contact me for a quote on your project and to check on my availability!

“I don’t fear the blank page…

It is but a canvas waiting to be painted with words, your words.”

-JB

An open secret throughout the ages, Ghostwriters have been used by executives, professionals, celebrities, politicians and kings to control their mythologies, their legacies, and secure their moments in history. They know that “writing” a book requires a level of dedication that they cannot afford to give lest they take their eye off their own tasks… They know that their time is too valuable or too limited for them to dedicate the weeks, months, and sometimes years needed for them to be able to finally get their book written…

They have known that which you now know; Ghostwriters are the enablers of the written word.

• 20% due on signing; 20% on delivery of detailed outline, 20% on delivery of first draft of a sample chapter, 25% on delivery of first draft of entire manuscript, 15% on delivery of revised manuscript.
• All required travel expenses (at the current, per-diem IRS Rates for food, hotel, mileage, and if required, airfare) will need to be pre-paid by the client prior to leaving San Diego. Travel time is billed at $45 an hour, and is due weekly on Fridays. Typically, pre-approved travel is needed for interviews and for research based on the client’s needs and/or requests.
• Open to discussing temporary relocation for duration of project, both nationally and internationally.
• Signing of a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is a standard business practice (and the occupational hazard of being a Ghostwriter).

“After everything is said and done,

it’s your name on the book!”

-JB

WRITER’S WARNING: This is a long post. If you’re not crazy about reading long online posts, download the post as a low file size PDF.

_____

A black book (or web page) is opened.

Samples of creative work are viewed.

The book or page is closed.

Decisions are made.

Rinse. Repeat.

As a creative professional and educator, I have always pondered the meaning and role of the creative portfolio, what it means to those who are creative professionals, and also to those who are not—those who interact or recruit creatives. For art directors, copywriters, and designers in multiple disciplines, the creative portfolio is their lifeblood. It’s where they show their work. It’s their default resume and principle means by which to land jobs. And, in the end, it defines their careers. The reason it defines their careers is because creative directors, hiring managers and recruiters use the “book” or portfolio to judge a creative pro’s worth. But how much can we really tell about someone from their portfolio, and how defining is it? To me a creative portfolio is solely this:

An artifact that illustrates the degree to which a creative person has been “allowed” to be creative.

Since I put allowed in quotes, let me define it a bit. Unless you are a street-corner musician, a poet or a self-styled starving artist, creative professionals are almost always more obligated to be professional than creative. They work for design companies, ad agencies, or corporate in-house creative teams. This means that their creativity is constrained by their employer. Creative people are further constrained by the clients of their employers. For services companies, this means external clients. For internal groups, this means other functional units within the company. In effect, the sum of these constraints equals the degree to which a creative person is allowed to be creative.

Process and Environment

These constraints don’t simply lie in the necessity to conform to a creative brief, design specs or customer requirements. From a broader perspective, all individuals who judge the work of the creative person subjectively form constraints. These include creative directors, account executives, marketing clients, engineers, technologists and many more, including the end-customer if a company is creating correctly. In the end, the work of the creative is not solely a measure of their creativity, but also an artifact of their particular environment’s creative process. It’s important to note that when I say environment, I don’t mean the process itself, but the space within which the process acts itself out. Let me illustrate this with an example:

I

A copywriter and art director team, from a Chicago advertising agency, come up with an idea for a 30-second television commercial for a consumer package goods (CPG) client.

II

The idea is shown to their creative director, the creative director’s boss, three account executives, and two clients who are marketing managers/directors. The client then takes the idea and shows it to four more people including their boss. The idea gets altered in numerous ways to meet the ideals and requirements of all who have touched it. Next it goes into production. A director, actors, producers, editors and numerous others touch it and alter it before it is a final product that goes into the copywriter’s and art director’s creative portfolio.

