Words and writing Archives - Otis Regrets... or not

We’re stepping back, not stepping away

Boy with American Flag — This photo is in the Creative Commons, meaning the photographer has approved its use without permission or payment. It originally appeared with an editorial, entitled “America’s struggles with cultural ignorance”, in the online publication of Biola, a Christian college.

As exactly nobody noticed but me, June was the first month since 2004 in which we did not publish a single post. Blowing that tradition feels great. I’m backing off on new freelance work and will continue to post here from time to time, but only if I have something worth saying. The collected wisdom of this site can be found mostly in the Copywriting 101 category or, if you want to pay very little extra for me to organize it for you, in my book Copywriting that Gets RESULTS! And if you are willing to read about food instead of marketing, Burnt My Fingers is alive and well with new posts at least 2x a week.

I started this blog because I was teaching a copywriting course for the Direct Marketing Association, and the innovative format (yes, blogs were new at one time) seemed a good way to keep in touch with students outside of class. In 2004 email and other electronic marketing was in the ascendancy, but we still used direct mail for many creative and marketing examples because there is such a rich history to draw from.

Today, the most effective marketing is found in ads that don’t seem like ads at all, in clickbait headlines and fake social media posts that target a specific group or concern. David Ogilvy and other giants of direct marketing would be very proud of, if not exactly chummy with, the Russians and others that excel at these new media. Just like Robert Collier or John Caples, they do the digging to understand what is important to their target audience, then present their product or service as a solution to the problem the audience is having.

As we learned from Roy Chitwood and other practitioners of effective selling (remember, a copywriter is a salesperson with a keyboard), every one of us is motivated in every decision by the desire for gain or fear of loss. Today the latter motivator seems to be on the rise. I hope we all live long enough that the tide will turn and we will be less interested in who is trying to take things away from us and how we can stop them, and more interested in being the best we can be and sharing any beneficial results that may accrue.

It’s America’s birthday, the 4th of July. Let’s celebrate by making a commitment to a more generous and optimistic society, and let’s each one of us take the high road in working to make that happen. Look your neighbor in the eye, even if they’re a stranger, and nod hello. Sharing and fellowship built our nation. It’s not too late to go back.

“Do you want your receipt?”

Here is a new but pervasive conversation in my home area (upstate New York). You’ll be completing a credit card transaction at a retail counter and the checker says, “do you want your receipt?” Well, of course I don’t. In an era of readily available online statements there are easier ways to track my purchases. And it’s just one more piece of paper to stuff in my wallet or lose in the shopping bag and ultimately throw away.

And yet. If I DON’T accept the receipt that leaves me open for fraud (the transaction is altered after the fact) or an error, like not picking up a sale price, that I would notice if I had the record. So my policy has been to say no if I’ve been watching the items and their prices on the register screen, and it’s a place I trust, otherwise yes. And I take those receipts, as I always do, and match them against my next statement to be sure they are consistent.

I am curious where this new policy came from. Is it supposed to be eco-sensitive because it avoids wasting a scrap of paper? Is this happening where you live? Let me know.

John Burgess: a life well lived on the internet

I thought about making this anonymous, but I don’t think there’s anything that John Burgess and his family wouldn’t want to share. And maybe they’ll see this and contact me with additional details.

Recently, for reasons of my own, I googled “what does turtle taste like”. One of the top hits was an excellent answer from John Burgess on Quora:

The flavor of turtle runs across a spectrum of fishy-to-beefy, depending on the variety and the method of cooking. Sea turtles — most of which are now protected species — actually fall on the ‘beefy’ side, often being compared to veal in both flavor and texture, though with abundant and savory fat. Fresh water turtles tend toward the ‘fishy’ side, though also fattier than most fish.

Land turtles or tortoises, I find, are pretty much indistinguishable from other reptiles, whether snake or alligator. ‘Chickeny’ would be an apt description.

What a good and complete answer! And as often happens on Quora, I was drawn down a rabbit hole, this time by Burgess’ profile description: “A diplomat is one who is paid to dine for his country; I’ve done so globally.” Well!

When you get to his profile page you find that Burgess has written over 12,000 Quora answers on every topic imaginable, a lot of them on the Middle East (and specifically on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or KSA) where he was stationed for many years. His answers are invariably terse yet complete, objective and informative. No wonder he is a “top writer” on Quora, a designation I have not seen previously.

