|
|
|
| October 2008 |
|
 |
Several months' worth of news stories
bring the 5A Studios website up to date. They've been recording and mixing for Animal Planet's
Animal Crackers, Virgin 1's Inside Extraordinary Humans, and Nuts TV's Sextastic, and working on the sound for the
first Hammer horror production in 20 years. |
|
It seems there are property bargains to be had
in Melboure and the state of Victoria. A press release for Australian Investment Property
highlights the steep stamp-duty discounts that buyers can earn from off-plan investments. |
|
| September 2008 |
|
|
Dulux have begun recruiting interior
designers and entrepreneurs to become franchisees for its new
Dulux Design Service. I've been writing ads, brochure copy, and web copy for
the recruitment campaign. If you have a flair for interior design, get in now while the business is still young. |
|
The
Society of Homeopaths is the largest organisation registering homeopaths in Europe. But that's no
guarantee that new entrants to the profession will choose to join. The Society's new recruitment brochure should do the trick. It makes a great
case for joining the UK's leading organisation for trainee and practising homeopaths. |
|
Lively web copy for the
Wimbledon Driving School singles it out from the congested south London driving
school market. At Wimbledon, the tuition is fun and the instructors are endlessly patient. Why go anywhere else? |
|
| August 2008 |
|
|
Ad copy for
STB Direct Marketing brings out the benefits of using an English-speaking agent
when breaking into the European B2B and B2C direct mail markets. |
|
A last-minute call for copy puts the finishing
touches to the National Trust Museum of
Childhood. The museum opened in March, but a few exhibits were not ready in time.
If you're looking for a great day out this summer, this is it. |
|
Even the practically minded Text Wizard sometimes
turns poetic – if it helps sell more goods. In this case, his rhyming and rhythmic talents created a three-verse poem
for Viking Direct's 18th birthday card mailing. |
|
| July 2008 |
 |
|
In three short paragraphs, we
communicate the urgency of the fast-moving stock lines at the new Midlands clearance warehouse from
Travis Perkins. This is
grab-it-while-you-can copy for here-today-gone-tomorrow bargains. |
|
The
Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization
opens in the UAE with exhibition copy written or edited here in the East Midlands. For me, this was a real eye-opener. I never realised quite how
much science and maths was developed by Islamic scholars. The museum is full of Islamic artefacts including ornate Qur’ans and models (some working)
of Islamic architecture and engineering. Put it on your list for your next visit to the Gulf states. |
|
More soup. This time it's tinned soup
for Waitrose. I write the descriptors for 15 new and refreshed recipes. |
|
The Text Wizard's keyboard falls
silent for a three-week Caribbean break. His neighbours wish he was gone for three months. |
|
| June 2008 |
|
|
Deterring thieves and vandals
before they damage your premises is the job of Farsight Security Services.
Farsight is a remote surveillance station. It monitors thousands of CCTV cameras across the UK, and saves businesses thousands of pounds
every week. You can read how they do it, and why it's worth signing up, at their freshly launched – and freshly written – website.
This is down-to-earth copy for a no-nonsense audience of security professionals. |
|
To be honest, I didn't contribute
much to the Singles Dining Club website. Some of the home page copy comes from
text I wrote several years ago, although the appreciative quotes from restaurateurs were drafted specially for the site. Nick
Joyce, the good-natured owner of the Singles Dining Club, gives me a big build-up on his partners page – and that's worth
thanking him for. |
|
The first stage of a mailing campaign
for ReConsulting goes out with a sales letter written with simple conviction in everyday language.
No obscurist business-school-speak from a firm of consultants that lists BT, Tesco, BAA, Sky, and Ford among its clients. Even before phase I
was in the post, we were adapting the jigsaw puzzle theme to phase II, and looking ahead to see how it might work in phase III. |
|
| May 2008 |
|
|
The stylish new website for
Red Carnation Hotels just gets better. This month the Text Wizard has been
reworking the room descriptions. With great copy and hundreds of inspired pictures, this website is almost as inviting as a
stay in one of the RCH's collecton of four and five-star hotels. |
|
A string of small jobs for
Travis Perkins helps maintain trade interest.
