Displaying 217 - 252 of 1093 results
As a kid, I was very fond of the word 'wacky' - largely because it featured in the title of my favourite TV shows 'Wacky Races' (if you're too young to remember it - find it on the web, you'll be glad you did). As an adult, I'm less keen. It has some...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I'm always impressed by people who plan their career. Or rather people who plan their career and realise those plans. Planning stuff is easy, making it happen is something else - particularly in this business. Let's say, on your first day in the ad...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
In the laptop market, competition is fierce. So many brands, designs and features - manufacturers are constantly looking for innovative ways to make their kit more attractive. Interestingly, none of them has ever released a machine emitting the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I'm sorry for implanting a most unwelcome picture in your head, but I was taking a bath the other evening. The radio was on, I was leafing idly through a magazine and that's when I saw it - the least effective print ad of all time. In fact, it was so...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I tried Corsodyl once. My mum had a bottle in her bathroom cabinet and, as it said it was a mouthwash, I took a liberal swig. It was very much like rinsing with floor polish and Polo mints. But it is a 'medicine' and the worse a medicine tastes, the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
In my late teens, a video was doing the rounds. It was called 'Faces Of Death' and I don't think it was an official release - more a much-copied bootleg. Essentially it was a compilation of clips showing people meeting their deaths in accidents. A...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Whether you consider it a good idea or not, thanks to the coalition government, it seems the increased involvement of private companies in the NHS is a racing certainty. And what could possibly go wrong? Just look how affordable and reliable the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Do you own a website? More to the point, do you own a bespoke domain name? I only ask because the City of London Police's brand new 'Intellectual Property Crime Unit' is hoping to get off to a flying start by attempting seize control of domains they...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
If you read my column earlier this week, you'll know I'm in America. If you didn't, I'm in America. In fact, I'm now in America's oldest town, St. Augustine - on Florida's Atlantic coast. And despite the temperature being in the low eighties (which...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I'm in the USA - in a beautiful city called Charlestown on the Atlantic coast of South Carolina. But I'm travelling, so last night I was in Cherokee which, although it sounds romantic, is actually a rather tacky casino town 300 miles north. The...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Last week, I wrote about the key differences between copywriting and 'writing'. And while I attempted to make the challenges inherent in copywriting clear, I wouldn't say the profession is in crisis. Unlike the art of writing comedy. Quite when the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I was never keen on the National Lottery. On the night it launched, I nipped to the shop for cigarettes and was confronted with a queue which reached out of the door and off down the street. I was concerned the people had been hypnotized and summoned...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
The most successful film in UK cinemas this week is 'Insidious 2'. Having seen the first 'Insidious' instalment just a couple of weeks ago, I don't think I'll bother with chapter two. The best horror movies are akin to long road trips through foreign...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
As a technologically advanced species, we've achieved a great deal. After all, you don't see hamsters riding micro-scooters, or otters designing iPhone apps. But we do have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Recent months have seen new versions of...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
I used to live at the Elephant & Castle in south London. Surprisingly, given its rather 'gritty' character, this made people somewhat envious. Not because of the bright pink shopping centre, but because my flat was just a street away from the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
The World Wide Web, it's a wonderful thing to be sure. You've got your social media for endless moaning and pictures of your holidays. You've got your YouTube for Little Mix videos and footage of other people's pets. And you've got your online...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Sited just off Fleet Street, the very first agency for which I worked was called 'Riley' and it was great. Inevitably though, I eventually moved on (sooner than I should have, actually) and 'Riley' changed too. In a large-scale, late nineties...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
You're familiar with the notion of 'bloopers', I'm sure. 'It'll Be Alright On The Night' has been cataloguing the trips and slips of TV production for decades, while 'You've Been Framed' records disasters on the home front - usually involving elderly...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
You know 'Mozilla', don't you? The people who make the Firefox web browser? Well, it turns out they also make a thing called 'AdBlock Plus'. And, if you're using it, you're getting right up the noses of some advertising big-wigs. For the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Do I moan a bit in my Creativepool columns? Don't answer that. As a fully paid-up, grumpy old copywriter, I know I probably do. But you can relax, because today I'm discussing something I really, really like. And handily, it's an...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Our friends at the ASA have announced they are investigating the Government-backed campaign which saw vans driving through London, calling on 'illegal immigrants' to leave the country or face arrest. This follows 60 complaints and, despite some...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Peter Capaldi is to be the new Doctor and I couldn't be more delighted. Apart from the fact I consider 'The Thick Of It' to be a television comedy so accomplished is resembles high art, Capaldi just has the face and demeanour of a Time Lord. Yes, I...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Today I learned an inquest has been opened into the death of a young girl, bullied to suicide by users of social media. This dreadful story adds a terrible darkness to the storm surrounding the abusive use of the internet. And, as happened with...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
In November 2011, Coronation Street made UK television history when it became the first primetime show to secure a product placement deal with an advertiser. The unbranded ATM machine in the corner shop (prop: Dev Alahan), suddenly became a...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
As a copywriter, one of the first jobs I had was to write a series of scripts and headlines for Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. So I was rather sad to learn of Mel's death at the weekend. Funnily enough, I was also reminded of the comedy twosome...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Apple used to do great ads. The silhouettes of iPod users, offsetting the machine's white wires, were tremendously vivid, recognisable and memorable - classy and classic brand design. Then there were the dancing, multi-coloured iMacs, animated to...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
References to the 'high-street' in political and sociological debate have been frequent for well over a decade now. Sadly, mentioning a problem frequently doesn't bring solutions. Many towns are plagued by empty retail units on their central...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Here's a story so bizarre, so post-modern, that it's hard to believe Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci are not involved. They're not though, because this is something that has actually happened; it involves two major television stations attempting to...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
At some point, perhaps four years ago, doorstep lending ('The Tallyman', as my grandmother would have termed it) suddenly became terribly old fashioned and parochial. Recession and financial misery inflated the market for non-bank lending at a...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Disruption has always been key to the advertising model. Very few people opt to be exposed to marketing messages, therefore effective advertising has traditionally intruded into the content the audience has chosen to consume - a TV show, a magazine...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
When you arrived at work this morning, did you notice a pop star sitting at a flat-screen, typing away? Was there a movie idol in the kitchen fixing some coffees? Or a minor royal handing out the mail? If not, I'm afraid your firm is way behind the...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
A friend of mine applied for a job last month. He's a talented creative professional with many years' experience in the advertising and media industries. Currently in demand as an independent consultant, he didn't apply out of necessity or...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
The Huffington Post reports that Khloe Kardashian (who?) is now being paid as much as $13,000 per tweet. The fee doesn't cover profound wisdom like "Remember sweat is fat crying" - it's for equally useful posts wherein she names brands and includes...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Last week I wrote a piece for Creativepool, suggesting the role of the copywriter had become sidelined to the extent that designers were now the 'creatives'. I also wondered whether this wasn't just an attack of paranoia. Well, it wasn't. The column...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
When it comes to digital media The Guardian is certainly adventurous. Indeed, behind those doors at King's Place there's a policy/philosophy called 'digital first' - essentially a prioritisation of the newspaper's online activity, from podcasts to...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw
Over the last week, I've very much enjoyed reading a debate, prompted by one of my Creativepool columns, on LinkedIn. It's always particularly satisfying to find creative professionals reacting to a piece I've written and I'm grateful to anyone who...
Posted by: Magnus Shaw