By Hazel Butters

May 25th, 2012

Would you share your story in a pub?

Would you share your story in a pub?

It’s no secret that I have a born-affinity for alcohol: my parents used to own a public house. I grew up around the dispensation of beer, wine and spirits; my sister and I slept in a bedroom from where I could hear the clinking of glasses and the muffled echo of my parents shouting: “Last orders please!” Even my pocket money was reward for neatly lining Schweppes bottles on shelves each Sunday morning.

In short, I’m familiar with pubs.

Sometimes I get asked – whether it’s by clients, employees or friends – what makes a great press story for a broader audience? If by broader they are referring to national newspapers, TV, radio and popular men’s or women’s interest titles, then I think the answer is that it’s the story you would tell in a pub.

Let me illustrate. One client we work with built his multinational refinishing business using what he had learnt about violins when he was a child at his grandfather’s instrument shop (he also came from a family of innovators, his uncle invented the first car horn for Henry Ford). Another client, in need of coders, found an unexpected source of employees when a nearby Ford factory closed down, making steel millers available to retrain as software programmers. We even worked with a start-up that created, out of an MIT classroom project, a device that enabled dogs and their walkers to get to know each other through social networking.

To get in the national press you need strong ‘human interest’ stories. These are the sort of tales we tell one another socially; it’s part of our deep, common-mitochondrial-DNA nature of being human. That’s what newspapers and news-orientated broadcast stations do – they share stories about people. Likewise pubs, coffee-shops, or whatever social collective works for you, are microcosms of our story-telling needs. This is why we all enjoy sharing stories that begin: “Did you know?”, “I heard a really interesting thing about…” or “You’ll never guess what this guy is doing…”

Hence my personal human interest test: “Would I tell this story in a pub?”

I would like to add one caveat; the audience has to be told to a group of non-work peers. For example, if you work in IT, then sharing a story about a new software application, how an API worked, or how you achieved an amazing data storage throughput, would be of obvious interest to that group. Those stories are, by and large, targeted tales for a trade press audience – perfect for people who would naturally understand what you’re saying and why it’s relevant, important and interesting.

But if you can imagine meeting someone new at a gathering in a bar, striking up a conversation with them, and then enjoyably sharing someone else’s unusual story? Well, then that’s a tick-in-the-box for a much broader pitch. Do please remember though, this is considered pitching – not just a licence to email a bazillion randomly-selected journalists (really, a cockatiel armed with a cocktail stick or really good aim could do that!)

So read the newspapers or listen to the radio, check out Twitter, and research blogs, choose one relevant contact to have a conversation with, then share that unusual human story with them – just as if you were chatting at your local bar or coffee house.

By The Prompt Copywriting Team

May 21st, 2012

Prompt Grammar Tip: Active or Passive?

Prompt Grammar Tip: Active or Passive?

Writing in an active voice rather than a passive voice is actually a choice, not a strict grammatical rule. But if you’ve ever worked as a journalist or short form writer, or undergone fast-track media training, you could easily get the impression that passive is simply bad form.

In its most basic sense, an active voice focuses on a subject performing an action. In our industry, this might be: ‘Acme Industries launches product’. In a passive voice, that subject is instead acted upon, resulting in ‘The product is launched by Acme Industries’.

The passive voice is not wrong, and can indeed be preferable in some circumstances. But it does have some downsides that lead many editors, trainers and teachers to frown upon it. The verb structure in a passive sentence is lengthier, and generally lacks the clarity, simplicity and punch of an active construction. Spoken out loud, passive sentences often sound ‘clunkier’ and interrupt the flow and momentum of writing.

Once you’re aware of the distinction though, the passive voice definitely has its uses. Succinct headlines are often written in the passive: ‘Acme CEO Fired’ or ‘Acme Software Infected’, for example. Generally speaking, if you’re consciously using the passive tense to emphasize the action over the subject, then go for it. But if you’re just falling into a passive voice as you get tangled in the subject matter, then get active, and simplify that sentence structure.

