I recently wrote a short article on branding—what it is and why it matters—for the Logoworks Newletter.

It’s pretty basic stuff, written mostly for new business owners, who have heard about branding but may not know how to do it.

If you are inclined, you can read it over at the Logoworks Newsletter Blog.

And if you simply can’t get enough of my basic thinking on branding, you can also read an older article, The 5 Things Everyone Should Know about Branding, here.

Groupon is a great idea and a very successful company. In a little more than a year, it has grown to more than $400 million in revenues. It has local websites offering deals in more than 100 U.S. cities from Akron to Winnipeg and more than 20 other countries. Hundreds of thousands of customers subscribe to their daily email. Thousands more check their website every day. And the daily deals often sell out. 35,000 businesses are on the waiting list to be featured.

So what’s the secret to Groupon’s success?

In an interview this week, CEO Andrew Mason says it is “good writing.”

Uh, not so much.

Despite the fact that the company employs 70 writers, I am seriously underwhelmed with the quality of the writing. There is no consistency from day to day. No “brand voice”. And the copy is often trite or down right silly.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Groupon. I’ve discovered a delicious new pizza place in my neighborhood and saved hundreds of dollars on photography thanks to them. I just can’t get worked up about such mediocre copy. Here are a couple of examples:

Today’s Deal in Las Vegas (for a hair salon) reads:

“If hair could talk, it would have a mouth, transforming stylish head wraps into cruel mufflers and skinny headbands into orthodontia. Today’s Groupon gives hair a voice without the expensive dental upkeep…”

If hair could talk, it would have a mouth? That’s good writing? Someone call the good folks at Bulwer-Lytton.

Here’s today’s deal in Vancouver for a Chinese restaurant:

“At some point, every country builds a Great Wall to keep the secret of their cuisine from spreading to foreign nations, only to find that the real wall lies in their heart. Tear down the Great Wall of painful secrets with today’s Groupon…”

Huh? How many countries have built a wall only to find the real wall in their heart? To protect their cuisine? And what in the world does that have to do with Szechuan noodles?

Here’s a Groupon offer, I received the other day:

“When applied correctly, cosmetics can enhance the beauty of one’s natural features and advertise one’s crush when written in lipstick on one’s forehead…”

And here’s the first line of today’s deal in San Diego:

“Until the personal watercraft was invented, mankind’s only hope for outdoor fun involved hitting candied hams with tree branches.”

Is this something people do? What does that even mean?

I could go on.

Sorry to break it to you Andrew, but this writing is just not good. It’s trying too hard to be clever. Most of it just sounds lame. Or confusing. Or worse.

If you want to see how good copy is done, check out Woot!

Woot! has a consistent, often literary, brand voice. It doesn’t matter what day you check in, you get the feeling one person is writing for the brand. The writing is always entertaining, sometimes silly, often funny, and very, very consistent.

While Groupon’s writing is mediocre at best, it does other things phenomenally well.

Their headlines are simple and brilliant. Each day’s deal is spelled out so clearly, the customer knows exactly what they’ll get and what they will save. Some examples:

Today’s Deal: $50 for $125 worth of Designer Denim and Apparel at National Jean Company.

Today’s Deal: $89 for Two-hour Jet-Ski Rental from Action Sports.

Today’s Deal: $10 for $20 Worth of Tasty Comfort Food and Authentic New Orleans Fare at Magnolia Grill.

What else?

The “Time Left to Buy” counter on each page is genius. It creates urgency and demands you make your purchase decision right now. If you forget to come back later, you miss out on the deal, so you better buy now.

The requirement for a minimum number of buyers does the same thing. It forces customers to opt in early to ensure enough people get in on the deal for it to be “on”.

The stock photography is almost always good: delicious food, relaxing spas, attractive models. It’s hard not to want what Groupon is selling.

And once you decide to buy, Groupon makes it easy with a huge Buy! button you simply can’t miss.

There are a lot of reasons Groupon has been a phenomenal success. But let’s be honest. Good writing, at least so far, isn’t one of them.

Mitch Joel posted a short list of books about how to create a good story (on his blog, read it here). Most of them aren’t about branding, but rather, the art of story telling (with a good dose of writing thrown in). You’ll have to extrapolate. Worth checking out…

The latest edition of Inc Magazine has a great article by Jason Fried (founder of 37 Signals and author of Rework) on “Business Writing” which he describes as “bad, boring, and barely read.” When I saw the headline, I thought the article was about memos, email, and what is typically thought of as business writing. It’s not.

