Sally Sisson

Earth Day interactives: Copywriting with a conscience for corporate clients

sally — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:44:29 +0000

I’ve worked on a few copywriting and content development projects for SUBWAY® Restaurants and their SUBWAYkids.com group over the past year (via the Boston office of ad agency Jack Morton Worldwide).

My latest project, an interactive game and content for a campaign developed with The Nature Conservancy, the world’s leading conservation organization, is now live on the site. This spring, every SUBWAY Fresh Fit for Kids Meal comes in a reusable meal bag with a special code to unlock the interactive game and bonus eco-facts and video clips.

“With your help, we can work to reduce, recycle and reuse—and clean up the planet.”

Kids play the “Eco-Quest” by picking up pieces of trash along their journey through habitats on three levels: land, air and sea. With each clean-up or successful answer to a question, users are rewarded with an ec0-fact or a downloadable Nature Conservancy feature on an endangered or at-risk animal whose habitat is threatened by pollution. Check it out at www.subwaykids.com.

Pretty basic, as it’s designed for younger users, but kind of fun. And it was definitely fun to work on. Kudos to big corporations like SUBWAY for catching on, cutting down on waste and encouraging the use of reusables.

Speaking of Earth Day and jumping on the green bandwagon…

The Earth Day content I wrote a couple years ago for the Think Green website, developed for Discovery Education in partnership with Waste Management, is still live on their site. Check it out if you’re looking for creative activities for grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 or 9-12. The content is evergreen because, as they say, every day is Earth Day.

By the way, Waste Management, the largest recycler in North America, is offering discounts on battery recycling kits for business as a special Earth Day promotion this year. Find out more about this and other features, like recycle-by-mail programs, at www.wm.com.

ThinkGreen.com: Earth Day Ideas

Foolish Infographics (April Fool’s edition)

sally — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 18:01:21 +0000

I’m always on the lookout for good infographics. As a “visual learner” and follower of trends in information design, I’m both delighted and bemused by the daily flood of data visualization on the Internet. Often I’m more enamored with the execution than with the content itself, so when I come across a silly “mock” infographic, the joke’s on me.

Here are some of my favorites:

Mr T Pie Chart via ScienceDump

Ben Greenman’s Charts About Graphs and Graphs About Charts

This series on McSweeney’s is funny and spot-on. My top picks:

Graph #1 by Ben Greenman

Graph #16 by Ben Greenman

Graph #8: Special East Coast Hurricane Edition

For more funny examples, check out:

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Ben Greenman’s Graphs About Charts and Charts About Graphs

Web content and the eternal home page question: How much is too much?

sally — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:45:27 +0000

I love this Venn diagram by xkcd. It was projected on the wall at the start of a Future M seminar I attended this September called “Beyond the University Website – The Future of Digital Marketing in Higher Education.” This image keeps coming back to me, in content decisions for both edu and B2B.

Sponsored by ISITE Design, and moderated by chief strategy officer Jeff Cram, the panel included Mike Petroff, Web and Technology Enrollment Manager at Emerson College; Perry Hewitt, Chief Digital Officer at Harvard; Gene Begin, Digital Marketing Director at Babson College; and Tom Baird, Vice Chancellor of University of Michigan Dearborn.

Content Overload? It’s all about balance.

I’ve been working on content strategy, optimization, writing and editing for an independent preK-8 school website this year and am about to begin on one for an independent high school. Funny how, regardless of the size of the school, the home page issues always seem to be the same.

How to balance content for current vs. prospective students and constituents? How many news feeds, blog feeds, photo and video galleries do you really need? How can we make sure it’s all optimized for search? What is the true purpose of the home page anyway? How much is too much?

I’m knee-deep in content migration from one CMS to another on the above mentioned website, but once I come up for air I’ll grapple with this question some more. Got any formulas for success? Would love to hear them.

FutureM wrap-ups:

Here are a couple good summaries of the FutureM seminar, along with some choice tweets on CMS quandries (as universal as the homepage ones, it seems to me), mobile stats for edu, and the need for social strategy:

Open Parenthesis: Future M on Higher Education
post by John Eckman of ISTE

Inside FutureM: Digital Marketing and Higher Education
post by Erik Devaney on New England Post

10+ Tips on Combating Creative Block

sally — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:35:18 +0000

Thanks to readers for responding to my last blog post:

March Madness: Celebrating creativity and the (sometimes maddening) creative process

image from williamsrandall.com

Tracy Graves, digital + social media consultant @ B4South

When I’m stuck, the world easily descends into a maelstrom of despair. And then, to re-jigger myself, I spend oodles of time looking at other people’s work. I try and take the pressure off and create something for myself instead of for a client. I read something utterly escapist and don’t worry about whether I’m intellectually furthering myself. And most importantly, I accept the fact that I need to get at least 5 crappy versions of something out of the way, and then something will emerge worth keeping.