I say “is” when referring to John Burgess because his words are as fresh and relevant as when he wrote them, but I noticed something: he wrote 13 answers on January 26, 2016 and two on January 27, then never wrote again. I also noticed the word “remembering” above his profile, something else I’ve never seen on Quora. I realize that John Burgess, the man, is dead.

I googled “John Burgess obituary Sarasota” knowing that was where he lived from some of the posts, and got confusing answers including an unrelated scoundrel who was arrested for DWI. Then I tried “John Burgess obituary Sarasota born 1947” because I’d been able to extrapolate that birth year from some of his posts. It pulled up this wonderful obituary which was posted by his high school.

John Burgess seems to have had quite a life. He saw the world as a foreign service officer and made the most of the opportunities his travels provided. In retirement he used his experience as a consultant for various media and film producers. He was thoroughly involved in Sarasota, where he was a fan of the local historic architecture and also sport fishing.

I don’t know when Burgess retired, so I don’t know how much he got to enjoy his post-foreign service years. He was just 69 when he passed, so I’m hoping he mustered out well before age 65. I also don’t know whether his death was anticipated or sudden. On January 26 he was writing pssionately about many subjects, then three weeks later on February 16 (his 69th birthday) he was dead. If he suffered, it wasn’t a long illness.

And what is kind of majestic about all of this, what we know and what we don’t know, is how John Burgess lives on through the Internet. His life and his knowledge are there for us to share, thanks to Quora. May we all be so generous and fortunate when our time comes.

Hopkins Scientific Advertising for free?

Would you like a free copy of Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins? Sure you would, because this marketing classic is as relevant today as when it was published in 1923. Here are four principles from the book, as summarized on the Marketing Experiments blog:

1. People are selfish.
2. Generalities are worthless.
3. Advertising is salesmanship.
4. Advertising is a science.

The last is obviously to self-justify the book. But would you disagree with any of the others? Of course not, for reasons we have written about here many times. The world may change, the delivery mechanism certainly does, but people are still people with universal wants and fears.

Since the book is long out of copyright, a number of links to free downloads are available on the web. My favorite is this page by Roy Furr which showed up last week in my LinkedIn feed. Furr is a disciple of Jay Abraham who will of course use the podium to sell his own works while he has you engaged. But there’s no obligation, and I will take it on faith that opt-out requests will be honored.

You can go to this page and get full exposure to Furr’s marketing message, which is classic long form copy though a little long on analytics and short on emotion for me. In true Jay Abraham fashion, he really massages the info premium. Scroll to the bottom, and not only can you get the PDF download, but you can get an audiobook which Furr “recorded for my personal use”. The reader is pretty professional sounding, whether it’s Furr or somebody else.

My own publisher, FastPencil, is not so smart about freebies. They’ve discontinued the preview download feature whereby I offered the first ten chapters of Copywriting that Gets Results! at no charge. But a complete PDF is just $6.99, and since you’re saving so much on Claude Hopkins why don’t you just buy a copy?

Are copywriters the last storytellers?

Every copywriter should read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey and following that, Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. The first describes the classic myth structure which has existed across many civilizations and millennia: the hero emerges from humble beginnings, deals with adversity and learns from it, battles for cause and identity, suffers a major setback and enters a dark period, then draws on everything he’s learned to rally and prevail in a final battle. The Writer’s Journey is the same story, but told through the lens of Star Wars, one of the most popular films of all time.

I go to movies often with my teenage son, and it is painful to me that so many of today’s films are CGI spectacles devoid of plot or character development that could have been improved by a rote interpretation of the above sequence. I wonder what the budget meetings were like when they decided to put in yet another car crash or exploding head instead of spending a few bucks on a junior screenwriter.

If you’re a copywriter, you can’t afford to be sloppy like the Hollywood studios with your plots. You’re telling a story in which your prospect is the hero (thanks to your product) or in peril (but your service will save her). It needs to be credible and complete or you will be shown the door. Always remember that the marketer is an uninvited guest at the hearth of life. Your fellow travelers may be willing to listen politely for a moment but, if you can’t hold their attention you’re out in the snow. And, unlike failed Hollywood blockblusters, there’s no foreign distribution to redeem bad copy.