Although he doesn’t call it this, Jason is talking about brand voice—communicating a personality through the text used by a brand. And he is right that most companies do it very, very poorly. From the article:

“If you care about your product, you should care just as much about how you describe it. In nearly all cases, a company makes its first impression on would-be customers or partners with words—whether they’re on a website, in sales materials, or in e-mails or letters. A snappy design might catch their attention, but it’s the words that make the real connection. Your company’s story, product descriptions, history, personality—these are the things that go to battle for you every day. Your words are your frontline. Are they strong enough?”

Jason goes on to describe three companies that do brand voice the right way—Woot, Saddleback Leather, and Polyface. Of course, they aren’t the only ones who do it right, but they are among the few. In fact, a good argument can be made that without their unique voices as expressed in the company’s copywriting, you would never have heard about any of the companies that Mr. Fried writes about.

Their unique voices makes all the difference. Check out the article here. It’s worth the read.

A few weeks ago, I posted my long-delayed thoughts about The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. In the weeks since, I’ve had the opportunity to exchange a few emails with Todd and asked him about writing the book and what he gleaned from the process. What follows is a slightly edited version of our discussion:

Me: Thanks again for your willingness to talk/write a little more about your book. I’ve been following your projects (More Space, The 100 Best, CEO-READ blog, Fixed to Flexible) for something like seven years now, but for those who don’t know, what’s your story? And what’s the story behind The 100 Best?

Todd: What’s my story? I grew up in a small town in southeastern Wisconsin and went to Michigan Tech to get mechanical engineering degree. I was fortunate to get a job with General Electric, where I spent the next six years learning most of what I know about business. I joined my father in 2001 working in his small sheet metal fabrication business. I learned even more about small business.  I picked up an MBA from Marquette University along the way.

In 2004, I started working for the business book retailer 800-CEO-READ. I spent six years working there and had an awesome time. What I spent most of my time doing was pushing out the message “We are the experts in business books.” The 800-CEO-READ Book Awards, stewardship of ChangeThis, and the creation of InBubbleWrap all were in support of that mission.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time was the best example of putting our stake in the ground and saying we know a lot of about business books. The book itself was something I tried to convince Jack, my co-author, of from almost the moment I got there. “We sell books, which means we know people who buy them. Should we write one?” It took 18 months to get the concept right and our publisher Portfolio was really helpful in that regard.  We signed a deal in April 2007, delivered the manuscript April 2008, and the book came out in February 2009. The book has done great. We are on our 6th printing and it has been translated into nine languages.

Me: Congratulations on the book’s success. What did you learn from the process of writing the book? What did you learn that was completely unexpected, if anything?

Todd: Things I learned writing The 100 Best:

1. You need to be able to tell someone else about your book in three sentences or less, about 50 words. There were all of these crazy complicated ideas for the book originally. We couldn’t get an agent interested.  We went directly to a publisher and they said the same thing: “Why don’t you just do The 100 Best Business Books of All Time?” I said it had been done before. They said everything has been done before and the people who do it right, own it.  They get to own the category. That was enough for me, except that the book had to be more than a list.

2. Great books also have nuance. Great books are easy to tell someone else about, but you remember them for how they capture you. Often, it is the style.  Sometimes, it is hearing a company story for the first time.

In the case of The 100 Best, we went way beyond the initial list.  There is almost 300 additional books that we recommend beyond The 100 Best. We tracked down the cover art and pulled a quote from every book.  There are 20 or sidebars with recommendations on case studies, children’s books, and fiction in a business setting.

3. Writing is a practiced, team sport. Great writing doesn’t happen without revisions or an editor. I don’t know anyone who just creates perfect prose. Listen to anything any writer has every said about writing and they will tell you that you write and rewrite and rewrite again.  And it could be that I am still a cub in this world of writing, but it is essential to have some one else working with me. I write better just knowing they are there.

The unexpected was that I would have never guessed I was a writer. I chose the college I attended based on the least number of english classes I needed to take. That is something I have worn as a strange badge of honor for years. The 100 Best had a profound impact on how view what I need to do with the rest of my life and it is impossible to accomplish that (‘that’ being connecting business ideas in new ways) without being a writer.

Me: I am curious if there are any books that have come out since The 100 Best that you would add to the list today? Which would be out?

Todd: It’s only been a year since The 100 Best came out, so I think it would be premature for me to start replacing titles on the list. I did like Tribes by Seth Godin and 800-CEO-READ named it Business Book of the Year in 2008, but we generally only let each author get one slot (Drucker and Charan were the exceptions).

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

Getting Things Done by David Allen

The Four Conversations by Jeffery Ford and Laurie Ford

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Financial Intelligence by Berman and Knight

Want to know more about Todd? Check these links:

ToddSattersten.com
Todd’s Twitter Stream
Download Fixed to Flexible, here.

