Archives for copy
Sticky Wall 2.0
This year, Pop Art participated in Colaboratory for the first time, Portland Ad Fed’s revolutionary new internship program. We had three different interns over six weeks, from both the design and writing disciplines. Each intern was here for just eight working days (Monday – Thursday), which was some of my initial hesitation in participating in the [...]
Free Advice for Adobe Acrobat Programmers
I often find myself making PDFs to send our design work over to clients. Acrobat is a great little program that nearly everyone has, and is rarely blocked by corporate firewalls. It’s generally very easy to use, too. Here’s how I make most PDFs for client presentations. Make comps. This takes some time. Drag files onto Acrobat icon [...]
Being a Little Bit Transparent is Like Being a Little Bit Pregnant
It seems that I can’t have a conversation about blogging without also talking about fear, legal liability, and transparency. Which I find somewhat ironic: as a business, most of our clients have tens, if not hundreds, of employees who are trained to talk to clients. Customer service reps. Sales people. Technical support. They’re trained in [...]
Copywriters and SEO
It’s time for copywriters to evolve and embrace search engine optimization. And not just re-writing headlines, but owning the search-optimized content creation process from start to finish. The only reason writers and editors haven’t been responsible for SEO in the past for interactive agencies is because SEO firms (and interactive firms) position it as some [...]
What Was I Thinking?
Great book(s) review from the New Yorker about why consumers make stupid decisions. There’s a lot of “duh” statements in here — Consumers are effort-averse? Really? — but stated in a researched, academic way. A few Halloweens ago, Ariely laid in a supply of Hershey’s Kisses and two kinds of Snickers—regular two-ounce bars and one-ounce [...]
The Danger of the Em Dash
When I write, I use em dashes. A lot. At one point in my career, my creative director returned an article to me in which I’d used an em dash in EVERY SINGLE PARAGRAPH of a 700-word article. Clearly, I had a problem. Em dashes (or the long dash, like this: — ) are remarkable little devices [...]
On the Value of Teamwork
“Hey, we’ve got this comp due to the client in 30 minutes. Think you could knock out a headline for us?” (If you found this funny, you’re a total ad nerd.)
Impaling Copy on Your Brand Pyramid
Probably one of the best things clients get from typical brand pyramid exercises is the “who would your brand be?” But how do you use that information for copywriting? One of our interns this summer loved theater, and she simplified it well: Branding means writing in character. I love this copywriting short-hand because our culture’s weird [...]
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Case Study: Portland Beer Blog
Search engine marketing and copywriting make uneasy allies. SEM means writing for a machine, for an equation, for a filter. Copywriting means expressing human desire, passion, creativity for people. Yet when you can combine the basics of search engine marketing with creative copywriting, your clients win. Big time. And I’ll address this at the end. But [...]
Pop Art Launches Two New Freightliner Trucks Sites
Pop Art has launched two sites that we’re really excited about, Visit Cascadia and Drive Cascadia to promote the launch of a groundbreaking new truck, the Freightliner Cascadia™. Visit Cascadia Visit Cascadia is a tourism site for a fictional town called Cascadia. Imagine the perfect trucktopia that inspired by the features and benefits of their official truck, the [...]
Why Playing World of Warcraft Won’t Make Your PPC Copy Sing
I call Pay Per Click (PPC) writing “Haiku for Dollars.” Mostly becuase I think it’s funny, and people laugh so I assume they agree. But PPC isn’t much of a creative strain — unlike most creative endeavors in which a broad base of life experience helps you connect concepts in bizarre ways, PPC tends to [...]
The 9-Point Copywriting Checklist
Here’s a checklist you may find useful when judging writing. It’s not really in any particular order, except maybe the first two or three items. And there’s probably a million exceptions to each of these, which I’m sure you’ll helpfully point out in the comments section.The real benefit of using this checklist: you’ll polish not [...]
