Promo Launch Price – 99 cents:
Author Archives: Richard Clunan
Burn your books. Murder by the state. And is advertising evil?
Said David Ogilvy: Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. It’s also a business of psychology. And … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, books
Whodunnit? And Happy New Year :)
A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it. John D. Barrow said that. So the more we understand it, the more we simplify. Or the more complex the description is. So, while we can point fingers at who helped 2011 … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, economy, environment, innovation, society
What’s the best marketing, advertising, and copywriting for our new creative society?
They said we only use 10% of our brains. But why would we have evolved such a massive brain to use only a teeny bit of it? The neuro-people are now saying we use the whole lot of it. And we use both hemispheres for all tasks, whether they’re ‘creative’ … Continue reading
Tagged economy, evolution, marketing, psychology, society
Is Neuromarketing good for us? And: old tricks and new dogs
When was the last time you forgot a person’s name? And did you forget that person’s face? People remember faces. Like these 2 ‘stachioed fellas: So maybe better than the age old client cry of ‘Make my logo bigger’, we should hear more cries of ‘Make my moustachio bigger’. Is … Continue reading
Tagged copywriting, economy, innovation, marketing, neuromarketing
What do copywriters and entrepreneurs do on the toilet?
Dan Martin reports that two fifths of entrepreneurs have come up with the idea for a business while on the toilet. I’m sure scientists, designers, copywriters, and a whole bunch of other people come up with ideas while they’re on the toilet, too. But why isn’t everybody an ideas person? … Continue reading
Tagged business, entrepreneurship, innovation
Could a Crow be a Copywriter? And how do you make luck?
Jays (the birds of the crow-family) re-hide food if another bird has seen them hiding the food: which indicates that they are able to put themselves in others’ shoes and figure out what might happen in scenario x. Intelligent little nippers, they are. Like the copywriter for Anadin: Nothing acts … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, creativity, psychology
Nothing much to do with Copywriting, Part 4. Unravelling the Species: Can we Live Forever?
Spider silk is stronger than steel, weight for weight. So it would be handy stuff to make stuff with, but it’s always been difficult to harvest spider silk, because spiders are very territorial. They kill each other if you stick lots of them together in a barn / on a … Continue reading
Tagged evolution, innovation
The Power of Story in Copywriting. Part 2
In my last blog post, I made the outrageous assertion that stories flick on pleasure switches in our brains. Jon says: “I’m going to give you a list of facts and figures.” Jim says: “I’m going to tell you a story”. Who — Jon or Jim — is likely to … Continue reading
Tagged copywriting, story
Why are stories so powerful in copywriting, marketing, advertising?
Stories are nailed into our brains right from when we are wee young things. They are how we make sense of everything. From a very early age, we poked around, learned what things are, and linked things up: We grew up drawing pictures of the stories of our lives. Kids … Continue reading
Tagged business, copywriting, marketing, story
Advertising, film, and gardening that might help kids ask the right questions
Here’s something you could do if you have a second: And if you’ve got more than a second, here’s something else you could do: If kids are brought up asking questions that encourage creative thinking: like What can I do in just one second of film? And what can I … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, marketing, psychology
Deadlines and jellybeans
A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all. Rita Mae Brown In fact, deadlines can help the brain weed out all the stuff that actually doesn’t need doing; deadaliens can kill wandering thoughts — keep things focused. Just as other restrictions can — Picasso painted … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, creativity
How technology can change writing
Every time a new technology is developed, people predict that the old technology that’s being ‘replaced’, will become landfill. Gutenburg kills pens. Video kills the radio star. And screens kill printed books. But the old technology usually lives on. Sales of printed books are still high. And I hear that … Continue reading
Tagged technology, writing
Dedicated Fans of Advertising
I like the wackiness of this: I’m not sure how much something like that would withstand a focus group. But then, focus groups ‘analyze’ consciously. And I don’t need to tell you that we act on emotion and justify with logic. So dropping coins into the beaks of peeps in … Continue reading
Tagged advertising, social media
Pepsi ‘Refresh’ campaign — How to See with Sound
As you know, when a person loses a sense, other senses can become more pronounced: That perhaps shows how we ‘underuse’ senses. Freud described our sense of smell as a casualty, repressed by the fact that we simply don’t need the sense so much in our civilised world. There have … Continue reading
Tagged guerrilla advertising, psychology
Why Western Economies Will Get Back on Their Feet and Why the World Might Not Be Screwed Yet
There are 7 billion people in the world now and there’s an estimate that it will take just 16 years for the world population to reach 8 billion. So we may be living the ‘ultimate Ponzi scheme’, as David Attenborough has described it. As you know, Ponzi schemes collapse eventually … Continue reading
and
:)
Tweet