Copywriting «

Archive for the ‘Copywriting’ Category

Digital Publishing Whets Our Appetite!

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Cooking Demonstrations – I love events like these. I always leave so inspired; wanting to get back to my own kitchen to try all the recipes for myself! However, by the time I get home it’s a different matter as I’m racking my brain just to remember the correct measurements and ingredients!

In response to a brief from our client; Celebrity Chef Paul Da-costa-Greaves, we had a little think back here at our office in Liverpool about how to overcome a similar lull of inspiration, regarding the audiences at his cooking demonstration – it was a no brainer – to create the recipes which are demonstrated at his events, as an online digital book!

Paul Da-Costa-Greaves is a Masterchef and creator of the gourmet fine food range ‘Feeding Your Imagination’, Paul has been busy lately, appearing at cooking demonstrations up and down the country. When it came to creating a range of recipe books we felt it was perfect for him to tap into the digital age of consuming information.

We created all recipe books online using our interactive publishing software. A simple, easy to read graphical solution that enables the recipes to be displayed in a familiar page turning format, just like a book only online. Paul’s recipe books specialise in seafood, desserts, alternative Christmas nibbles and even how to use your BBQ for yummy food all year round! These are all available exclusively to those lucky viewers of his cooking demonstrations.

Now that Paul has all of his recipes digitally published he can email the content after a show, instead of his audience trying to remember the exact method in which to cook his famous jerk chicken or seafood pasta. These digital books have been a huge hit with his fans and are great for referring back to in the kitchen. We have now completed four booklets with more to come I’m sure.

So I guess those dirty and thumbed Delia books can stay on the shelf, now that there is a much easier way to take recipes to the kitchen with you! Do get in touch if you feel you could benefit from our publishing services to turn your reading digital.

Tags: digital publishing
Posted in Case studies, Copywriting, Digital, publishing | No Comments »

Brochure design for NHS

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

We have successfully finished and delivered a graphic design, copywriting and marketing project for the St Helens & Knowsley Health Informatics department of the NHS.

The project brief was to create an organisational brochure from the ground-up which could then be used to promote the Health Informatics Services across other primary care trusts within the NHS.

This was the first company brochure the Health Informatics team had commissioned, which meant we had a totally blank canvas to work from. The only stipulation we had was to meet a deadline to deliver the final printed brochures, ready for a regional NHS exhibition on the 30th March 2011.

We approached this brief with our marketing hats on. We held a half day mind mapping session with 10 senior managers and directors from the Health Informatics team. We chose to use the mind mapping tool as we find it to be a very creative and visual way of brain storming, plus it engages everyone from the start.

We gathered some flip charts, an easel and a pen and just let it all flow. After the four hour session we had about 30 flip chart pieces of paper, all blue tacked around the walls of the meeting room. The overall idea of the event was to engage managers in discussions about segmentation, target markets, positioning and overall market orientation – these are subjects we find that aren’t discussed too often in public sector companies.

Following the morning event we came away with a lot of large pieces of paper and some very clear ideas about the identity of the Health Informatics organisation. This knowledge acted as a foundation to feed back to our designers and provide detailed information for the copywriting of content.

The brochure was finished ahead of time and delivered to the NHS St Helens & Knowsley Informatics team 1 day early. The project included full design and printing of brochures. Our standard procedure for printed brochures is to utilise our digital publishing service to turn all hard copy brochures into fully interactive versions that the client can also utilise on their websites. See above. View the full interactive brochure.

Tags: brochure design, graphic design, marketing, publishing
Posted in Case studies, Copywriting, Design, Marketing, publishing | No Comments »

Visualising the creative writing process

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

Visualisation is the process of converting a thought into a visual image and visual learners do well when working with graphs, concept maps and idea maps.

We came across a very useful tool for the creative types called Visual Thesaurus (screen shot above) and we cannot sing enough praises for this, when you’re looking for those extra copywriting words to insert into your press release or advertising feature.

Tags: Advertising, creative writing, creativity, press release, visual thesaurus
Posted in Advertising, Copywriting, Useful tools | 2 Comments »

What’s in a title?

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Written by: Carl Da-Costa-Greaves

Confusing titles , IHCL (in house company lingo), made up acronyms (see previous). We’ve all been guilty of this in the past. But how does this blinding use of language really add value to the customer?

Use of acronyms

Do your customers really care for the specific title of the person that is helping them? I recently came across a funny example of this when cancelling a gym membership (or should I say trying to cancel a gym membership). Was my service as a customer dealt with by someone from such a department? Of course not, or this post would have no legs and be a CWOT; it was handled by the ‘Retention Assistant’. An obscure title like this conjures up all sorts of images, particularly when we’re talking about a health and fitness service provider. But does it have to be that way?

The technology industries are definitely guilty of over-egging the acronym cake. You obviously can’t avoid all acronyms – some are crucial to your industry and others have become part of the terms used in our particular professions. But most acronyms are completely unnecessary in marketing, PR (yes, I’m aware that’s an acronym) and editorial copy. Even business-to-business technology marketing copy. In fact, more often than not, they make your websites, press releases and other marketing materials appear second-rate.

There’s no real benefit to the customer when companies have confusing titles and jargon that no one else outside of your business really understands. If you’re truly marketing orientated and outward looking then this type of language has no place.

Tags: Definitions, editorial copy, marketing materials, press releases
Posted in Copywriting | 1 Comment »