Nobody has ever given me a nickname, so you may as well call me Chris Waters. I am co-founder, copywriter and part-time accountant at Condiment, a fabulous creative agency in Ipswich.
Many moons before J. K. Rowling was telling stories to illiterate Britain about a strange world with wizards, Terry Pratchett’s first Discworld novel – The Colour of Magic – was published.
But if you’re not a fan of fantasy, don’t let the wizards, dragons and treasure chests with legs put you off picking up one of his books.
Because Terry Pratchett is far from just a fantasy writer; he’s probably more of social commentator. The many tribes in the Discworld represent religions, cultures, and factions of society in our real – and often, more absurd – world.
A dwarf is not necessarily just a dwarf.
His wit is razor sharp – perhaps too sharp for most – but once you hit his groove, every page presents a quip that’s worthy of a chortle. Terry Pratchett made me realise how fucking great books can be.
And then, in December 2007, Pratchett told the world he had a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s. I cannot comprehend how scary it must be to be told that your soundest of minds is, well, going to be far from sound.
Yet, in typical Pratchett fashion, he described the diagnosis as an embuggerance. And then he went on the attack; determined to raise the profile of this cruel, cruel disease that – in his words – strips away your living self, bit by bit.
And today was all about good news (and another chance to boost the awareness of Alzheimer’s). Liz got her sword out and knighted the now Sir Terry Pratchett.
Annie Lennox usually sticks to butchering Bob Marley songs, but she’s recently taken Ash’s euphoric (in the real sense of the word, rather than the ‘orrible trance sub-genre) Shining Light and diluted it with about eight parts water. It’s safe to say I don’t like her.
So you can understand my dread when I saw her holier-than-thou smirk smirking back at me from this weekend’s Guardian erm… Weekend magazine. Still, I had to read the Q&A, such is human nature and the cause of many a bottleneck.
I’d kept serene throughout the drivel she’d given for answers until I read the last question.
Okay, so most of us are pretty familiar with 0845 numbers and 0870 numbers. But I don’t know how much it costs to phone them. Do you?
Is it free? Is it standard rate? Is it premium rate? Is it variable? Actually, what is standard rate?
I, personally, don’t have a clue. But I phone 0845 and 0870 numbers.
And you probably phone them too.
You might be more informed about the cost of these calls than I, but your knowledge of telephone numbers is probably no better than mine. What number is the gas man? Sky? Your insurance company? Amazon support? Domino’s pizza?
A smart arse replies: “But I have the number for Domino’s Pizza stored in my phone!”
And why do you have it in your phone? Because you can’t remember it. Because in this crazy world, you have to remember five passwords, four pin numbers, three french hens, two pairs of keys, and the drawer you left your passport in. So Domino’s gets left behind. So does your car insurer. So does one of your relatives.
No brain space + no idea where to find the number you need = Google search.
And then search wins. Because maybe you don’t tap a brand name into Google. Maybe you tap in a generic term, and pick your company from there.
Action. It’s so bloody important. If you’re going to chuck money at grabbing people’s attention, creating interest, and developing a desire – why skimp on the action? Why hide your telephone number in the corner? Why make people fill in web forms when they could send you an email in half the time? Why not get them to pick up the phone and call you?
And why the hell hasn’t some massive multinational bought the telephone number 0800 123456? For all the silly money they spend on branding, why not buy the most memorable number since 999?
I’m a complete bore, so I phoned 0800 123456. And it’s available for rent! Phone it if you don’t believe me.
If I was the company who owned 0800 123456, I’d lend it to Comic Relief. Can you remember last year’s Comic Relief number? No. Even though Terry and Fearne said it every fucking minute of every tedious hour, you can’t remember it.
But you’d remember 0800 123456. And you’d think, ‘why hasn’t anyone else ever used this number?’
And businesses would think the same. You’d get loads of enquiries, and end up selling the number for a fortune. You’d be helping charity, too.
Just a thought.
(I’ve opened comments if you’d like to point out how stupid my ideas are.)
