A typical copywriting mistake in a tech startup site.
I’ve looked at a lot of startup sites and one common flaw is that they can’t bring themselves to tell you what they are starting up. The intensity of their passion is so huge and overwhelming that it doesn’t occur to them that visitors might not already be aware of it. I looked at the […]
The technology of text
Greece was just another grubby little kingdom until King Cadmus imported the Phoenician alphabet. In an accident of fate, Phoenician used five more letters than the Greeks needed for their language. Cadmus made the huge technological advance of using those extra letters as vowels. Writing had been a secret reserved for kings and priests and […]
Who is Colin Campbell?
I’m colin@colin.org, a domain I have maintained for 24 years. (I asked for colin.com back in 1995 but they gave me colin.org.) I mention this only to let you know that I’ve been around for a while. I was already an experienced copywriter, creative director, and graphic designer when the Personal Computer era began. Bought […]
Reality In Tech Advertising
My theory of copywriting is to present information that’s true. My theory is nothing new. I’m following the lead of Rosser Reeves, who published REALITY IN ADVERTISING sixty years ago. He pioneered the idea of the Unique Sales Proposition (USP). The best way to sell a product is to present the truth about it. For a […]
Santa Barbara Magazine was a startup when I became Associate Editor
They also expected me to copywrite ads. Free. We were already ill-paid, but we all pitched in where needed. We’d do anything to help the startup get going. If an advertiser bought a full-page ad but needed text, no problem! And many of the articles I wrote for the magazine were already de facto PR […]