In the example above, the first part contains the environment in which the creative process is acted out

1. Chicago

2. Ad agency

3. CPG client

The second part is the process. Most creative professionals understand this process, or one similar to it. Most consider this a system that is acceptable and known. And though creatives, being creative, might occasionally moan about it, they mostly resign themselves to its machinations. However, what very few people consider is how drastically this scenario changes when you change the first part, the environment. So let’s take the exact same process and make the following environment replacements:

Chicago to Portland, Oregon
CPG Client to Athletic Shoe Client

Now, even though the process is probably very similar, the environment has drastically changed. For instance, Chicago has traditionally been a conservative advertising city. Portland has not. CPG clients are often conservative marketers. Athletic shoe makers typically are not. CPG companies often flock to Chicago agencies due to their CPG expertise and conservatism. Athletic shoe companies do not. CPG companies typically employ the kind of person who can understand and conform to the sort of strategic branding these companies do. Chicago ad agencies typically hire creative professionals with portfolios that fit their current client’s style.

Change the Environment, Change the Creative Product

Now imagine the process above taking place in the new environment. If the exact same copywriter and art director were involved, with the exact same process, would the outcome (creative portfolio artifact) be different?

Faster than you can say swoosh. You can bet your recession-proof savings on it.

Country, city, type of office, type of client; these are the environmental elements that designers, art directors and copywriters work within, and that contribute to the formation of their creative product, and thus their creative portfolio. And this is why a creative portfolio only tells part of the story regarding an individual’s creativity and creative potential.

Throughout my 20-year creative career I have known and worked with numerous wildly creative individuals who do NOT have wildly creative portfolios. I’ve also known many creatives who blossomed and evolved once their environment changed. For some it was simply a change of workplace. For others, a whole new city or country or client industry precipitated the evolution.

Ive League

There’s a rather famous example of this not many people know about. The lead Industrial Designer at Apple, Johnathon Ive, has become a legend for his design and design stewardship of Apple’s groundbreaking iMac, iPod and iPhone designs. But Ive wasn’t always the hero at Apple. In fact, during the years when Steve Jobs was away from company, Apple took a nosedive, and the company was at its all-time lows in stock price. Despite the fairly wide acceptance of Mac by creative professionals, Apple looked as if it was going the way of the Dodo. At that time, Ive was there (he started in 1992), designing, and building a (mostly unimpressive) creative portfolio.

Then his environment changed.

Steve Jobs returned in 1997 and put the focus of the company on industrial design. He opened the floodgates for folks like Ive, a brilliant designer, to show just how creative he can be. This one change in environment changed a middling creative talent (if you only looked at his creative portfolio) and allowed him to achieve a level of creativity closer to his potential.

IVE BEFORE JOBS' RETURN

A creative portfolio is an artifact that illustrates the degree to which a creative person has been “allowed” to be creative.

IVE'S PORTFOLIO AFTER JOBS' RETURN

Seeing Behind the Portfolio

The implications for this sort of perspective about creative portfolios stretch from creator to creative co-worker to recruiter. I think that most creatives would agree with much of what I’ve outlined, perhaps even with an apathetic shrug. But to those who float the periphery of the creative world, these notions are perhaps far more important.

Outside of creative professions, job hunters are judged on their resume, their experience, their education and how they come across in an interview. This is the normal world. But not for creatives. Creative professionals are mostly, and often solely, judged on the content of their portfolios. Given this inevitability, I would plead with those who critique portfolios and make hiring decisions (yes, you too, creative directors) to open their minds to a creative’s potential as much as their portfolio. I humbly request you start with these three simple guidelines that help you see behind the creative portfolio to the real creative professional.

1. Read between the lines.
Look at creative executions with an open mind. Try to see through the end result and consider the process and especially the environment.

2. Listen, don’t look.
Listen to the creative talk about their work and probe deeper into how it got there. Don’t just scan it and take it at face value. Typically, there is far more value hiding behind the face.

3. Remember that creativity is born before it is recruited
Creative professionals are creative by nature first, not profession. What you see isn’t all there is. In fact, the typical creative portfolio is usually just the tip of the creative iceberg.

With these guidelines, I guarantee you will better understand both the work and the mind of the creative professionals you come in contact with, and be able to better gauge creative potential. In today’s creative world there are a handful of wunderkinds out there who are tearing up the awards books, and making names for themselves internationally. But these handful are not the only ones capable of creating extraordinary work, they merely represent the ones who have been allowed to.

Read this post as a PDF

As always, your comments are welcome–BV