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

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.

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…”

To be continued...

Graphic novel of Dante's Divine Comedy triumph of information design--and editing

This entertaining review in PopMatters made me want to run out and buy the book.It tells how illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast condensed Dante’s epic 14,000-line allegory to under 120 pages, producing an accessible visual adaptation, complete with diagrams to explain the intricate circles and steps in the author's imagined world.  The approach is quirky and playful, while still capturing the spirit of Dante's daunting prose.This is neither a dumbed-down, Reader's Digest treatment nor a substitute for reading the 14th century classic. Rather, consider it a wayfinding guide to the real thing.

"Film noir, Marc Chagall and children’s picture books are among the sources which inform Chwast’s art, drawn in pure black and white, which presents Dante as a trench-coated, pipe-smoking private investigator, Virgil as a proper old-school English gentleman with a bowler hat and cane and Beatrice as a blonde, pin-curled beauty...""This is a true adaptation, not a translation, and one in which the graphics do more of the storytelling than the text. Chwast’s illustrations carry the main content of the Divine Comedy while the cantos have been greatly shorted and translated into modern prose." -- Sarah Boslaugh

Read the full review here:'Dante's Divine Comedy,' from a Left-Handed DesignerFor more insight into the creative process, in Chwast's own words, see this from Huffington Post: Divine Comedy as Graphic Novel