Six months ago I was unemployed – I’d been made redundant by a company that made every decision by committee (except my redundancy). To be honest, it was a relief when it happened. I still hate them for their cowardice, though.
But that’s not the point. The point is that I didn’t have a job. So I spent all day on the internet, looking for jobs, writing blog posts to get noticed, and generally having a good think about where my poxy excuse for a career was heading.
One day, I stumbled upon Flamingo International. According to their website, they do research, thinking, and strategy. I was sitting around all day thinking, so getting paid to do it seemed like a good idea. Fortunately, they were taking applications.
To be considered for a job at Flamingo, you had to write a few words about The Next Big Thing.
This is what I came up with:
Imagine a London Underground map that showed passengers by time of day. Planning your journey becomes a whole lot easier.
Imagine the map of a department store that mapped customer journeys. What’s the busiest point in a store? What time of day? Planning promotions becomes a whole lot easier.
Imagine you could view a map of your town based on traffic. How would that affect where you wanted to live?
Maps. They’re the next big thing.
Not traditional maps. Traditional maps show an area. New maps show traffic in that area.
By tracking movements of people, maps become more useful.
Mobile phones, they’re the key. Nearly everybody has one.
Using mobile phones, track the movement of people around houses, shops, towns, airports. Whatever you want.
Privacy? Well, the signal doesn’t necessarily need to tell anyone what number the phone is. Anonymous tracking is fine, we’d still be measuring traffic.
And when people choose NOT to be anonymous, things get interesting.
“Where’s Mum?”
“Oh, she’s in town. With Grandma.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s on the golf course. Playing with three other people by the looks of things. Oh, one of those people is Uncle Dave.”
“Are you going to the party tonight, cos I’ve no idea how to get there?”
“Yeah, leaving about seven - track my movements”
“Will do, cheers mate.”
“What time’s Bill getting here?”
“Just a sec… oh, he’s on Wallace Road, so two minutes away.”
Track people. Track people in cars. People on trains, planes, and boats.
I live in Ipswich, and let’s assume that I’m going to drive to Manchester tomorrow. Imagine if I could track people who had travelled from Ipswich to Manchester in the last few days and find out what routes they took.
Imagine if I could get stats on people who drove to Manchester versus people who took the train. What were the cost implications? What are the environmental implications?
Miles per hour. Pounds per hour. CO2 per mile.
Whether you’re making personal decisions or business decisions, interactive maps with traffic flows become incredibly useful.
Follow the route of your average customer around your shop. What do you see that they see? How can you change and improve things? How long does your average customer stay for? What areas do they visit more than once? Are they static for a long time in certain areas?
Tracking movements online has long been possible. Tracking people offline is getting easier.
Maps are about to get clever.
Flamingo International never did contact me. Perhaps I wasn’t radical enough. After all, this technology was always bound to surface at some point. But they did say Next Big Thing
I may be making this up, but I recall a wonderfully utopian bike-sharing scheme descending on Ipswich many years ago. Bikes were bought, sprayed green, and left around the town at dedicated bike parks. No fee necessary; no deposit required. Take a bike, ride it around, and leave at any bike park when you’re finished. The scheme would create more healthy people and reduce traffic in and around the town. Brilliant.
Of course, as soon as the free bikes were available, they were all nicked.
Theory and reality are two very different things.
Same with copywriting. I read books on my craft, and they’re chock full of advice on cutting out words. Less is more, they cry. And who could argue? Brevity, after all, is the soul of wit.
Yet many clients don’t like brevity. They like pompous jargon – it’s what they used to. To them, copywriting is the art of ‘flowering up’ their words. So when I rip the flimsy petals from their beds of waffle, they don’t like it much. So the hogwash goes back in and their smiles return.
Which is fine, of course. Clients put food in my fridge. They can have whatever words they want.
So my brevity fix stays hungry. Twitter stories are fun: 140 characters leave little room for flannel. But six word stories? I’m having some of that.