Christopher Harting, photographer + philosopher @ Christopher Harting Studio

Go to Manhattan. Walk around and look at stuff. Drink coffee. Walk around some more. But you know the truth? I never have that problem. Never, ever, ever.

John DiCocco, creative director/writer/editor (and underground reporter for the Tiny Mind Gazette)

I’m pretty fortunate in that I have rarely suffered this dreaded event, except when writing ad copy. And when that occurs, I have a standby tactic. I start asking outlandish questions:

“What if the whole thing was blue?” “What if your parents spoke two different languages and you didn’t understand either one?” “What if you knew everything that was going to happen one hour ahead of time?” What’s the worst that could happen—I mean, really, the WORST? Okay, backtrack from there. “What if it/he/the nation were twice/half as big/small/loud/dense/bright etc?”

Michael Calienes, creative director + copywriter @ Transplant

Self-induced water boarding.

Cuban music in the background.

Freedom.

Kelley Rugg, producer, director, writer + videographer @ Rowboat Productions

Creativity is not about making or forcing but about allowing and trusting, and so what I do when I feel any type of block is understand that I am causing it by trying too hard… so then I let go, get out of the way, and absolutely keep going.

Trebor Healey, poet + novelist @ treborhealey.com

I think it’s best to shift your surroundings, take a trip, small or big, spend time in nature…go to museums, dance performances, concerts…other creative ventures will inspire your own, will put you in the creative reality. If all else fails, revisit your favorite writers’ or artists’ work like a bee dropping in on the hive of honey and you will once again know how to get to the flowers you seek.

Doug Eymer, creative director + designer @ EYMER Design Laboratories + Think Tank

Procrastination is such a negative term. I prefer to think of it as getting all of your ducks in a row. Here’s the real dear, you awake from hibernation in a cranky mood. Your immediate reaction to EVERYTHing is: “I’m right, the LOSERS that have been grinding their teeth all winter are WRONG!”

So, because you have been asleep and avoiding the family check book, you stand at the very end of the protective barriers and say, “So What! I have been dead for the last couple of months, what is the difference in a few eternal centuries more?”

The Mysterious Dr. F, linguist, world traveler + underground reporter @ Tiny Mind Gazette

My true method of overcoming creative block used to be:

1) Put on blue clown wig; 2) put Boomtown Rats’ “Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays” on at maximum volume on the Walkman; 3) draw random shapes all over the paper until the creative fairies inspired me (without getting swatted out of the air by the eraser dust brush).

But, the wig used to scare the cleaning lady.

So, now I only limit my creative sessions to the foggy span of time at the mid-point of a 50 mile business drive, of a four-hour “creative” slide presentation (by someone else, of course), or during the five-hour Easter vigil mass. Then the janitor in my head starts screaming, “OOO! Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter!” and I have to rush to fish out my mini composition book to pour out the golden flow of inspiration (somewhat like a potty training two-year-old on a drive to grandma’s—gotta go NOW, Mommy!)

Yes, it’s a crazy sight, especially for the guy in the second lane, the guy sitting next to me in a meeting, or Father O’Reilly; but hey, I didn’t make the rules of creation!

Doug Williams, writer @Writeous Outrage and head of FUSE5

Here’s one from the director I worked with in NY during my playwriting days.

She said the best way to beat block was to find famous quotes on the subjects (or themes) you’re writing about, and then make them your own. The quotes serve as idea factories that 1) give you another perspective; 2) take you in a direction you’d likely have never found yourself; and 3) reinvigorate the internal creative process by making you think about something familiar in a completely different way.

I’ve been doing that for years – in screenplays, novels, speeches, PR/marketing, online writing, et al – and it’s never failed me once.

David Game

Terence Rattigan, UK playwright, was advised to join the RAF [Royal Air Force] to cure writer’s block.

Joe Lee @ joelee.me

When in doubt or stuck, I doodle. Doodling to me is active so it literally gets me going. It’s my physical technique to kick start a mental stream of consciousness. Since my doodles are not even worthy of being called a sketch, they are uninhibited and uncensored. Also, I use scraps of paper, napkins, recycled printed sheets, anything that has no feeling of preciousness whatsoever, not even post-its or sketchbooks. (Think about how many artists who like to flaunt and show off their “sketchbooks.”) Start here, there, or anywhere – JUST DOODLE IT. As Bucky Fuller once said, “How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.”

