Is copywriting critically ill? Warning: Long Post
We all hear or read WF posts (titles) about 'Cold Calling no longer works' or 'Direct Mail is dead' and similar blanket assertions from people with little marketing experience.
But here's the reason why I'm wondering about copywriting. 30 years ago, everybody in your neighborhood subscribed to the daily newspaper, delivered direct to your front step (or somewhere within 200 feet). It's only been in the past ten years especially that the way we communicate with each other has undergone gut wrenching changes, not once or twice, but multiple times. When's the last time you subscribed to a daily newspaper to read in-depth analysis of news that happened...all the way back...yesterday?
Consider that around 2006 email and the internet were adopted by a vast majority of people, Facebook was going mainstream, and writing letters and postcards to other family members and friends disappeared.
During 2006-2008 downloading music, online bill payment became status quo on the internet, and major news outlets began publishing live streams of news happening in real time. The US post office nearly went bankrupt, fully 40% of US newspapers went out of business. And I had a radio executive tell me, "Tom when my audience now has their own choices of listening to what they want when they want, why are they going to listen to me?"
Communications stooped to a new low during 2008-2009 with the wide adoption of text messaging and its broad use of cryptic acronyms and our meaningful use of the English language dropped still further.
Twitter started way back in 2006, but really didn't become part of the popular landscape until roughly 2011-2012, and the English language, and communications between humans hit a new low.
Fast forward to today, and recent news articles about kids communicating with their parents using emoticons and emoji's. It's sadly been reduced to the point that language isn't a necessary ingredient for communicating. Do you understand emoji??
Yes, this is all a problem, a big problem. And let me tell you why.
First, as a professional marketer, communicating specific ideas, offers and opportunities on behalf of our clients is our personal means of survival and success. We're not only fine-tuning the messages we need to distribute, but now we have to adapt to new channels of communication where language is suppressed or absent.
The second concern I have, is the impact this absence of communication is having on our culture and society in general. Let me explain.
One of my 'test lab' business ventures creates specialized gift boxes. Recently I was cruising through Facebook and I began noticing stories and posts on different pages about people who were down on their luck or really struggling with tragedy, health problems etc..
So what I did was create a Facebook post on our company FB page with the headline, "Help me to help you make someone's day", and I explained the idea about nominating people that could really use a morale boost; our intention was to pick deserving people and send them a coupon for a free gift box.
It was an intensely popular offer that went viral. The problem was, we gave away exactly two units. Why? Because from the comments and the responses we received, it was abundantly clear that the text in our original post that people actually did read would have filled 1/3 of a twitter message. "I want it", "Give me 1",
Is copyrighting dead when we've trained our audience to communicate in 140 characters or less (including the link)? Or by using acronyms such as IMO or BRB? or using smiley face's?
I'm waiting for the emoticon that universally communicates to any audience that you need to buy whatever I'm selling right now!
Or an emoticon that says the US will invade Canada in the next 24 hours unless...
Talltom
What if they're not stars? What if they are holes poked in the top of a container so we can breath?
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