When those pesky demons get into the phone, the results are both embarrassing and (for once, literally) laugh-out-loud funny.
Posts Tagged ‘copywriting’
Happy 10th Anniversary to the Content Bureau!
Happy New Year to all, and Happy Birthday to the Content Bureau–our baby copywriting agency “all growed up.” Ten years ago, we were a tiny operation serving our first large tech client, PeopleSoft, and an assortment of small companies who loved our work—and kindly referred us to their friends. Here’s what a few of our early [...]
The 60-Second Copy Lesson
Back in the 90s, it was my voice that told you the Cellular One number you called was out of service. Sorry about that. I was a professional voiceover actor. You may have heard me on radio commercials for Spiegel, the San Francisco Ballet, Brita Water Filters, and Union Bank, and on computer games, including [...]
Take Me to Zee Casbah, and Let Me Write Your Newsletter
If copywriters were actors, we’d be the sort who love rococo accents and false noses, like Laurence Olivier or Meryl Streep. We at the Content Bureau take pride in our ability to switch writerly guises and voices from one assignment to the next—heads-down white-paper financialese one week, eco-minded web copy for a sustainability initiative the [...]
How to Write a Great Screenplay (or Script an Innovative Product Launch)
Lessons from Screenplays: A Good Idea Needs a Great Story
Just like a movie, every product launch needs a great story to surround and propel forward “the great idea”.
Snuffing Out Deadly Dull Buzzwords
At the height of the dotcom era, a few high-tech journalists created “Buzz Saw,” an email filter that would bounce messages from PR and marketing people who larded their pitches with overused buzzwords. If you laid it on too thick with catchphrases like “bleeding-edge,” and “strategic paradigm,” not only did your email get bounced, but [...]
Fun with Newspaper Corrections
From The New York Times, December 24, 2009: “A picture caption with an article in some editions on Tuesday about continuing transportation problems after the weekend snowstorm misidentified the location of a pile of slush in the Bronx. It was on Fordham Road, not Fordham Avenue.” Anyone else share my love of journalism corrections—especially fabulously [...]