A version of this entry was originally posted on August 6, 2008 at the old Brandstory blog. Bob’s blog is still one of my favorites.

A month or so ago, I stumbled upon Bob Hoffman’s blog called The Ad Contrarian. It has quickly become one of my favorites. He’s not much for advertising as entertainment. He doesn’t appear to like ad planners. He’s not big on Internet advertising, the long tail, or conversations. He’s an unabashed defender of the power and effectiveness of traditional, interruptive advertising. His blog is worth a read.

But best of all, if you want a copy, you can download a free copy of his book (PDF), described by his agency’s president as “mercifully short.”

Written more like a short collection of blog posts (actually that’s exactly what it is), the book’s a pretty good snapshot of what’s wrong with the advertising world. But it doesn’t take the “end-of-advertising-as-we-know-it” approach that so many others keep talking about. Lots of interesting thinking, criticism, and ideas packed into 65 pages.

Of course, there is a catch. The last four chapters detail Hoffman’s (and his agency’s) approach to advertising, something he calls Performance-based Advertising. So it’s a bit of a promotional piece for his agency. Still, the principles are good:

1. Advertising is most effective when it is focused on changing behavior, not attitudes.
2. Advertising messages should be created for, and directed at, the heavy using, high-yield customers in your category.
3. We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand, we get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.

I like Bob’s approach. My favorite chapter can be found here. Check out his blog and book.

This entry was originally posted on July 27, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog.

Michelle Miller at WonderBranding points us to a terrific (so far) series on effective copy writing from the geniuses—Jeff Sexton in particular—at FutureNow. I’ve had the opportunity to work with the FutureNow team. They know what they’re talking about.

The first segment is about how to choose between writing from an intellectual perspective or an emotional one. It’s very good stuff. Here’s a follow-up.

The second installment (or is it the 6th?) deals with using positive or negative imagery: “worries trump daydreams.” Check out how this applies to VW’s recent ads for Jetta.

The Third Installment focuses on intensity and involvement. The fourth should be up on Monday.

This is very good stuff. Not just the advice, but the copy examples are also stellar.

Check it out at Grokdotcom.

And if you like that, here’s another favorite: How to Write Better Ads. Great advice that most writers have forgotten (or never learned).

This entry was originally posted on January 25, 2007 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time). Of everything I wrote at the old blog, this entry got the most enthusiastic comments. I’ve added some of them at the bottom of the post—sorry I could not port the links to the writers who posted them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about brand voice lately. How companies talk to their customers. What brands sound like. How they read.

I’m not just talking about how a brand sounds to the ear, though that is important for products that communicate with broadcast media: think Tom Bodette and Motel6 or Hal Riney (who voiced Reagan’s famous Bear Ad) and Bartles & James.

There are lots of examples of companies that consistently use identity design to reinforce their brands, but far fewer brands seem to give as much thought to the voice of their communications. Mini does it exceptionally well, across all mediums. The Economist and Apple too. Harley Davidson does a pretty good job (there are exceptions). Saturn used to have unique voice—before it was assimilated.

But what’s the brand voice of Marriott? Cascade? Pepsi? Dell? Citi? Buick? Is there anything unique about the way Kroger, Budget, Hershey’s, or Delta speak to their customers? None of these are bad, but none of them speak in a special way to their customers.

Try googling “Brand Standards.” There are dozens of examples of identity guidelines showing how to use official logos, fonts, and colors. But very little attention is paid to brand voice—the words, phrases, and characteristics that set a brand apart take a back seat to the more “important” visual aspects of the brand.

Why is this? I have a theory. As we grow up and attend school, most of us “learn” that we are not good artists—that is, we can’t draw much beyond doodles. Bureaucrats think of art classes as luxuries, and cut funding because they are not as important as the standard reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Writing on the other hand is more universal. Very few people learn they can’t write in the same way they learn they can’t draw. Regardless of whether you are good at it, writing is required for most classes from math to English, debate to biology. So most of us grow up thinking we write relatively well (even though we probably don’t). Certainly well enough to communicate.

So we don’t trust ourselves with the design of marketing and other important business materials. We hire professionals for that. And we create brand standards to help us when the designer isn’t there. But we do trust ourselves to write effectively enough to get our point across, even though we don’t have the training to create a brand voice. So we create copy. Lots of it. Most of it bad.

Even many copywriters don’t think about copy the way designers think about design—tweaking a few words here, cutting a phrase there, rewriting a paragraph over and over until it sounds just right. And that’s too bad, because when done right, the brand voice is the most difficult part of branding to copy. You can’t fake it.