March Madness: celebrating creativity + the (sometimes maddening) creative process

sally — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:04:43 +0000

image from John Kelly's "Procrastination" video

Get inspired

Anyone else out there been in a slump this winter? Here’s a great collection of video clips from 99% to shake the cobwebs from the cranium. Check it out:

10 Awesome Videos on Idea Execution + The Creative Process

Spring forward

This coming week I’ll be covering creativity in my blog and would love folks to contribute thoughts, ideas, doodles, random musings or guest blog posts. Whatever you like.

Battling creative block

Last spring I posted the following three pieces to give myself a kick-start:

Here Comes the Sun: Overcoming creative block (part 1 of many)

Overcoming Creative Block (part 2): Writing, procrastination + keeping a sense of humor

Overcoming Creative Block (part 3): Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

Tell me:

When it’s cold and gray (or when it’s hard to come up with something creative to draw, design, write or say), where do you look for inspiration? How do you break out of a slump and get back in gear? If you’re stuck in a long and tedious project, how do flex your creative muscles on the side? I’d love to read your comments below. Thanks!

Extreme Content: How is web writing like extreme winter weather?

sally — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:21:18 +0000

A: You’ve got to be prepared for both.

When a client needs web content, sometimes it’s just a home page or a few headlines. Sometimes it’s the whole thing – 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd level pages plus links and special features.

Light to moderate to heavy

For the Ready Classroom website, Discovery Education needed the whole package: research and writing for a dozen categories of extreme weather and natural disasters, customized content for each of the 50 states, copy to cross-reference it all, and creative standards-based lesson plans for different grades ranges for K-12.

On top of that there were different strands for three different audiences. All content had to be run through Discovery Education as well as the Ad Council and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), their partners for this particular project.

Stock up. Hunker down.

Web writing involves a range of skills: research, writing (both copywriting and long-form content), editing, organization, planning, critical thinking. It also takes time, especially a job of this size. It can be enjoyable to dive deep into a topic and stay holed up for a while. The key is to be be prepared (clear your schedule, line up childcare), stock up on supplies (decent snacks, decent coffee, case of coffee filters), and prepare for a couple all-nighters. Note that it’s good to come up for air every once in a while, whatever the weather.

Toolkits, checklists and survival skills.

We’re getting pretty hard hit with winter weather this year, some parts of the country worse than others. Just this morning I consulted Ready Classroom to check my own family’s state of preparedness for this week’s monster storm. According to FEMA, the Red Cross and my own trusty tips, we still have another trip or two to the hardware store before ticking all the boxes on our Disaster Preparedness Checklist.

Check out the site and see how you stack up. Are YOU prepared?

The calm after the storm

Judging by the broken flashlight and half-empty box of kitchen matches by my side, I would not win many Girl Scout badges for preparedness. However, the content I developed did score some points: Ready Classroom won a 2010 BESSIE (Best Educational Software Award), which made those days and nights in my underground bunker all the more worthwhile. Read more here.

The Power of Cartoons: TED Talk on Feminism, Humor and World Peace

sally — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 03:40:45 +0000

Click here to watch: Liza Donnelly: Drawing upon humor for change | TED Talk

How cool is this?

New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly shares a portfolio of her wise and funny cartoons about modern life—and talks about how humor can empower women to change the rules.

Her latest project supports the United Nations initiative Cartooning For Peace. The exhibit “The Folly, Fun and Flexibility of Women” showcases cartoons by artists from around the world.

Women as change agents

“Visual humor has the ability to reach the viewer quickly and succinctly, speaking not only to the intellect, but also to the heart. Rather than reify, laughter has the power to break down stereotypes and unchallenged beliefs.”

“We can change this thing… one laugh at a time.”

Click here to see a gallery of Liza’s cartoons. Her latest book, When Do They Serve the Wine?, is available on Amazon.com.

The Life (and Death?) of STORYTELLING: Ten top posts of 2010

sally — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 04:33:27 +0000

Once upon a time… storytelling was the domain of kindergarten classrooms and creative writing courses. Over the past decade it’s found its way into advertising, marketing and business consulting, and countless articles on all of the above.

Stories inspire and connect us. From ancient cave paintings to Super Bowl commercials to transmedia storytelling, they illustrate, resonate and—when done well—stick with us for a long time.

Here are some of my top picks on the topic. Instead of synthesizing what’s already been written so well, I’ll let these speak for themselves.