Yesterday in the car, I was listening to our recent Nobel laureate in literature for the first time in a while. “The drunken organ grinder cries…. I want you.” Parse those words and you’ll see there’s more drama and pathos in two lines than in most recent movies. The organ grinder is a street performer, someone who’s not particularly valued though he may amuse us. This one, though, has troubles. He is lovesick and that is probably what led him to drink. We want to know more.

Write copy that good and you’ll be a success, even a hero. Unlike yours truly, you may even sell a screenplay some day.

Sixfold: A crowd sourced literary competition

Are you a copywriter who has dreams of publishing legitimate (i.e. non-marketing) prose or poetry? Then take a look at Sixfold.org. This outfit puts on regular literary competitions you can enter for the very reasonable fee of $5, plus a commitment to read and critique 18 fellow competitors’ work.

Entries are submitted via the web, and each is assigned to a panel of judges (there are controls in place so you don’t critique your own work). You receive six stories in each of three rounds with no author identification. As a critic, you rank the stories from 1 (best) to 6 (least-best) and write a brief explanation of your vote. I found this a challenging and stimulating assignment.

In the first round, it was pretty easy to identify stories that would rank toward the bottom but harder to determine the order toward the top. But you have to take this seriously because only the top two move on to the next round, and the writer of the story will have access to your critique and know how you voted. It’s a (mostly) transparent process, like Yelp for writers.

Again in the second round, you read, critique and rank six stories and the top two move on to a third round. In the third round, the highest-ranking work gets a $1000 award and the top 15 get publication in the quarterly Sixfold Journal. At this level the writing is very, very good for the most part and I felt challenged to be very clear in my critique. I needed to have a reason for placing the work where I had, and I had to explain the reason in a way that was useful to the author.

After the competition ends, you have access to a complete list of the entries ranked in judging order. You can read the stories, and click through to whatever bio info the author has provided. More important, you have (password protected) access to the votes and critiques on your own entry and the more rounds you made it through the more critiques there will be. I was fortunate to get to the third round (I placed #20, just out of the running for publication, among 265 entries overall) so there were lots of critiques and some were very useful. Specifically, there were enough criticisms of the way I chose to end my story that I’m going to go back and fiddle with it.

The one thing I didn’t like, though I understand the reason for it, is that participants have the opportunity to be as anonymous as they wish both in their critiques and their entries. You can hide your work, or your name, or both, in the publicly available results. This allows a writer to submit a work to gauge acceptance without publishing it. It also allows an established writer to submit anonymously. 5 of the top 15 stories are currently listed on the results page as “Document [number]” and aren’t available to be read. Most of the lower ranked stories are anonymous in the results, suggesting that a new author was simply looking for feedback which is entirely legitimate.

As a contestant, I’d like to know the identity of my reviewer so I can read their work and understand any inherent bias or perspective. It’s frustrating that User 2707 gave me a 1 (which, confusing, is the worst ranking for tabulating score, meaning I was 6 out of 6 in his rating) and said simply, “Thanks for letting us all read your story! I enjoyed it.” Would he/she have been so dismissive without the protection of anonymity? There were also some reviewers whose critiques were not available; I got a ranking but not an explanation. It’s a glitch in the system, I assume

All in all, the positives far outweigh my concerns, and I’m a big fan of sixfold.org. Already thinking about what to enter for the July competition.

Does ScoreIt teach you to write like Stephen King?

Food for thought: I recently received an email from Bowker, a service that provides ISBN numbers to self-published authors. They have a new product that allows you to compare your prose to that of successful published writers and find out who has a style and genre close to yours. The software is ScoreIt, and it has a hefty price tag of $99. If they’d let me do one match for free I might have tried it but as it is I will just opine about something I know nothing about.

Let’s say ScoreIt tells me I write like Stephen King, and that my story of teenage mishaps is closest to his horror works. What am I supposed to do with that information? I suppose I could advertise my work with phrases such as “if you liked Carrie, you’ll love Teen Troubles!” And certainly I can use it for the elevator pitch to prospective agents in which you tell them your writing is like Stephen King crossed with Herman Melville (for argument’s sake I’m presuming that’s a secondary match). Is either of these worth $99?

What I’m worried about is that ScoreIt is going to make writers try to train themselves to write more like Stephen King. They’ll pore over his books (and the reports from ScoreIt which I presume have granular detail on shared vocabulary, sentence structure etc). And it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of developing their own voice, they will indeed write more and more like someone else.

