These are my two favourite mugs in the office right now. Which one I choose depends on how I think the day is going to pan out. Today is a Keep Calm day. Send me your favourite mug shots and I'll feature them here....
Did you know that Google was originally called BackRub? Or Yahoo was going to be called Jerry's Guide? This month's The Marketer takes a look at how some of our fave brands got their names. And which brands have changed their names - and not always for the better. Ebay got its name when its founder Pierre Omidyar discovered that the...
We're all familiar with the Apple iPhone ads. (You're not? Where have you been?) Those TV and press ads, where they discuss all the apps you can get at the Apple App Store for your iPhone. There's an app for dividing a restaurant bill. An app for finding out where your friends are. And an app for discovering if you're a...
Winston Churchill was a brilliant writer and one of the greatest orators in living memory, despite suffering from a slight lisp, an occasional stutter and a dread of speaking in public. His understanding of classical rhetorical techniques made his war-time speeches memorable, emotional and truly inspiring. Here are some of the techniques he used. Anaphora: Repetition of words and phrases. We shall fight...
See on the back of an ambulance recently: 'We care about you' Now call me old-fashioned but surely that's the minimum standard of service one can expect from an ambulance? What next? Sainsbury's: We sell food. ...
When it comes to business writing or copywriting, it's always better to use Anglo Saxon words rather than Latin words. But why are Anglo Saxon words better? And how can we tell the difference? To find out, let's take a brief look at the history of the English language. What have the Romans ever done for us? Latin words have been around...
I was writing some copy the other day when I realised the exact phrase I was looking for was je ne sais quoi. This got me thinking about how many words and phrases we use that come from across the Channel. Did you know that about 30% of the English language is derived from French? Mais non? Words like niche, blonde,...