Have you seen a brand standard recently that includes direction on the brand voice? How well is it followed? Does your business use a unique voice to tell your brand story? Let me know in the comments.

Read a little more about brand voice here.
More thoughts (video) about the failure of our schools to teach creativity by Sir Ken Robinson, here. I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch this very funny, very insightful video.

Some of the original comments:

Larry Fahey: Good God, it’s like you’re INSIDE my head. I’m a copywriter and brand strategy guy, and this is it in a nutshell: Everyone thinks they can write. When’s the last time you saw a client come in and take the mouse from a designer to fix up a design? Never. But they rewrite copy at will. I wish I had a nickel for every time a client has told me “no one reads the copy anyway.”

I’m a cynic at heart, but if I wasn’t, I would say there’s a bright side: The smart agency (or client) can find a real advantage over competitors by paying attention to the finer points of copy. In a world filled with terrible copy, great brand copy could be a real edge. That is, if you can find a good brand copywriter. Big “if.”

Agent A: We spend so long trying to explain this to clients. Completely agree that it may be a perspective that’s nurtured though. I was in an ad agency recently, and even their own account handling people referred to the “creative” and “the copy” as being separate elements.

A version of this entry was originally posted on December 26, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

Last week, Martin Conroy, the man famous for writing the “two young men” letter for The Wall Street Journal, passed away (New York Times article). The letter was used by The Journal continuously for twenty-eight years and is revered by writers in direct response advertising for its creativity and success. It is the longest running direct response letter ever used, and has been called the most successful advertisement ever run. I still have a copy of the letter in my swipe file.

Why was this letter so successful? Because it tells a compelling, relevant story. And it sold subscriptions. Millions of them. One source says it was directly responsible for bringing in more than a billion dollars.

The letter reads:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both – as young college graduates are – were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

What Made The Difference?

Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives? It isn’t a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn’t that one person wants success and the other doesn’t.

The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of that knowledge.

And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall Street Journal. For that is the whole purpose of The Journal: to give its readers knowledge—knowledge that they can use in business.

It was so successful, that it has been copied numerous times (never as well-done as the original).

The Times quotes Direct Response Guru, Alan Rosenspan, who uses the letter in his seminars, saying: “I ask people to read out loud the first paragraph of the letter. And what’s astonishing to me is that they never stop at the first paragraph. They keep on reading. And I tell them: ‘You have just proven why this letter’s so powerful. It’s a story.’ ”

Sifting through the stack of junk mail (credit card solicitations, non-profit fund raisers, cable subscription offers) on my desk this morning, I wish there were more writers like Martin Conroy who believed in telling a relevant story. Sadly, they are, very literally, a dying breed.

This entry was originally posted on December 13, 2006 at the old Brandstory blog (link available for a limited time).

You have a story. Or your company does. Or your product does. Everything has a story. But how you tell your story make a big difference. Great stories are heard, remembered, even retold. Lousy stories are quickly forgotten and often dismissed with a nervous laugh and a “Well, I guess you had to be there.”

A few weeks ago Ernie Schenck wrote about two sports writers in 1960. Both watched the same game. Both had the same deadline. Both were hired to tell the story. Here’s how Ernie tells the story at his Squidoo page:

October 13, 1960. Bill Mazeroski hits a home run in the ninth inning to win the World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees. With the clock ticking down, every sportswriter in the stadium is furiously pecking out their story, their deadlines rapidly approaching.

Here’s the opening paragraph of the story that ran in The New York Times:

“The Pirates today brought Pittsburgh its first World Series baseball championship in thirty-five years when Bill Mazeroski slammed a ninth-inning home run over the left field wall of historic Forbes Field.”

Here’s what people in Iowa read:

“The most hallowed piece of property in Pittsburgh baseball history left Forbes Field late Thursday afternoon under a dirty gray sports jacket and with a police escort. That, of course, was home plate, where Bill Mazeroski completed his electrifying home run while umpire Bill Jackowski, broad back braced and arms spread, held off the mob long enough for Bill to make it legal.

“Pittsburgh’s steel mills couldn’t have made more noise than the crowd in this ancient park did when Mazeroski smashed Yankee Ralph Terry’s second pitch of the ninth inning. By the time the ball sailed over the ivy-covered brick wall, the rush from the stands had begun and these sudden madmen threatened to keep Maz from touching the plate with the run that beat the lordly Yankees, 10-9, for the title.”

Now ask yourself, is what you tell your customers a story or a chronology? How can your story be made more interesting or more relevant to your audience?