Of course, I used Stephen King as my straw man for a very good reason. He has a completely different voice from book to book, depending on topic and presumed audience. And he explains his craft and technique quite fully in On Writing, a standard textbook in college writing courses. The $10 or so that costs you on Amazon would be a better investment, methinks.

What the pool guy can teach us about selling freelance creative

I’ve recently moved into a house which, two owners ago, was tricked out with all the bells and whistles available in the early 1990s. Most of these tchotchkes have fallen into disrepair and must either be abandoned (like the in-wall coax cabling throughout the house) or gussied up. This has caused visits by a stream of spa guys, pool guys and sprinkler guys and I’ve noticed something interesting and consistent in the way they address my wife and me which can help in selling freelance creative.

“See the three holes in the top of that sprinkler head?” says the sprinkler guy. “That’s a Toro. They require a special tool to open the head, so you have to call a service to do it for you. I’ll replace all those with Rainbirds you can adjust yourself.”

“This is junk,” says the pool guy as he turns the handle on the filter tank. “$125 for a new one.” Water starts to ooze out. “Look at that.” As the gaskets become saturated, the leaks stop. “Well, maybe it’s good for one more season. But keep an eye on it. If you lose your prime [which for some reason is what they call pressure in the system] then your pool will become filled with algae.”

What’s happening in both these instances is that the contractor is sharing a do-it-yourself tip to make me, the client, feel in control while simultaneously instill fears, uncertainties and doubts that I’ll actually be able to do it.

“Write like you talk,” you might tell a client who thinks they can do their own copywriting. “Short sentences, no more than 10 words on average but break those up with an occasional one- or two-word sentence. Paragraphs no longer than five lines, but break them up with an occasional one-line or even one-word paragraph. And your vocabulary should be plain English. No words over ten characters if possible.”

Now who’s going to remember all that? The guy is going to dutifully write it down, and possibly try it, but will quickly abandon the effort and call you. And you may well be able to ease your estimate a bit higher because they now have more appreciation of your craft.

This is why I shake my head at creatives who present their work as a black box and refuse to open the kimono and explain what they’re doing. The more you tell them, the more they will respect and trust you, and the more likely they are to hire you to do it for them. Now I’ve got to go down in the basement, because the last owner loved to tinker with his sprinklers and I’m pretty sure he had one of those special Toro tools.

Why Cadillac “Dare Greatly” campaign doesn’t

While many brands made a political statement with ads on the 2017 Super Bowl, Cadillac saved theirs for the (surprisingly non-political) Academy Awards telecast. “We are a nation divided. That’s what they tell us, right?” the ad begins. “But what they don’t tell you, what doesn’t make the news, is this: We carry each other forward.” And we have a series of clips of Americans supporting or carrying others, sometimes literally.

Next we go to a montage of historical figures standing next to their Cadillacs. “No matter who we are, or what we believe, or where we come from, we’ve had the privilege to carry a century of humanity,” the ad continues. The “carry” metaphor is not very subtle, but it speaks well to Cadillac’s history as a symbol of having made it. I grew up in a suburb of Dallas with a very eclectic population mix—from college professors to poultry distributors, and from aristocrats with a long southern heritage to first generation immigrants.

Some folks thought owning a Cadillac was a way to show off your prosperity; my Uncle Jim bought a new one every year. But others would never own a Cadillac because it was not appropriate to be so ostentatious. I suspect the new Cadillac campaign is speaking to the first group. You may live in fear of deportation, you may belong to an ethnic group that is the subject of hate crimes, but if you have money for the down payment at least you can drive a nice car.

As it wraps things up, Cadillac stretches its metaphor a bit too far in my opinion. “But maybe what we carry isn’t just people. It’s an idea. That while we’re not the same, we can be one. And all it takes is the willingness to dare.” And we close with the Cadillac logo and the tag line, “Dare Greatly.” (The tag is not new, but was introduced with this campaign a couple of years ago.) Again, what we’re talking about is bourgeois prosperity. It’s the same kind of daring that might cause you to go for it with a nicer anniversary gift or a pricier steak than you had planned because, hey, this is America and you can. It’s really not that daring, but maybe it hits the Cadillac buyer’s sweet spot.

