General rants Archives - Page 23 of 28

WHEN IN ROME, ADVERTISE LIKE ROMANS

March 20, 2013 by Scott Flood

Many advertisers — even large national ones — seem to be completely unaware of the environments in which they place their advertising. I don’t mean that in terms of the desired audience; rather, it’s in creating ads that will work with the audience and environment.

Case in point was Greatcall, the national advertiser offering a medical response system (ala “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”). I found their ad on the back cover of the large-print edition of Reader’s Digest magazine. Given the demographics of the magazine — especially in its large-print version — the audience is well worth the extra money this company has shelled out.

MATCH THE TONE TO THE OCCASION

March 6, 2013 by Scott Flood

I was giving a talk to a business group a few weeks back, and after I stressed the importance of keeping marketing communications conversational, one of the attendees posed a question about how much of conversational tone is enough. It was a great question.

I responded that the answer depends upon the message-sender, the recipient, the medium, and the environment. For example, if you’re responding on social media to a longtime customer, you can be far more conversational and fun than you’d want to be in an initial message to a conservative prospect.

APPEARANCES ARE MARKETING, TOO

February 20, 2013 by Scott Flood

As I was being walked by my trusty canine, Wrigley, we saw a creepy-looking white van. It was extremely grimy and looked as though it would rot away within days. As it approached, I noticed that it was actually from a business, and I wondered what sort of business owner would allow his or her business to be represented in such a negative way.

Then I could see the lettering, and I was stunned. It was one of those mobile dog-washing services that have cropped up in recent years.

TODAY, I WRITE FOR SCANNERS

February 13, 2013 by Scott Flood

Many things have changed in the three decades since I started putting words to paper to earn a living. For one thing, I rarely put words to paper anymore. Sadly, nobody has created an equivalent saying that involves phosphors or pixels. But that’s not the point …

What is the point is that many of those changes have affected the way I write. One of the biggest changes is the result of two factors: an oversupply of information and a paucity of time. Thanks largely to the internet, we face an overwhelming amount of information, and our busier lives mean we have less time to sift through all of it.

WHY AM I SUCH A FUSSBUDGET?

February 6, 2013 by Scott Flood

Ah, there’s a wonderful old word one rarely hears these days. “Fussbudget” dates back to the turn of the century (the previous turn, not the most recent one) and refers to one who gets worked up about small matters that seem to have little importance. Many people would toss matters about grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage into that category, and would brush aside my concerns as annoying at best, “anal” at worst. (And an aside — how many people who bandy “anal” about as a criticism actually grasp the underlying Freudian concept? But I guess that would be fussbudgety of me.)

Those who know me well know that I’m rarely serious. Why then do I have such a concern about the written word and the finer points associated with its use?

GRAMMAR IS WITHOUT RULES

January 30, 2013 by Scott Flood

Did that headline stop you? Of course grammar is full of rules, isn’t it? Your seventh-grade English teacher tried her best to drum all those rules into your head. You remember all that red ink on your brilliant essays.

Hate to burst your bubble, but there is no set of definitive grammar rules. When Moses lugged those tablets back down the mountain, he didn’t carry a copy of the Chicago Manual or the AP Stylebook with him. I wish that had been the case, because it would have been a lot easier on those of us who write for a living.

HIT AND RUN MARKETING

January 23, 2013 by Scott Flood

Not long ago, a non-profit organization asked me to come in and perform a bit of tinkering. They had existing materials, such as a website and brochures, but they were fed up with the way things were going. They wanted me to come up with words to describe what they were all about so they could determine the next steps.

I refused to help.

MORE GAFFES AND LAUGHS

January 9, 2013 by Scott Flood

Time to take another look at mistakes that wound up in print. Sometimes, I’m tempted to include gems from the Internet, but I don’t think it’s fair to poke fun at everyday folks, especially when they might be posting to Facebook from one of those smartphones with a touch-screen keyboard so small that it’s nearly impossible to get it right.

Professionals who should know better, on the other hand …

CONTRACT LANGUAGE DETRACTS

December 19, 2012 by Scott Flood

One of the ways many people try to make their business writing sound more impressive is to try to make it a bit lawyerly. The legal community has long had a unique style and syntax that’s meant to create clarity, but that is often far more effective at obfuscating the meaning. I suspect it may be an attempt to ensure the ongoing demand for the profession, because one generally needs to hire an attorney to understand something another attorney has written.

But I’m not here to offend attorneys (nor to incur their wrath). I’m here to help companies and other organizations communicate more clearly, and one way they can do that is to stop trying to write like attorneys.

CAPITALIZATION DOESN’T MAKE THINGS MORE IMPORTANT

November 28, 2012 by Scott Flood

There’s an interesting quirk that shows up when many companies or organizations develop content of all types. They capitalize words that have no business being capitalized. Or, to put it differently, They capitalize Words that don’t really need to have Capital letters.

I suspect the reason they do that is that they think the use of capital letters make the words seem more Important or Impressive.