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Oct 03

What is a beat?

By Communications craft, Uncategorized

South Park creators explain how to know if you’ve actually got a series of beats or just a boring lot of mush.

‘We take these beats which are basically the beats of your outline, and if the words “and then” belong between those beats, you got something pretty boring.

What should happen between every beat that you’ve written down is either the word “therefore” or “but“, right?

So what we’re saying is that you come up with an idea: This happens, and then this happens.

No! – it should be this happens, and therefore this happens.

But this happens, therefore this happens, and that as soon as we are able to make sure we’re doing it (consistently), we’ll have our beats.’

Mar 18

Arnie’s war message to the other Terminator

By Communications craft, Story, Structure, Uncategorized

Arnie Schwartzennegger ‘s stirring speech starts with his story of his first hero, the Russian weightlifter Yuri Vlasov, and finishes up with his new heroes protesting at the Ukrainian war. It’s beautifully constructed, as you’d expect from anyone with impeccable Hollywood credentials. It shows how a story within the storyline can be used to not make it feel like a celeb lecturing anybody.

Mar 04

Communication and change in behaviour

By Communication theory, Uncategorized

This is Noah at 18 months, and he has only a tiny vocabulary. Barely Mama or Dada. One of his only words is “Dee” short for Hey Dugee!  his favourite television program. But he knows that I’m saying No Dee because his whole body reacts, in desolation at the thought of No Dee, and he chucks the remote control down too.

Then when I say “Actually yes Dee” he perks up, picks up the controller and acknowledges that we’ll be watching the TV show Dee.

A perfect demonstration of communication in its simplest form.

Communication changes behaviour.

And change is a vital part of any storyline.

See how these three elements fit together here.

Nov 23

Playground for the imagination

By Creativity, Thought leadership, Uncategorized, What's out there now

Over control and obsession with health and safety is the biggest killer of creativity. And it seems parents in the UK have become masters of it, but not so in Germany and Denmark. Maybe as this video suggests, because they were able to observe what kids were doing on bomb sites after the war. It’s tempting to link this with a lower child suicide rate in these countries too. Whatever your parental notions are, the lessons for creativity are clear. It’s a messy business and if you over protect you ultimately stifle.

Aug 16

A case of great observation

By Case Study, Uncategorized
Professionals generally don’t advertise. Instead, they tell stories of case histories which demonstrate their prowess. A case history is much like any other story, except you already know how the story ends: With the case fully solved. The only question is how it gets solved and to what extent some lesser professional screws it up first.

In his eloquent argument for the hands on physician, Verghese also gives us a masterclass in case history telling, weaving as he does, one story into the next. He also touches on the quintessential case history expert, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Enjoy.

Jul 31

Truncation is a funny business

By Communications craft, Funny, Thought leadership, Uncategorized, What's out there now

One of the problems mobiles responsive sizing gives us is that we’re never sure exactly what is going to appear as the final result. Pictures have to be created so that the subject of the picture is in the centre. That limits things considerably. And there’s even more trouble when you start putting type messages in respsonsive situations.

You want the message to appear as Acme is proud to sponsor World Aid . But what you actually see in certain screens is different.

Acme is proud to ponsor id. The truncation is worse than meaningless. It makes the brain work hard to guess something that probably wasn’t very interesting in the first place. The Two Ronnies nailed the experience with this classic sketch.

Until Linkedin produces responsive banners the advice has to be don’t put type in the banner head.

Mar 30

Larry McEnerney

By Uncategorized

According to McEnerney, every successful piece of academic writing has the same structure. It goes like this:

“You and many others think X. But I’m here to tell you that you and they, are wrong.” By the end of the paper you have been sold Y which is right. And being corrected represents the value exchange for the effort you’ve put into reading it.

On the Copycourse, we don’t see that as very different from a piece of marketing writing. Marketing writing goes as follows:

“You’ve be doing X. But X is something of a problem. We’re here to tell you there it’s easier if you do Y.”

By the end of the marketing communication you have been sold Y. And the possibility of having a marginally better or easier life represents the value exchange for paying attention to the message.

So in case you’ve ever wondered about the difference between marketing communication and academic communication, the answer is that fundamentally they’re the same structure.

Mar 12

I jiggle therefore I am

By What's out there now

Beneath all the flab on show there’s something quite subtle about this idea. The premise of being a Bollywood belly dancer is that you’ve got to enough fat to jiggle. So by celebrating belly dancing, you’re providing a neat piece of subliminal logic; namely other cultures are okay with a bit of extra flesh. It’s just the west where we’ve all gone anorexic.

I jiggle therefore I am

I jiggle therefore I am campaign to get women to exercise

https://time.com/3669876/this-girl-can-ad-sport-england/

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