My first post on this blog was on the 3rd of January 2010. I didn’t really have an objective for starting this blog, except to vent my frustrations and have somewhat an online presence.
Along the way I renewed my primary objective; which was to move up the Google page results ranking.After much trial and error, hits and misses, and 562 days; here’s where I am…
Yup, I made it to the Top Half (or position 5) for the keywords “Copywriter + Malaysia”. I did make Page 1 some time ago; but breaking the Top Half proved a challenge. It does feel good now that I’m here.
But we all know Google rankings are unstable; which was why I wanted to capture the moment before I get sent back down to reality.
Hmmm… maybe it’s time to renew my objective once again. Top spot perhaps? Watch out Tim Yang… I’m coming for you!
“Thank you for calling. Your business is important to us. For English Press 1. For Bahasa Malaysia Press 2. For Mandarin Press 3. For Tamil Press 4. For Punjabi Press 5. If you still can’t get it that we don’t give a rat’s ass about you, Press 6”
What happened to the good old days when an actual person picked up your call? Yes it makes business sense to have an Automated Voice Response System. And yes I am aware that this rant is roughly 15 years late. But still, it is a rant worth making.
Businesses spend millions on compelling, evocative brand building advertising that promises the world; and then fall flat on their face when it comes to over-the-phone customer service.
Yup, it might as well be a dummy
Imagine calling your credit card company, and after going through like 3 levels of menu options it is revealed that all the customer service personnel are busy and will attend to you shortly. Oh yeah… and I also want you to imagine you just got mugged and calling to report your card is lost.
Now you know why there’s stuff like road rage and perhaps even suicide.
Outsourcing of call centres could probably be blamed for this deterioration of service. Let’s say you found a goose that lays golden eggs. Would you ask your neighbour to take care of it? The answer would be a vehement no.
But businesses have no qualms asking a third party to handle the queries, concerns or complains of customers. Aren’t we – the customers – supposed to be golden egg-laying geese? Apparently not.
That’s why, if you notice, many brands are substituting phone numbers with web URLs in their advertising. They don’t really want to hear from you.
I say screw it. Call and bug the hell out of them… if you can get someone on the other end that is.
Most people think I go to work, write a few headlines and then scoot off to lunch only never to return until the next day. Come to think of it that would be nice; but we all know it doesn’t work that way.
So what it is that I do? I Sell.
If you don't sell, you don't get paid
But I’ve come to realise that I do not only sell products to consumers; but also sell advertising to clients. So to be able to sell, I need to be able to sell the idea to the client first before being given the go-ahead to sell products to the end consumer.
Sounds confusing? But here’s the kicker.
Before I can even think about selling anything, I first must sell the idea about selling an idea to a client to sell a product to a consumer to my partners first. And I haven’t even written a single line of copy yet.
So with all this selling going on, you tell me… Isn’t advertising fundamentally about selling? Or rather shouldn’t it be all about selling?
Every CEO thinks about how much money he is making as opposed to how wonderful his company’s advertising is, which may be the reason why you see lots of crappy (but often effective) ads out there.
So is there a way to balance a strong sales-driven message with compelling creative? Last I checked, it was called Direct Marketing.
Here are the real secrets why the agency that developed the Facebook pages charged such a ridiculous amount…
Because the client only opens 1 counter during peak hours
Because the client went for coffee at 10.45am, then lunch at 1pm and the tea at 3.45pm
Because they had to complete Borang FB/003/11, Borang FB/112/14A and submit along with photocopies of their IC, Audited Accounts and Birth Certificate
Because the system was downlah!
Because the Person in Charge Cuti Bersalin
The question is why they like to throw our money down the drain?
6. Because the Nombor Giliran for today has finished
7. Because this issue can only settle in Putrajaya
8. Because the approval process takes at least 2 to 4 weeks
9. Because someone wore a short-sleeve blouse
And the top reason why it cost 1.8 million for 6 Facebook pages *Drumroll*
10. Because each e-mail sent and received cost the agency 50 sen
If I had to go through all of the above, I’d freaking charge 2 million… per page! But for my dear readers, I’ll do it for RM59.95… interested?
Remember the time when you knew at least a couple of bootleg DVD sellers in your neigbourhood and thought you were getting a bargain?
Remember the time when the trendiest of us used to wear our mobile phones around our necks?
Remember the time when compact discs were supposed to make our lives easier for being able to store up to roughly 20 tracks?
Looks like the only difference between man and ape is technology...
Remember the time when you had to actually dial-up to connect to the internet and pay like 3 Ringgits per hour for it?
Remember the time when keeping in-touch meant calling someone maybe once or twice a month?
Remember the time when we read newspapers or magazines and played solitaire or minesweeper to keep ourselves occupied in the office?
Remember the time when we kept our thoughts to ourselves and wished others would understand us?
Remember the time when I was just a copywriter?
Some things evolve for the better, so have I to a certain extent. And I sure hope this is an evolution for the better as I have already stared death in its face… the slow death of aimless employment.
The result of this evolution? Only time will tell.
I’ve helped sell many things in my years as a copywriter; from loans and LCD TVs to toilet seats and trucks. Now, I am about to embark on the ‘sale’ of my life – myself.
I have recently liberated myself from the rat race and made the plunge into self-employment thanks to a couple of old friends; and now unofficial partners at 1am Studio. Not having a job is quite liberating but also comes with its own set of pressures; like having to market myself and the new business to potential clients.
The new minimalist digs; needs an un-minimalist chair though...