The branding continues to veer off course with the next spot, “Pioneers”. “We’ve always been dreamers. We’ve been a symbol of the future…. A standard… a star. But our past is just that, past. What lies ahead is in our hands.” And the ad goes on to introduce concept vehicles including self-driving and electric Cadillacs. The drivers in these vehicles are younger, much younger.

The third ad, “Pedestal”, starts with a vehicle literally on a pedestal surrounded by gawkers. A well-dressed 30ish woman comes forward, mesmerized. “We know how it feels to be treated like a trophy. Driven to awards shows… parties… and across so many silver screens…. But a Cadillac is no trophy, no museum piece. This is our future, and it will inspire every car that follows…. Intermission’s over. This is how we drive the world forward.” And now the mesmerized woman is behind the wheel while multiethnic pedestrians gawk at her good fortune.

The problem here is that Cadillac is trying to transform its brand and appeal to a new audience, yet its history is the reason for its cred. They should have done what Lincoln and Chrysler did, in high concept campaigns of the past. Tell your story, then shut up. The campaign can continue with product-focused features and performance ads, and buyers will connect the dots.

I’ll close with Electro Cadillac, presumably a current owner, who says much the same thing in a comment under the YouTube “Pioneers” video:

“I can’t believe this… This commercial is basically telling you that all the achievements and great cars that were made in the past, history (which, let’s be honest is much better than the weak plastic bullshit we have today) let’s just throw all that in the garbage… I enjoy driving and all this ‘futuristic’ crap is getting on my nerves with every single day going by…

“One thing that is fundamental guys, Cadillac hear me out: You can’t beat the old school. Those flimsy plastic bumpers will never compare to those good old chrome steel ones.

“And here is another thing. I am watching the Oscars as we speak, and your Escala commercial says this: ‘Our cars will never be like before’. Well that means that you’re not going to be Cadillac anymore.

“Here is a new slogan for you: There is no future without the past.”

Super Bowl FSIs (2017 edition): it’s a home run! Oh, wait…

Kick Off — Let’s kickoff some savings with our Super Bowl FSIs!

It’s been a full two years since we checked in on the newspaper supplement coupons that appear the Sunday before the Super Bowl, wherein advertisers contort themselves to refer to the event without using the actual name, which is licensed and which license is heavily enforced. The world has gone through painful gyrations in the past 24 months. Super Bowl FSIs? Not so much.

Looking at this year’s batch, the big news is that somebody actually paid for the right to use the term Super Bowl, as in “Super Bowl Savings Spectacular” at the top of the SmartSource FSI. Unfortunately, Dollar General immediately drops the ball by inviting us to “Kickoff the Savings!” Team, the verb is “kick off”, two words. “Kickoff” is a noun.

I like to think of FSIs as the last bastion of old-school copywriters with shaking, nicotine-stained fingers who would rather forego their morning whiskey than come up with an original thought. Hence the tired headlines like “Get Your Game Day Going” (Blue Diamond almonds) and “Stock Up for the Big Game” (Pepcid antacid). What does it actually mean to “Snack Like a Pro on Game Day” (Oikos yogurt) or “Cheer on the Crunch” (Carvel ice cream cakes) or “Blitz Your Taste Buds with Flavor” (HeluvaGood dips)?

Super Bowl Cliche Headlines — Are these headlines creative, or what?

I did see some promising rookie plays like Texas Pete’s “Go for the Game, Stay for the Drama” (I assume that is what happens when the hot sauce and fried food hits your intestines) and French’s “Spice It Up This Bowl Season” (bowls of dip, get it?) and José Olé’s “Make Your Crowd Go Wild” (taquitos and dip in stop motion as they tumble toward the floor, presumably hurled by an unruly partyer).

Rookie Super Bowl Headlines — A completed pass and a fumble by the rookie squad

However, with NFL ratings in decline it’s entirely possible this new crop of scribes has no idea about or interest in pro football or sports in general. How else can you explain Drake’s Cakes “Your Lunchbox Game is Strong” or Bush’s Beans’ “Our Lineup Completes the Gathering”? Just try serving up a bowl of beans to your beer-swilling spouse and her loutish friends and announcing, “Honey, I’ve brought some beans to complete your Super Bowl gathering.” She’ll drop kick you into the next county, and rightly so.