The Power of Words: Priceless Copywriting

Calvin Klein is targeting the famously marketing-resistant 20-something consumer group. CK's campaign for its new fragrance, CK in2u, is aimed at young, web-savvy users and, many say, it has badly missed its target.

Underestimating its young audience, and taking misconception to a new level, this fading brand has come up with a phrase for connoisseurs of cringeworthiness:

'She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It's intense. For right now.'

This hilarious piece of writing, while trying so hard to be contemporary, actually reeks of the Seventies (no pun intended).

She likes how he blogs! - so that's what they're calling it these days.

Brand Pup: Stop pimping our brands

I love to lick out a Marmite jar. There are always scrapings she can’t reach. But now they’ve produced a ‘Special St. Patrick’s edition’ Marmite – flavoured with Guinness. I howled!

This type of ridiculous brand extension was brilliantly satirised by The Fast Show. Its Cheezy Peas brand morphing into New Strawberry-Flavoured Squeezy Cheezy Peas was a classic spoof of vulgar ‘edition’ marketing.

Ultimately consumers are confused, even repelled by this kind of hybrid. The cleverest brand managers don’t mess too much with their brands; they know that even the packaging can be a consumer fetish. KitKat, another of my favourite treats, has had a rough ride in the past few years: the decision to ditch the classic paper and tinfoil wrapper caused a sales slump, which surprised no-one except the owners. Worse atrocities have been perpetrated: Mint KitKat, Orange KitKat etc. Result: image dilution, identity confusion.

Now I come to think of it, though ... Marmite-flavoured KitKat. Mmm - that’s something that could work for me ...

I’ve got a pedant hanging round my neck

Thanks to all those friends who, instead of posting on this blog, EMAILED us pointing out our deliberate mistakes. You spotted ‘definately’, chaps, but failed to pick up ‘embarassment’. We’re leaving them in. By the way, why not post your thoughts here rather than emailing, which is so last millennium (where’s the dictionary, Pup?).

We have a (very obviously) deliberate mistake on our actual website. It’s there for several reasons – playfulness, wit, marketing. Sometimes, the unsolicited job applicants smugly point it out. Usually, they aren't native English. It’s not enough to know the English language; the cultural nuances need to be understood if you want to work with words for a living ...

Samantha: The Dark Side of Adolescence

Because we’re based in Shoreditch, which usually boasts a much better class of graffiti, Brand Pup has been growling for weeks about MySpace users/losers (see his last post). “Gruesome craterfaced hormonal teenage Emos, borderline retarded ... “

I had to give him a tiny smack for polluting our blog with this topic. However, poor literacy is definately a national embarassment. We gasp at some of the unsolicited job applications and CVs which arrive at the office. A great number of 25-year-olds write like 13-year-olds, and they’re applying for jobs where good writing skills are essential.

Whilst a teenager, though, it’s still practically obligatory to be perverse and offensive. Recently I’ve been lucky enough to add to my art collection a new work which I love for its perversity. ‘Twisted Teenager’ by Philip Dolby and Patsy Parker, recalls the dark side of adolescence ...

Brand Pup: Word Power

Oh, the power of words in skilled hands. Those of us who shape words for a living – we love words, we roll about in words - are in despair at the current standard of literacy. Graffitti, one of our great art forms, has recently deteriorated in quality; in the right hands it can still be acerbic, razor-sharp. Here’s a limp haddock of a graffitti jibe, spotted in Shoreditch, January 2007:

‘Myspace is four loosers’

How old is the writer? At one time we would have said maybe 12 or 13, but now (shudder) it could be someone of 35. What are loosers? And why are there four of them? The vital seconds of brain-time wasted on deciphering this anagram drain it of impact. Where’s the power of words there?

If you want to work in high-end public relations or advertising (and we think you do), and last longer than five minutes – practise your mastery of the first two Rs. The more you do of one, the better you’ll be at the other.

The power of words is effective only when you understand how to harness it.

This is how it should have read:

MYSPACE IS FOR LOSERS.

Brand Pup on the trail

Brand Pup here. Already she’s neglecting this blog. In spite of what she says about PR being hard work etc, she’s been having a lot of fun this week, meeting all her friends at the London Art Fair, and at a sensational opening night at White Cube Gallery in Mayfair. I wasn’t allowed to go, and had to keep my nose to the keyboard. She raves about Jay Jopling’s new gallery, and apparently the Anselm Kiefer exhibition is ‘epic’.

I’ve also been offended by all the fuss over the death, of old age mind you, of Rick Stein’s dog Chalky. A little pipsqueak that I could have had on toast.

Welcome to the online diary of Sam Pepys

It's 12.19 pm GMT, and I've been working since 7am. It's generally believed that people in the PR industry are free-loading, blagging airheads who waft from party to goodie-bag to launch to goodie-bag to private view to goodie-bag ... not so.

PR is hard work but, if you're the right kind of animal, it's a great business. Here are the true professional requirements for a career in PR:

Strong communication instincts : you want to tell the world about things.
Literacy : you need to be master of those powerful tools: words and images.
Wit : you need to enjoy language and playing with language.
Determination : more than anything, you want to put your clients in the news.
Humour : indispensible tool for most kinds of marketing.
Showmanship : remember the great Barnum quote: "Every crowd has a silver lining".
Generosity of spirit : you need to subvert your own ego if you want fame for your clients.
Technophilia : you need to embrace new media for the power they give us.

This doesn't mean I don't like goodie-bags. Or other bags: while going to all those private views, I've been developing my own art collection, and this is (I think) about handbags, brands and things: 'Blood Red' by Sarah Bradstone.