Rant of the day: "You, the client"

I'm sick of seeing copy that's in the plural. It may be written from the one to the many, but it's read by them one at a time. Here are some examples (I didn't have to look too hard to find them):

"We instil in all our people the desire to understand our clients"
"We put our clients first"
"This gives the client peace of mind"

I'm on my knees, begging you, PLEASE don't address me as 'clients', address me as 'you'.

A blog about a blog

I've been writing this blog for a few years (the archive shows exactly how long). I'd say it's on its third iteration by now.

It started as my comments on the good, the bad and the ugly in UK advertising. Then I thought, oh no, I'm not taking my own advice and filling it with enough added value! So I changed it to what business-owners can learn from UK advertising, and each post included a hint, tip or message of some kind. Time moved on, and I realised I'd probably shared just about all the advice I can, and that perhaps the blog was missing a bit of personality to fit in with current trends. So more recent posts have included stories about ads and how they impact my real life.

For the future, I'm tempted to stray from its advertising focus into a wider arena. I will continue to write hints and tips about marketing, networking and social media on Ezine Articles. I hope that's OK with you?

Please let me know either way!

They do say that for every comment received on a blog you can assume 100 readers.

Analytics tells me there have been thousands of visitors over the past years. More on the days when I tweet about a blog post. Most go to the home page (that's usually the link I send them to from Twitter and everywhere else).

My most popular post ever is Chop chop busy busy work work bang bang. It's about Laithwaites, so if people are looking for the Penguin ad, I apologise now for any disappointment!

"Milk the dragon"

It isn't what you think.

Not much is, in the weirdly wonderful world of the Cravendale Milk Matters ads.



Must admit, I don't like them much. But then, I don't much like milk either.

What I do like is the surreal juxtaposition of the words.

Some things are just too surreal

Walking up my road this week I passed a very tall man and a short woman, holding hands and singing "Moon pig dot com!"

Just goes to show the power of an annoyingly catchy jingle to enter into real life.

It works though. The only card I kept from my birthday earlier this year was a customised one of theirs.

In the shower

I was in the shower and suddenly I started thinking about coffee. Odd! Doubly so because I don't even drink coffee!

Want to know why not? Read this little aside*.

I never drank a lot of coffee. I used to have a cup a day, until one of my friends was training to be a homoeopath and needed subjects to practice on. It turns out that coffee antidotes the remedy (as does mint, you'd think it would be easy to avoid but you'd be surprised how often you are offered it when you're not supposed to have any). So, I didn't drink any coffee for three months, and when I went back to it, I found it made my heart race and I couldn't sleep. Now I only have it when I actually want to keep awake, such as when driving on a long motorway journey. It's a shame, because I actually do like the taste of it. But hey ho.

So, getting back to the shower. I got to wondering, what had created the link in my mind?

I walk past Costa Coffee in the High Street almost every day and there is an A-board outside with a curve of colour swatches (bear with me) showing that they sell both hot and cold drinks. Aha! The show cubicle has a similar display where you turn the arrow to choose the water temperature you want. And when I walk past Costa I think about my shower.

Just goes to show the power of visual connections in your mind. What NLP calls 'anchors'. Like the reaction you get when you see a speed camera or a spider. And how these anchors can be used within the power of advertising.

* Another little aside. I don't drink tea either, but that's another story.

What a waste

A white C4 envelope was delivered (that's the size that holds an A4 piece of paper, the type that needs a 'large' stamp under the new* Post Office pricing structure).

Inside was a zero balance invoice from a telecoms company.

Someone had to pay for this pointless print and postage!

I'm just glad it wasn't me.

* OK, I know it's not so new, but I still think of it that way.

Fund-raising

I received a letter from a local charity today. I can tell it's not professionally written or designed (saving money, no bad thing). It includes raffle tickets to win up to £2,000.

But who could take money from a charity?

If you win, you'd just have to donate it back to them wouldn't you? Otherwise you'd never be able to live with your conscience.

* Word of the day = assuage

Aaah, nostalgia!

"I can't live...if living is without you..."

I was in the kitchen when I heard Harry Neilsen's original song on the TV (muuuch better than the Mariah Carey version. As was said in the film Amadeus, 'too many notes my dear Mozart'.)

I came running in to the sitting room, to see what it was all about.

Joy of joys!

Sodastream is back!

At last I can get busy with the fizzy again.

Read all about it and view the ad on the Guardian website.

Mmm

What a great piece of work! I have nothing to add. No lessons to draw out. Just wanted to keep this ad on my blog for future reference...