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By Dave Wilby

May 18th, 2012

Are you sitting comfortably? Here's 'The Story of Send'

Are you sitting comfortably? Here's 'The Story of Send'

Google and its products split opinions and loyalties. But whether you’re a big fan and avid user, or have reservations about some of the corporation’s policies, you surely have to be impressed with its technologies from time to time? Perhaps it’s just hard to connect the tiny start-up that gave us its first no-frills search engine back in the late 90s, with the huge behemoth powering the cloud of services we see today?

When Google went public in 1998, it did so under the mission statement: “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. Which I guess is part of the reason that it’s still devoting effort to producing superbly executed branding and marketing projects like ‘The Story of Send’, which you’ll now find waiting to be clicked under Google Search.

The Story of Send is an animated tour of the journey of an email through Google infrastructure. It was developed and designed by Google Green, and unashamedly promotes Google’s data centre security and energy conservation credentials. Along the way you can stop off to look at galleries or watch videos that show you how Google’s data centres operate, what steps are taken on the server floor to protect data, and why some Google employees have to go to work wearing shorts.

Google says the project was an effort to show people how the journey of an email really works, because although it’s something that takes just seconds, it’s also something that has to work smoothly billions of times a day. Now, I’m assuming you probably knew that already, and also have a fair idea of the basic journey your messages have to take from your desktop to their destinations. But that’s no reason not to spend a few minutes watching The Story of Send. It’s great.

If you’ve ever worked with writers and illustrators to try and develop a simple, fun way of conveying dry, complex concepts, you’ll know that what ultimately looks simple, can prove quite a challenging task. This story though is slick, interesting and fun, and well worth the effort. The only thing I’m still trying to work out is, how do the plesiosaurs and vampires help..?

By Potato

May 16th, 2012

Potato/Patattah…‘swimming cossie’

Potato/Patattah…‘swimming cossie’

I’ve discovered that Americans can show an element of hilarity if you ask them if they own a ‘swimming costume’. Somehow it evokes images of chicken suits, or similar get up for a costume party. Note: I was going to say ‘fancy dress’ party, but it turns out that’s another phrase that isn’t used in America. But in Britain you can even shorten costume to ‘cossie’, as in: ‘Do you have your cossie with you?’

Instead of the potentially hilarious ‘costume’, Americans use the far more conservative and formal-sounding word ‘suit’, as in ‘bathing suit’ or ‘swimsuit’. I’m not going to say that one is correct over the other. But with the Olympics coming up, I can’t help thinking about Michael Phelps (who does look a bit Spiderman-esque in the pool; surely that counts as a costume?). Phelps and his team are heading to London equipped with ‘a revolutionary new system’, about which a Speedo scientist doctor said: “These are the fastest suits ever made”.

I still think it would have sounded so much cooler if Speedo’s scientist had said: “These are the fastest cossies ever made.”

By The Prompt Copywriting Team

May 9th, 2012

Prompt Grammar Tip: Is it ‘further’ or ‘farther’?

Prompt Grammar Tip: Is it ‘further’ or ‘farther’?

‘Further’ is always used when not referring to physical distance, for example, “He had to investigate further to find the answer.” But ‘farther’ is preferred when describing actual, measurable geographic distance. “He needed to travel farther to find the waterfall in the woods.” A good way to remember this is to note that farther has an ‘a,’ just like the word ‘atlas’, with an atlas representing physical distance.

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By Potato

May 8th, 2012

Potato/Patattah… The word 'homely'

Potato/Patattah… The word 'homely'

Homely is one of those confusing words because it is used on both sides of the Atlantic, yet has quite different meanings.

In the UK, it’s not a bad thing – I would genuinely use it to describe my parents’ house as somewhere I feel at home, and which is adorned with childhood memories. And my mum would be glad to hear me say that.

In common American parlance (and I have learnt this from painful experience), ‘homely’ is an insult, a way to describe something or someone unattractive or plain. If you want to describe something as welcoming or as evocative of a home-like atmosphere in the USA, the word you are grappling for is ‘homey’.

So if you meet Martha Stewart and want to congratulate her on her presentation of polenta shortbread, her art nouveau floral table decorations or her honey parchment glass light settings, the word you are looking for is homey. Or perhaps not.