Here’s something I didn’t know. I discovered it thanks to NaNoWriMo. The idea behind NaNoWriMo is simple – you write a 50,000 word novel in November, quality be damned. The point is to force you to put words on a page. It doesn’t work for me – whatever I’m writing, be that copy or fiction, I’m far too much of a perfectionist. I hate writing bad words, and work far better taking time to produce good...

Here is a video of a smart man talking about smart things: Please ignore the bit about the Wright Brothers. It’s tosh. The rest of it, though, is an insightful bit of marketing. We don’t buy the what, or the how, we buy the why. Let me put it another way: We buy based on our emotions. We buy based on how the purchase makes us feel, and what crowd it makes feel part of. The important part is not so much making sure that your...

Ever heard of emotional transference? Frankly, it’s unlikely, since I just made up the term. Here’s the idea, which is not in itself particularly original: feel good about one thing, and you’re likely to feel good about anything it’s associated with. Or anything happening at the same time. You’ll have experienced this any time you hear triumphant or sad music backing a film scene. And you can see it again...

Banging the ‘know your audience’ drum again… Here’s a guy who knows what he’s doing. Mike Geary’s The Truth About Abs is a global phenomenon. One of the reasons it’s done so well is that he’s a huge proponent of testing. He’ll test and tweak his ads over and over until they’re delivering the best results possible. So it’s probably no accident that he uses different sales...

Time to be serious. This post is thought provoking, and more than a bit depressing: I went to the mall and a little girl called me a terrorist While, you should read the whole thing, the key part is this: It didn’t matter that I was a nice person.  All that mattered was that I looked different. Yes. All that matters is the look. That’s what makes the instant first impression, and that’s what colours all our judgements. To take a...