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I listened to a speech last night. It was for a competition conducted by Toastmasters, the international organisation set-up to promote public speaking in the community . It was a good speech. The speaker was clearly passionate about the topic (he’d just written a thesis about it)… He was extremely knowledgeable about the topic… And [...]

Last week, I watched a documentary called the Secrets of the Great Plague. Even though I didn’t quite see the start of the programme, it really sucked me in… Especially the part when the narrator posed a question: “Why did the Great Plague of the 1660s kill one third of the population of London, but [...]

I read with interest that the decision to pay Tiger Woods his appearance fee of $3.25 million Australian dollars had proved a windfall for the Directors of the Australian Masters Golf Tournament. For the first time ever, all four days of the tournament were sold out before Tiger ever set a foot on the green. [...]

One of the most common types of ads I see in the local newspapers is the tradesman ads. To me they seem to be bigger than your typical classified ad, but smaller than the usual space version – the ones you see in a lot of newspapers and magazines. An interesting element to these ads [...]

I was talking to a guy the other day who sold mortgages to farmers. His job was to travel around the various communities in order to assess what the farmers were looking to buy, and to discuss some of the finer details of the actual mortgage. To my way of thinking, Brent’s about as close [...]

I read recently that between 1995 and 2005, the sales of cookbooks increased by 5% a year. That’s a sizable increase – in any one’s language. Obviously there are lots of reasons why cookbooks sell. It could be the food itself. Or the photographs that show off the food. Or the emotional connotations associated with [...]

AIDA and 14 secret copywriting formulas Posted using ShareThis

One of my favourite copywriters is Ben Settle. I get an email alert from him about four or five days a week. Now Ben’s one of a number of copywriters I get email alerts from. And even though time doesn’t allow me to open every email he sends me, I do open the majority of [...]

I learned something today. I’ve always known that print types can broadly be categorised into two distinct types: Serif and San-Serif. And though I knew that Serif has more squiggly lines, I wanted something more definitive. Well, it turns out that Serif fonts also have “little feet” on them. And the reason they’re preferred in [...]

I had to buy a present for a guy at work the other day. John was leaving to go to another firm. No one had an idea about what to get him. So in the end, we decided to heed some advice I was given a long time ago, which was: “if in doubt, buy [...]