1. Harvard Business Review: The Power of Storytelling

In a conversation with HBR, Robert McKee, the world’s best-known screenwriting lecturer, argues that executives can engage people in a much deeper—and ultimately more convincing—way if they toss out their PowerPoint slides and memos and learn to tell good stories.

2. Copyblogger: How to Captivate Your Audience with Story (From America’s Greatest Living Playwright)

There’s been a fevered interest in the art of storytelling among the marketing crowd recently. We are told that story—applied to salesmanship, preaching, advertising, conversation, marketing, songwriting, and blogging—contains the power to deliver the world to the deft storyteller’s door. But what is a well-told story? Take a lesson from David Mamet.

3. Chris Brogan: Storytelling for Business

Stories are how we learn best. We absorb numbers and facts and details, but we keep them all glued into our heads with stories.

4. Smashing Magazine: Better User Experience with Storytelling

Our information…has become watered down, cloned, and is churned out quickly in 140-character blurbs. We’ve lost that personal touch where we find an emotional connection that makes us care. Using storytelling, however, we can pull these fragments together into a common thread. We can connect as real people, not just computers.

5. Ten Ways to Story Your Business (or Product or Brand)

Nine wise tips, plus #10: Remember that if you don’t tell your story, your story will probably get told for you—in a way that may damage your business.

6. Content Rules: What Does Business Have to Do With Storytelling?

The idea of storytelling as it applies to business isn’t about spinning a yarn or fairytale. Rather, it’s about how your business exists in the real world: how people use your products—how they add value to people’s lives, ease their troubles, help shoulder their burdens, and meet their needs.

7. Mark Levy: Telling the Same Story Differently

An insightful post inspired by Matt Madden’s ingenius cartoon book “99 Ways to Tell a Story.”

8. Transmedia Storytelling: The Psychological Power of Story

The ultimate mashup of ancient traditions and new communications models.

9. Harvard Business Review: When Storytelling Isn’t Enough

Fast Company founder Alan Webber says storytelling is overrated and declares, “Content isn’t king, context is king!”

10. Bite: The Death of Storytelling?

“We are all striving to tell stories. But are we making more noise than news?”

What do you think?

Content (and copywriters) are king at Groupon, part 2

sally — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:15:43 +0000

Continuing my fixation with the group buying site…

[See part 1: The Key to Groupon's Success? A Stable of Great Copywriters]

I know much of the genius has to do with the simple business model, but I remain fixated on the creative. Here’s another article I bookmarked a while back, this one from 52weeksofux.com:

Groupon and the value of copywriting

“There is lots of talk of whether Groupon can keep their advantage over new competitors. But the competitors I have seen don’t have the copywriting chops that Groupon does, at least right now. As long as Groupon continues to write such great copy, they’ll have a big advantage over their competitors.”

Click here for full article.

Editorial style (and schtick) guide

Check out the company’s Public Editorial Manual which describes the Groupon Voice in detail and has a whole section on Humor Writing, complete with examples. Here’s a small taste:

Zog’s Dogs

“The first deep-frying techniques were used as a means of preserving wedding gowns and Barry Bonds rookie cards; it wasn’t until later that they were applied to food….”

Guide to Art-Museum Banter

“Before taking advantage of today’s Groupon, memorize these handy art criticisms, which are guaranteed to apply to any work in the Lowe Art Museum:

“The brush stroke is large. It would not shock me if the artist painted with a wig or mop. Do you agree with my point of view?”
“The way color is used is breathtaking. It is either red, blue, green, or purple, but I would need to take a closer look to be sure.”
“Some say those are boxes, but to me they appear as triangles. Either way, this painting is about Lou Gehrig’s desire to adopt a dog.”

The key to Groupon’s success? A stable of great copywriters.

sally — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:50:10 +0000

Okay, so it’s not only about the clever content. But it’s the reason I read my Groupon coupon every morning as I sift through the clutter in my in-box. And I’m not alone.

Back in September I posted a link to this article from VentureBeat about writing as the key to Groupon’s remarkable success. Now whenever I read about the social-buying site and Google’s billion-dollar takeover offer, the copywriting bit remains top of mind.

Read the article here:

The Secret of Groupon’s Success Is… Good Writing?

“Chief executive Andrew Mason said today that the success of his popular social buying site Groupon had less to do with brilliant tech and more with good writing, and with unfashionable technology like email.

“Groupon employs a staff of 70 writers to create the text of all its group deals, Mason said. It might be easier to ask the businesses offering the deals to write the content, or perhaps to find some way to automatically generate the text, but Mason said that having well-written, engaging content is a key part of convincing users to keep reading…”