One is a sat-nav offer encouraging builders to visit the store more often; another is a joint opening mailer for two branches
(Travis Perkins and City Plumbing Supplies) that are opening up next door to each other. |
|
A year-long project to update the
Code of Practice for the Palletways palletised distibution service is coming to an end.
My job was to simplify, standardise, and incorporate European variations within a document that was written specifically
for the UK operation. |
|
| April 2008 |
|
|
I don't often work on-site at client's
premises. This month I made an exception for Viking Direct when they invited me in to improve the
brochure copy for their office chairs. Was I sitting comfortably? Oh yes. |
|
Press releases for the
Natural Rug Store and Arte Espina Rugs
help drive visitors to these easy-to-use online stores. |
|
The new website for
Grace Homes goes live this month. Apart from a few pages that we wrote specially for the site,
most of the copy is edited down from the brochures for each small-scale development. For once, that's the right thing to do.
The idea is to get home-buyers to call for brochures and book viewings. No one buys a new home until they've seen it for themselves –
and fallen in love with it. |
|
| March 2008 |
|
|
Virtual numbers is a new service from the
Brooks Deacon Partnership. When you convert your landline number to a virtual number,
you can redirect calls to anywhere you like, as often as you like. My job was to write a page about virtual numbers for her website. |
|
The 2008 range of gift bags from ProPac,
the packaging brand of the pan-European envelope manufacturer, Bong, has now been finalised.
All they needed from me was a brief para on each bag style. After that, the translators came up with a version for almost every country in Europe. |
|
| February 2008 |
|
|
Who says copywriters are too hard-nosed to be romantics?
Well, everyone does actually. But that didn't stop the Text Wizard from dreaming up a couple of romantic verses for a Valentine's Day card
from Viking Direct. The card went down so well with customers,
many of them set pulses racing in the Viking Direct offices by returning their own Valentine cards. |
|
A voice-over script for a video case study about the
multilingual features of PROIV goes down well in South Africa, where they shoot the story. I won't waste your time
with an explanation. If you're interested, you can see the finished video here. |
|
A series of three teasers and some brochure
copy for the newly launched Nabis range of brassware seems to do the trick for Plumb Center. |
|
| January 2008 |
|
|
The new website from
Red Carnation Hotels goes live this month. It's actually a series of 12 websites –
one for each hotel in the Red Carnation Collection. I wrote 64 pages, which is only a small part of this complex site containing hundreds of
pictures. Research shows that potential hotel guests respond better to pictures of the rooms in which they're going to sleep, eat, and party.
There's also a sophisticated booking engine. |
|
A press release for the multivalue
database, Reality, from Northgate Information Solutions tells how they upgraded
the Nebraska Furniture Mart from another database provider in just a year. If that sounds like a long time, everyone expected the process
to take two years if the upgrade had been undertaken by any one of Reality's competitors. In the end a billion data records were switched and the system
went live without a hitch. |
|
A year-long project to develop copy for
the National Trust's Museum of Childhood at
Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire is almost at an end. The museum will open again towards the end of March. I've been involved since the early
days developing a copy style for the exhibition panels, the interactive exhibits, and other supporting material. |
|
The new-look CCF TradeTalk
(issue 93) will be out soon with three stories and the MD's intro
written by the Text Wizard. CCF have been relying on the Text Wizard to add some readability to their trade magazine for a couple of years. |
|
| December 2007 |
|
|
The Lakes by Yoo
is a fabulous development of ecohomes beside a series of lakes on a country estate in the Cotswolds. Buyers can opt for a gloriously
simple cooling system from S&P Coil Products based on using the naturally chilled water of the lake.
My job was to write a brochure for the cooling system in a style that was appropriate to this upmarket development. |
|
Two more kitchen aids
from One Touch Products, the Hong Kong based developer of simple time-saving kitchen gadgets
demand packaging copy from the Text Wizard. One is an automatic vegetable slicer, the other is a soft-touch version of the company's
award-winning can opener. |
|
A day out for the Text Wizard as he
imparts his skills to a group of employees from Edexcel. Copywriting skills training is a new venture
for the Text Wizard, and he's not ashamed to admit that he was scared stiff the first time he did it. But the crowd loved his ideas and left the
room determined to rewrite every single piece of copy on their website. So now he's back again – still nervous, but confident that his
audience will get masses of ideas and enthusiasm out of the day. |
|
|
