Just in Time for Veteran’s Day

Well, we set out to honor America’s veterans, and to sell medical devices. I’m confident we did the honoring part. The selling? It’s too soon to say.
Despite a last minute freakout caused by someone watching an old rough cut and asking for changes that were made two weeks ago, the Veteran’s Day videos are up.
So [...]

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The Smoke Clears

I admit, I never got used to the smell of Napalm in the morning, so it’s nice that the smoke is starting to clear on the Veterans Day tribute video. So, as the last chopper leaves Saigon, and the Embassy is overrun, I need to crack open the briefing book and see what I have [...]

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In the Jump Seat

I find myself in the familiar confines of the video edit room. Specifically I am  in the jump seat, that second chair situated close enough that the editor can smell your Thai-food breath and feel your project-completion anxiety.
I am working with Charleston’s Unimedia to cut together Project X for the Huge Faceless Healthcare Manufacturer. And, [...]

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Cleanup in Aisle 9

It occurred to me that I just completed my most visible copywriting job ever: an in-store PA announcement script for Kroger Supermarkets, a name instantly recognizable to anyone in OH-KY-IN-WV and thereabouts.
Growing up in Ohio, long before Wal*Mart had busted out of its Arkansas ghetto, Kroger was just Kroger, THE premiere name in grocery shopping, [...]

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Business Lunch Indigestion

Somehow, within the span of my career, the business lunch has gone from being an indispensable part of the commercial transaction to being deader than disco.
Nostalgic? Not so much. Even at the peak of its power (think Don Draper, martinis, call girls, regret) the Client Lunch was a pain in the ass. Neither the client [...]

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Boned but Believing

A while back I stumbled across TweetingTooHard.com, a website that gives people grief for the dumb-ass things they say on Twitter. One tweet (gah! kill me!) caught my attention a few days ago, wherein some LA douche says, “The recession JUST got personal. Found out the value of the home I’m supposed to inherit next [...]

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Copywriter Safari

In darkest Charleston. I am hacking my way through the copywriting jungle of value addedness, wearing my lucky Hanes V-neck undershirt and Batman boxers, and swinging a machete as dull as my writing ability. My noble but entirely expendable native bearers struggle under the weight of my cargo… websites for clients in real estate, home [...]

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Justification

Not long ago I attended the summer blowout of a very famous  commercial cleaning and disaster mitigation business. Trust me, you’ve heard of them.  These are the guys that clean up after your business has had a fire or hurricane or something.
Big party, big beer-and-BBQ bash (because this is South Carolina, after all!) I met [...]

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What a Concept!

In interviews, and in general, I often claim that one of my strengths as a MarComm writer is “my ability to dive into an unfamiliar situation and quickly learn enough to market some product or service that I may not even heard of a week before.”
And the person I am speaking to says, “Fascinating!”
And I’m [...]

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I got Skyped!

Well, to be honest, it was an attempted Skype-ing. That’s what the fellow on the other end said: “I was going to Skype you, but I got too busy.” I thought to myself: I guess that’s how you know sh*t’s for real…when they make a verb out of it. I mean, they invented the [...]

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