Archive for the ‘Stories’ Category

Marketing lesson from a December rose

As the new year began, I thought about the rose bush in my flower garden that still had many pink blooms.
Here’s a photo:

I live in Wisconsin so this is quite a feat. All the other flowers had died and were pruned back, bracing for the winter that was to arrive in full force a few [...]

Comments

Marketing Lesson from “The Little Old Lady in Pasadena”

The other day I pulled into a parking space at Trader Joe’s and noticed a white convertible Oldsmobile Cutlass in the space next to me.
It had two doors and looked to be from the late 1960s or early 1970s, making it a muscle car.
I’m not a car enthusiast but I couldn’t help but [...]

Comments

How to make a lifelong impression in one minute

Even from many feet away - I was at one end of the grocery aisle and she was at the other end - I could tell she was chic and elegant and the most beautiful woman I had seen in quite some time.
It was a cold winter day and I had been in no mood [...]

Comments

The Mel Blanc of Copywriting

I suppose you are curious about that title, especially if you are a Looney Tunes fan. I’ll get to that in one minute and 37 seconds. (Yes I timed how long it takes to read from this point until that point. I’m weird that way.)
I write about my clients’ stories every day and realized I [...]

Comments

On golf, copywriting and lateral thinking

I was an avid golfer for ten years, from the ages of 12-22 years old.
Now that I’m a copywriter and have to indulge in a lot of lateral thinking, it occurred to me recently that, for me, playing golf had NOTHING to do with golf.
Instead it had everything to do with my father, a dead [...]

Comments

The power of a good story

I love stories like these and this is one of the best I’ve come across in a while and it made my week.
It also raises a question that I hope you’ll help me answer.
Surely by now you’ve heard of Susan Boyle, who wowed the world with her singing on Britian’s Got Talent show. The YouTube [...]

Comments

How to avoid copywriting

On Saturday I went to Shopko (a store similar to Target here in Wisconsin).
One of the items on my list was skirt hangers so I went to the part of the store where hangers should logically be.
No hangers.
I scoured the storage, household goods, kitchen wares and laundry sections.
Nuthin’.
After walking around in frustration for several [...]

Comments

Marketing lesson from a homeless man

The homeless man standing at an intersection near the mall today was the sorriest looking man I’ve seen in a while.
He held a cardboard sign that said something like “Homeless and hungry.”
There was no clear call to action on the sign.
He didn’t have a USP - he looked like most every other homeless man I’ve [...]

Comments