Marketing
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The Body Shop and Alison Jackson’s royal lookalikes
Alison Jackson is an artist and filmmaker who began using lookalikes to ‘depict our suspicions’ of the private lives of people in the public eye. Jane Mosse (pictured above holding a corgi) is Britain’s leading Camilla lookalike and is a close friend. I know she regularly finds herself swept up into various Alison Jackson projects such as those for…
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The Devil’s Goat on Guernsey
My friend, Kiwi board game inventor Amanda Milne’s new game is now at prototype stage and is being play tested. Its working title is The Devil’s Goat and is based on Guernsey. Turns out it was sparked off by a children’s short story I had written for the Guernsey Literary Festival. As this story was published as a very limited one-off,…
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Goodbye unfair banking
Banks have been responding in interesting ways to their unpopularity. This of course was brought about by a series of largely self-inflicted wounds: the credit crunch, computer lapses, PPI and investments mis-selling, indefensible banker bonuses and so on. And the last couple of weeks we have the spectacle of HSBC money laundering in Switzerland. Banks…
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11 London – nimble new healthcare communications agency
So I’ll be looking forward to spending a lot of my time this year freelancing in my capacity as Peter Kenny The Writer Ltd with these guys 11 London – nimble new healthcare communications agency.
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How McDonald’s is losing the plot with Fresh Fruit Fridays
For cynical marketers a sustainability benefit is easy to find, and all kinds of organisations try to crowbar their product into what I call Green territory. However reluctantly an environment-threatening ingredient is removed, for example, you can soon be claiming your product is ‘now even greener’. While this very morning I heard a radio execution promoting Free…
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5 ways this HMRC marketing tactic is not okay
1. This is not okay because despite it being a threat to tax dodgers, its imagery unambiguously accuses you. It’s aim as a piece of marketing is to deliberately make you feel paranoid. 2. This is not okay because it is intrusive. This tactic has been chosen to threaten you as you are about to embark on the…
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Weight Watchers – ‘My Butt’
I caught this US ad for Weight Watchers on the Best ads site. What I like about it is that it refers to ‘my butt’. I worked on a campaign for an appetite suppressant drug, where a larger woman was pictured was saying, ‘I decided to stop being fat’. The word fat proved controversial, with…
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The HMRC campaign provokes more thoughtcrimes
So here is another HMRC campaign against tax evasion. First credit where credit’s due. This is less toxic than the previous campaign that infuriated me so much. The copy tone is less accusatory. They are closing the net on ‘tax dodgers’ rather than what was previously implied that they are closing the net on you personally. And of…
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Peter Kenny The…
Let nobody tell you that moving house twice in five weeks is a good thing. Murderous impulses it produces aplenty, but writing… no. I now sit in my new study, white augmented by a recently applied shade of grey-green called Sophisticated Sage (what can I say, it spoke to me). A small room, with an elevated view west over…
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The power of YES
The referendum in Scotland is poised dramatically. Any copywriter, however, will tell you that the word ‘Yes’ is a fantastic asset for those who want independence. We use it against tick boxes to encourage people to sign up: ‘Yes! I do want to enjoy a lifelong subscription to…” The territory of Yes is a broad sunlit…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 