Autilla is a relatively new company formed by a small team of broking experts, all them with extensive experience in the sphere of hard commodities trading. For those not familiar with the field, this essentially means gold, silver, platinum metals, similar precious metals and iron ore. (more…)
The Axis Group specialises in maintaining and improving housing, retail and commercial properties.
The Group has turnover in excess of £75 million and employs more than 500 people working out of six offices across England.
The group needed a website that would demonstrate the range of its expertise, its extensive experience and the wide range of benefits it can deliver to clients. I was asked to write large sections of this site, generating the material through a series of interviews with senior staff at the company.
The challenge was to address the needs and concerns of very different audiences: Axis works in three distinct areas, and each has its own requirements. Axis focuses on providing services for: (more…)
The Chagos Islands lie in the middle of the Indian Ocean – the world’s largest coral atoll made up of 55 tiny islands in quarter of a million square miles of the world’s cleanest seas.
The official name for the islands is the British Indian Ocean Territory, and they have belonged to Britain since the Treaty of Paris in 1814. The only inhabited island is Diego Garcia, which is home to a military base.
The waters around the islands are exceptionally clean and the coral reefs have not, so far, been significantly damaged by human pollution or climate change. A survey in 1996 concluded that the waters around the archipelago were the cleanest anywhere in the world.
I was asked to help create marketing literature in support of a campaign to protect and preserve this pristine natural environment. (more…)
IT company Agresso creates software that handles financial transactions for major companies. The solutions compete with ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) offerings from the likes of SAP and Oracle – although Agresso’s software often provides greater agility and value.
The company needed to promote its services and solutions both to prospects and to existing clients, to help them get more from the software.
I was asked to write all of the editorial for their magazine Inform which goes out to their existing customers. The magazine provides information on training, upgrades and product development. It also highlights important new customers that are joining the Agresso community. I researched the project extensively, talking to senior executives at the company as well as important clients and partners. I then turned the information into a series of compelling, readable but highly informative articles. (more…)
The environment agency produces a range of magazines it sends out to anglers – who are a major source of revenue for the organisation. Fishermen are also highly useful to the agency, because they can act as eyes and ears on the ground and raise the alarm if there are any problems with water quality. (more…)
Ahhhh, recruitment advertising. Most of it is cheesy, done on the cheap and in a rush. All too often it ends up clichéd, unimaginative and dull.
However, the ABN AMRO bank assignment was a little different. They wanted a quality product – one that would help them to attract the brightest and best young graduates to join their organisation. (more…)
For eight years I acted as editor of a business magazine, published up to four times a year. It was distributed to around 25,000 business clients of a nationwide collection of law firms.
Each of the firms would send out the magazines to its business clients as a way of keeping them informed, demonstrating their own expertise and marketing their services. (more…)
Pirelli is perhaps best known for tyres… and calendars. But the company also makes fibre optic cables.
In fact, Pirelli makes many different types of fibre optic cable. The company needed a way to differentiate their core offerings so customers could relate to them and understand instantly the benefits they provide.
The names needed to be memorable, short and distinctive.
Below are some of the brand names I created – all of them in some way specific to the properties of the particular type of cable.
The UK’s Met Office includes around 30 pages of creative copy at the front of its Annual Report and Accounts, designed to inform stakeholders about the organisation’s work, its progress and advances in forecasting. It’s a wide audience, from senior MoD and Government figures to the business community, media and scientists.
Generating the raw information involved interviewing around 30 to 40 people, ranging from forecasters and research scientists to the Chief Executive. This information has to be turned into readable, but very tight and professional copy.
Keeping everyone happy
[blockquote-right]”skilful copywriting and editing”[/blockquote-right]
A delicate balance was needed. There was no point glossing over problems such as the flooding at Boscastle in Cornwall, which was not accurately forecast. Explaining why (it’s all to do with grids on computer models) called for not only writing skills but also the ability to understand and, at times, ‘translate’ complex technical information, while not upsetting the scientists who hate the idea of “dumbing down.”
Sarah Quick, who at the time was Senior Editor at the Met Office, said: “With skilful copywriting and editing, Simon has helped the Met Office reach all of its customers worldwide.”
When Adobe launched a new version of Acrobat, I was asked to write a direct mail campaign, emailers and a series of press adverts specifically targeting the designer community in the UK.
Adobe also wanted to promote its capabilities in other areas – specifically workflow solutions for large enterprises.
The challenge was to explain what Adobe’s software products had to offer, cutting through a lot of technical jargon and marketing-speak.
The literature was mainly targeted at senior managers, IT departments and C-level board members. My job was to get their attention and convince them of the proven business benefits.
The range of literature I worked on included white papers, direct mail and advertising. In particular I was involved in writing a series of brochures, some targeted at specific sectors, including government, manufacturing and finance. I also wrote a large overview brochure, which summarised the entire Adobe offering in the area of enterprise solutions.
