Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 10th, 2007 Tagged as:Asides, Copywriting
As you can probably tell from my silence, May has so far proven to have been one hell of a month.
I’m not sure what’s more worrying, the fact that I’m still in one piece, or that May’s no where near over yet.
It’s had some interesting twists, a few hiccups and more than the odd surprise, but the result was/is breathtaking. It all started back in mid- April, when we were handed the Gemstone concept to work on. It was quite big move for Acer but, and I stand by this, a very astute one.
In essence, Acer has decided to take its “solutions provider” reputation to the next level by bringing in a subsidiary of BMW AG called BMW DesignworksUSA to review the industrial design of its notebooks. Have a look at the Wikipedia definition and you’ll see why this was a good thing.
With Santarosa not due until the 10th (today) and the products expected at the end of May we had some margin, but not much. Then, HQ brought the launch forward to the 3rd and all hell broke loose.
In little more than 2 weeks I produced an Acer signature design blueprint that would be used to anchor the concepts, wrote “design” brochures for both product lines, got the websites prepared, wrote a 15-page Acer News special design edition, a 30 minute presentation speech for senior management covering all design, product and commercial aspects and support material, press releases, invites, and a host of marketing collateral while the graphics department went to work on the show itself.
If that wasn’t enough, the day after the presentation we set to work on the Santarosa material. This time all that was needed were two generic product brochure body texts and two headlines that were to be used as a basis for the mini-site. Oh, and two press releases. Those were all published today.
Santarosa’s here, so now we’re working on the products themselves. This is endless.
The best part about working with this client is trying to satisfy the demanding needs of the OEMs. Intel, Microsoft, AMD and Ferrari are all very wary about what you can and can’t say about products they’re associated with, and learning how they think is key to getting things approved and published so fast.
Today I got a real kick. When Merom came out, I suggested we link the “Dual” core concept to a message of “more than twice the fun”. Wow! Everyone liked it. Except Intel who rejected it on the grounds that “dual” did not mean “double”.
I insisted (I got the mails to prove it). I lost. Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day.
Then on Monday I opened the Intel Santarosa messaging guidelines for consumer products and what was the first message that leaped out at me? “More than twice the fun”.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 2nd, 2007 Tagged as:Gab Gab Gab, Social Media
It is with a large lump in my throat that I have taken the decision to change my RSS feeds over there on the right hand margin.
Despite hanging on to the smallest glimmer of hope for the longest time, it seems clear that Kathy Sierra really has decided that enough is enough. I am sorry to see her go as her blog was perhaps the first one that truly captivated me.
So how do you replace something of that calibre?
Many thanks to the ever-affable RichardatDell for pointing me in the direction of David Armano’s simply fascinating Logic+Emotion blog.
The pace has risen. Can’t wait to get up to speed.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 26th, 2007 Tagged as:Gab Gab Gab
This time I got Maryam Scoble to thank for finding the right button to push.
The western world is often criticised for interfering with other nations, and if you disagree with the underlying principle of that, then here’s a guy that’ll make you realise that perhaps you’re missing more of the point than you think.
I have met some wonderful people in my time, but the ones who really fascinated me, the ones who i “linked” with on a level most “civilized” yet soulless career-trekkers would never understand were the ones with a long and complex history and whose lives were carved out of millenia of culture-shaping values.
Lately I’ve been starting early and finishing waaay too late to be having any fun. My brain is so focused I’ve actually lost my peripheral sense of humour and have noticed I have iTunes playing less often. Productivity? Exhaustion? I don’t know as I don’t have any grey matter left over to give it any thought.
Anyway, like I said I work late. Tonight’s no exception and I’m having a hard time being creative. I’ve been writing almost non-stop for two weeks flat and my inspirations are drying up faster than I can type.
At times like these I usually start doing something I’d more or less given up. This time around I got back on my bike. Ahh, my beautiful Look 486. 8kgs of pure rocket science. 50km a day is enough to clear the mind (and lower the scales).
But not right now. Right now it’s dark and going out on the bike wouldn’t resolve anything as I need to be creative. Which leads me nicely to where this story is going. Click here, click there and I found myself being drip-fed some Hugh MacLeod.
Better yet I found myself watching a video about Hugh’s finest work, The Blue Monster.
Microsoft has a story to tell. My clients have a story to tell. I have a story to tell. This is well worth a watch if you don’t think you do.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 20th, 2007 Tagged as:Uncategorized
Not having time to blog, and by that I mean reading or writing, must be one of the hardest things any “serious†blogger has to deal with.
There’s always an excuse. Work. Family. Holidays (what are those?)… Mine’s the first.
This week (and from the looks of things the best part of next week is going to be the same too) has been mad. In at the office at 5.30/6am out at 8pm (just to show the kids I’m still alive) and then continuing into the night on my notebook.
Sure I’ve been following events. I even managed to write a few articles over on The Acer Guy but nothing remotely “strategicâ€.
Having said that, I am falling for the webcast spell. Caught it off Justin really, but Scoble does his thing sooo very well. I’d like to do some live Acer podcasts in future. Have to see how PodTech works.
I have been asked to manage a series of property translations for a major real estate investment company that is going to take a while to set up.
That’s right: set up. I’m no fool. Trados can literally save days on translation projects like this and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with repeat commissions to trawl through.
As I *officially* no longer do translations, there is the small matter of having to re-install it and set up the fiddly translation dictionaries but it should only take a few hours to get up to speed. Licence permitting…
Note to self: if all else fails I must get my trusty translators in on this as there’s plenty to go around and absolutely no time to waste.
And things could very well fail as there’s a major product launch (or two) coming for another client who should brief me on timing, content and products (minimum 4 brochures) on Tuesday. I fully expect they will have to be completed by no later than Friday.
This is after I’ve finished writing the master copy and headline for their latest 42†Full HD wonder.
And there was me thinking I’d have time to scout out some new clients.
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