Video or Still?

Videos are one of the greatest advantages of the web. Carefully planned and made, a video can be the best selling tool you'll ever have.
Cheaper than a TV ad to show, yet just as effective in its elements - moving pictures, sound and colour - it can rock your sales figures into the heavens.
Tragically, many sites can be seen with a fuzzy 'drop-in' from a TV program that touches on the products, boring interviews from 'experts' grasping microphones, or a tiny right hand corner 'click here' screen.
If you want to keep them on your site for longer than 3 secs - open up with a terrific lights, music and sound show! Create sensational images, catchy jingles and super product info - that's right - create a first class TV Ad for the Web!!
Move it baby!

Does Sex sell - on web ads?

Sex in Ads, sex in Marketing. Everyone denies deliberately putting it in the creative.
I've worked with it, seen it work and believe it works!
Branding with sex or sexual undertones or overtones it quite tricky.
Cocoa Cola use a subliminal code of semiotics that one is told to incorporate - I worked with the Lifestyle series.
Every ad should contain the following:
Water, skin, men and women in equal numbers, under twenty five over sixteen, must be active and moving through the water insome way and having 'ineractive' fun.
It breakdowns like this:
Water, according to Freud, reminds us of sex through a vey subconscious connection to flowing fluids! Water according to Coke, is pretty well the same.
Skin attracts us to the opposite sex, so Coke goes with that.
Men and women in equal numbers indicate social connections and fun and sex.
Youth combined with all of the above is an explosion of subliminal sexual connection to Coca Cola and we will all get lucky if we drink it etc.
This apparently has been in use for over fifty years. The latest ad shows a group of under twenty-fives in the ocean jumping around a giant coke bottle with an air flow.
I think it is super clever and super sexy. It works. It sells. And no morals get harmed during this commercial.
BUT it is TV and Film. Captive audience. How does this tranlate to the web site?
They have designed 'Summer blast' with an exploding bottle of the most phallic! But it is animated and enthralling - same elements but have 'downsized'. The secret is in the graphics and the whole home page which is jumpin' and interactive, but doesn't try to be a TV ad.
Because the computer screen is so small, the eye can focus on more random areas.The 'Big' picure is lost and so to is the subtle 'sex'. You have to work the screen carefully to avoid becoming a porn site.
Work with a good graphic designer or creative web writer who knows how to visualize and create a theme - not an ad. It is a challenge but it works like a dream if you dream up ideas based on'Sex that sells' just for the Web. Cut your cloth to the medium
Go back to great black and white stills - for example. They have impact amongst all the screaming colour.
Be subtle. The ad top right is about sex but is super subtle on a very tricky subject. It is for a lubricant jelly. Cool and had massive knockout reaction in Europe. I give it a 10!

Writing for the Web is the new black

Advertising writers can feel their hearts sink when the client says 'Here's something I prepared earlier. Not that hard to write copy content is it?'
In fact, my head usually tells my feet to leave the building immediately as things are only going to get worse.
'Just fix this up a bit.' Meaning: Don't touch my words, just fix the commas ... and you're a writer, you know how to spell so give that a bit of a check too.'
'I've cut and pasted from stuff I found on the Web.' Meaning: I spent all night on Google, so what makes you think you can do any better. These people are experts.'
'The graphic designer bloke has done our web stuff. We just needs some words.' Meaning .. 'he's done the real work ... don't spend too much time on your words.'
Three fantastic words can make your web page rock. Six paragraphs of cut and pasteds and stuff from the sales manager can make your site sink.

most important web tip you'll ever learn

Anyone who has worked at Ogilvy Advertising knows the framework the company works with - one based on David Ogilvy's theories of what works in copy and design ... and what doesn't.
It all still works. eg:
Live voice works better than Voice Over.
Zooming in on product works better than zooming out.
The human eye does not like to read white typeface and the brain does not remember what it reads as well as black or dark type face.
There are others! All backed by research and I think they are fantastic for the Web even though they were set up in the dark ages of the 50s and 60s!
I think the White or Reverse TypeFace one is one of the most important as it effects so much of today's information media.
Try and read this and remember the number sequence 2 8 9 3 44.
Try and read this and remember the number sequence 2 4 5 9 44
Yet web designers and I continue to fight the good fight. I beg and plead! I quote the research.
I want to win for the client! But the most effective proof is sales!
I always back myself on this one - so far great scores on NO reverse type.

One of my fav web sites about writing - commonsense, crisp writing:

http://writingmatters.typepad.com/

WEB WRITING FOR PROFIT

Set up your goal before you start your page! Basic advice? Can't believe how many clients can't tell me what they need their web page for ... and to do. 'Umm to sell my product, tell people about it ... umm to .... '
Be specific as you can and make up a list of three major goals the web should achieve for you.
A good trick is to pretend the visitor has left the webpage and work out what has he learnt about you or your product.
eg: Did they find out:
1. What it does.
2.What it looks like.
3. How easy it was to buy from the web site .. or where to buy it.

Then work back and set out a plan that will achieve those aims.

TIP
Just work on THREE goals - give them to your designer AND web content writer IN WRITING.
You will be surprised at how streamlined your site will be if you stick to just three points - it gives a great strucutre to the creative and build process.

http://www.fabwebwriter.com/web-copywriting/web-copywriting-and-web-writing-whats-the-difference-153/

WEB CONTENT - DON'T BE AFRAID OF SHORT!

Short is powerful. Yes, 'Direct response copy' is long and has results BUT...
Content is King when the reign is short.
Client wrote:
You see, this cereal is different, a bit odd, (in a good way of course!). If your experience is anything like ours, a lot of the cereals that claim to be healthy taste horrible, and those that taste good are usually packed full of junk you’d rather not know about. So how do you know which one to choose?
I wrote:
"Power Packed. Stripped down.'
Both OK but .... on the web KISS!