So forgive me if this blog seems a little self serving in future. After all, I got to get paid don’t I? And trust me, one of the hardest things for me to do is to write about myself.
Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out to be as bad as the work I did for the toilet seat guys.
P.S. For some of you, this may be your first glance at my rants; enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts. Cheers!
It turns out the thing we creatives think ought to be better written, is the very thing that’s limiting our creativity in the first place. Yup, creative briefs block creative thinking.
Creative briefs are written by brand or account managers; whom are both normally analytical, tactics-driven and strategically sound. These are a bunch of people who are left-brained if you will. Their objective is to manage a project to produce a desired result while being on time and on budget.
Now a recipient of a creative brief is usually a right-brained creative director, art director or copywriter; who some say is hard-wired to ignore a creative brief. It seems the tendency to disregard a brief is actually a natural reflex, and not an act of defiance as normally assumed.
Many a creative briefs have ended up here. Blame our right-sided brain for that!
Creatives are motivated by their craft and their need to excel in what they do. They also know other creatives are watching their work and that the next awards night is just around the corner. There is this need for a creative to justify his existence in the creative department, and to satisfy his toughest critic – himself.
A well-written creative brief then comes along to put a spanner in the works.
The fact of the matter is that most creative briefs are hardly creative. They’re full of dry data, assumptions, restrictions and guidelines; exactly the kind of thing that does not get creative juices flowing. The ‘better’ a brief is, the harder it becomes to translate it into a compelling, effective and engaging communication.
So allow me to apologize to all the suits that I’ve previously chided for not giving me a proper brief. It seems we never needed it in the first place.
As a creative research tool that is. In fact, Google should be banned for use when sourcing ideas, inspiration, insights, trends and pretty much everything else that have to do with creativity.
Being a copywriter, I am also very much dependent on Google for developing copy. Not because I want to but because I have to – sometimes too much for my own liking – as I commented on a previous post.
You see, the modus operandi of Google is very simple. It is basically a huge index of the entire world’s online information; a guide of sorts. That’s all well and fine, I mean I’m sure none of us can imagine a life without Google these days.
Makes for a very 'ball'sy visual doesn't it? Errr... but Google, please don't sue me
Here’s the problem when doing creative research though. Google runs on a majority driven system, which means sites with high traffic almost always get higher page listings. A top search results page listing means that a particular site has been viewed by thousands if not millions of people.
So if you are suddenly inspired or found a great idea from a site that originated from the first page of your search result, potentially millions more could have been equally inspired too.
And how many times do we go past the first page of a search result these days. Almost never.
I’m sure Google research-inspired ideas will not cause creative stagnation because most of us creatives tend to emulate rather than imitate (I need to stress the emphasis on the word ‘most’ here). But then again, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
And if goo-plagiarism is allowed to continue then creative ideas the world over will tend to look or feel eerily similar. On second thought, the solution is rather simple; just navigate to the second or third page of your search result for a change.
This is it. I found the freaking jackpot. Experiments that confirm what I have believed all along. All those times clients picked apart creative options and tried to make them into 1 rojak creative, now I know why!
Because they couldn’t decide which creative option to choose.
Quick! Don't think, just choose a rojak...
In advertising, giving clients design or copy options is the norm. It shows that the agency takes the initiative to provide choices, and that we’re not a bunch of lazy arses force-feeding one single idea to the client.
But it turns out, providing too many options, actually makes the client decision much harder to make. Consider these studies conducted, excerpted from Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch!
Study 1: at a Gourmet food store
On a sampling table, 6 different jams are on showcase for free tasting by customers. The next day, 24 types of jams were on display. As expected, the 24-jam display attracted more customers. But when it came time to buy; shoppers who saw only 6 jams were 10 time more likely to buy.
Study 2: on a speed-dating night
Singles meet one-on-one, spending about 5 minutes with each person. The result? Young adults who meet eight other singles make more matches that those who meet twenty!
This is called Decision Paralysis where too many choices make making a decision much harder than usual. I guess the key words here is ‘too many’, we can’t help but weigh in all the options presented to us. One or two options (at most) are still fine I’m sure.
Well now we know what “Less Is More” really means. While people like having choices, they hate weighing those options to make a decision, probably for fear of making the wrong choice.
So think about all those times that you found it hard to make a choice. Were there too many options?
Ladies, chill for a sec. Nobody is calling you a moron. The quote above illustrates that wives – who often shop for the whole family – are whip smart consumers. Yes, you can lower your pitchforks now.
This was one of the business advise of a certain David Ogilvy. We’ve all heard of David Ogilvy. We know his famous works. We even aspired to work for his company. But David was not only an advertising legend; he was a revered businessman too.
One of the ugliest book covers ever; but beautifully written.
Here are his advice on building and running a business, as told to a Fortune Magazine reporter some time back:
Remember that Abraham Lincoln spoke of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He left out the pursuit of profit
Remember the old Scottish motto: “Be happy while you’re living, for you are a long time dead.”
If you have to reduce your company’s payroll, don’t fire your people until you have cut your compensation and the compensation of your big-shot
Define your corporate culture and your principles of management in writing. Don’t delegate this to a committee. Search all the parks in all your cities. You’ll find no statues of committees
Stop cutting the quality of your products in search of bigger margins. The consumer always notices — and punishes you
Never spend money on advertising which does not sell
Bear in mind that the consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Do not insult her intelligence
I don’t want to spoil the eloquent beauty of these points by adding any of my 10 sen opinions. But I will say this – if there’s one thing you take away from this list, it better be No.6. Kapish?
