[no names, no pack drill]

‘I develop novel research methods to inform product design processes and outcomes, especially in the fields of emerging personal technologies and wearable systems. I seek to culturally embed novel computational products through the analysis of qualitative lifeworld data towards meaningful development and market placement. I have strong prototyping skills and believe in combining contemporary craft and technology, collaborating with systems design engineers and making use of physical computing skills to prototype concept designs. I am working on a range of conceptual product and service ideas at the moment, and continue to write for an academic audience on wearables, dress and adornment.’

What does this person do for a living?

Jewellery design.

The pub landlord was stunned to find a missing letter S in rather a crucial place in the message reading ‘Jamie Muir, Scunthorpe United Number One Fan’.

“I had to rub my eyes,” said Mr Muir. “I thought I was seeing things. Initially, I thought the publishers had made a mistake with mine.

“But then I got a letter and a sticker. They asked us to put it over the mistake, but I reckon I’ll keep it as it is!”

An official club letter says: ‘I can not apologise enough that this has happened.’ The club has blamed publishers of the £12.99 calendar for the mistake.

At Mightier Than, we do proofreading, too. Don’t risk a red face. Call me today on 01772 435827 or 07745 092037.

Christmas is the time when the big names in retail wheel out their festive TV ads. Big-budget, glossy affairs twinkling away in the corner of the room. I have only one issue with these seasonal offerings, and it’s this.

Some of them are clearly conceived by copywriters without kids. A few years ago, just before Christmas, I phoned my local radio station and complained about an ad – I forget for what – they were running. As I drove my two little girls to school, the spoken copy went something like ‘So now your only problem will be whether to hide it in the loft or the garage’. They pulled the ad.

Fast-forward a few years. My girls are teenagers now, but I have a little boy of seven whose innocence must be preserved at all costs. So, thank you, John Lewis, for your pre-watershed Christmas giveaway. This megabucks extravaganza seems to have been knocked up by a spotty 19-year-old creative who’s had the snip.

In it, a couple sneak upstairs while their kids are watching telly and slide a rocking horse into the attic. Every time it airs, I have to lunge for the remote and switch channels before my son twigs. Thanks, John Lewis, for caring about showing that you care.

But if the right one don’t get you, the left one will. And yesterday, we had the M&Ms advert that proudly declared ‘So Father Christmas does exist’. To the target audience of this product, there was never any suggestion that he doesn’t. Please, let’s keep it that way.

After a quick bit of consultation and a flick though a few pages of some specialist marketing dictionaries, we discovered that it’s the former. The ones who pick up the phone or post a coupon back or make a tentative enquiry. The average is generally reckoned to be 2% response.

Which got me thinking. I’ve done a lot of sales letters recently. So what’s my conversion rate? After a few brave e-mails, the answer appears to be around the 3% mark. Wow. That’s half as good again as the average direct-mail RESPONSE rate. So, if you have a product that sells for £1000, as one of my photography clients has, and you send out 300 letters, you’ll sell about £10,000-worth of product. That’s not bad for a £150 to £200 sales letter.

Then, of course, there’s the letter I wrote back in 2004 for a translation agency that’s still pulling in around £100,000 a year. Every year.

If you’d like to see some sample sales letters, drop me an e-mail at nigel@mightier-than.com. Then let’s see what I can do for you.

I don’t normally knock the copywriting competition. But I’m going to make an exception in this case. The copy this other copywriter supplied was bad. Apocalyptically bad. It was the most abysmal, illiterate, badly structured load of flowless twunk (that’s a technical term) it’s ever been my misfortune to encounter. Now, I assumed this guy was non-native English or that the copy was translated from Vietnamese. But, oh no. He’s in Devon.

If you’re buying copy, please check out the copywriter’s credentials. He or she MUST have worked in an agency for a good few years or worked client-side for a reputable company, as I did (GEC Marconi). Sadly, anyone can set themselves up as a copywriter, and many do. If you really want to be reassured, get them to do a short tester. I’m always happy to do this.

Its prediction comes two weeks before official figures from the Office for National Statistics that are widely expected to show that the recession is over.

Thank the Lord for that. Because this is the recession that should never have been. It’s been the Media Recession.

News is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the media tell people not to spend, they won’t. Truth is, history indicates that the economy moves in an eight-year cycle. Generally, there’ll be six years good; two bad.

However, the media exacerbate this. After six years of good times, they start to speculate about when the crash will come. Once the whispers begin, investors and consumers start thinking twice about laying out money. That shows up as a spending dip. As soon as that’s public knowledge, it turns into a media event and all the papers slap themselves on the back and say how they got their speculation right.

But it’s up to all of us now to fan the flames. Get out there and spend. Yes, even you lot whose public-sector jobs have always been safe and yet you were buying Tesco Value ranges.

Spend, spend, spend. On what? I have some nice fresh copy right here in my fridge. That’ll do for starters.

Unfortunately, the word ‘Christmas’ had been followed by the word ‘presence’, which was quite a neat play on words. Much neater, in fact, than ‘Holiday presence’, which is how the poster ended up after the over-sensitive BTP Marketing Department had finished with it.

My complete and utter lack of hair is entirely due to situations like this. Copywriters are quite worldly-wise, media-savvy people, and analysing the political correctness or otherwise of our messages is one of our many skills. Please just let us do our jobs.

Better safe than Suri.

Tee-hee.

Translation agency? They should be a PR agency. Thanks to Jurga and co., celebrities (or anyone else) can now get the lowdown on their exotic baby names with a Today Translations Name Translation Audit.

This genius idea follows the recent birth of Kai, the son of footballer Wayne Rooney and wife Coleen. Kai means ‘pier’ in Estonian, ‘probably’ in Finnish, ‘ocean’ in Hawaiian and Japanese, ‘willow tree’ in the native American language of Navajo, and ‘stop it’ in Yoruba, a dialect of West Africa.

While we’re at it, did you know that Suri, the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, means ‘pickpocket’ in Japanese, ‘turned sour’ in French and ‘horse mackerels’ in Italian? The name of the Beckhams’ third child, Cruz, means ‘cross’ in Portuguese and Spanish, but is also Spanish for ‘withers’ (a part of a horse).

Yep, Today understand that if you name your child after an unflattering part of a farmyard animal, they won’t thank you for it when they’re old enough to understand. Name changes later in life can be embarrassing, expensive and riddled with hassle.

So, get yourself a Today Translations Name Translation Audit for just £1,000. Alternatively, just call your kid Bob. Or Helen.

Now, I’m quite an obliging bloke and, even though the request has probably cost me at least £1.50 on Adwords, I usually send a fairly prompt reply. After all, I remember my first few months as a freelance copywriter. It wasn’t easy, and I’m happy to give something back.

But now, all that is going to stop. No more Mr Nice Guy. So, if you were going to write to me for advice, think again.

Why? Well, last week, a seemingly confused and well-meaning lady wrote to me asking how to write for SEO. I gave a long, detailed and almost immediate reply. Have I heard from her since? Nope.

If this was just a one-off, I’d merrily carry on dispensing my words of wisdom. But it’s not. I reckon I receive a ‘thank you’ from about one in twenty of these people.

Now, if you were going to e-mail me for advice and you were one of the 5% who would have offered even a cursory thanks, I apologise. To the rest of you, a loud and long raspberry.