Kranz On Copy: Insights and answers on copywriting and writing copy

Abe Lincoln once said something to the effect that character is like a tree and reputation its shadow; one remains constant while the other changes shape depending on time, season, weather and other variables.

Something happened today that really brought home the often great disparity between character and reputation. At a meeting of the development committee for Notre Dame High School in Lawrence, we reviewed the contributions made to the school thus far.

Guess who was at the very top of the list? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, weighing in with $160,000 for this year. It turns out that this is part of a much larger donation to the Christo Rey Network which will ultimate distribute $500,000 to Notre Dame over three years.

Funny, among the Geekacrocy and in public perception in general, Bill Gates plays the role of the heavy, the black-hatted corporate techmeister who is strangling progress, as opposed to the "noble" efforts of the good, "think different" people at Apple, such as the much-lauded Steve Jobs.

You know what though? Bill Gates puts his money where his mouth is. His foundation's contributions to healthcare in Africa are literally changing the world. And its contribution to a forward-thinking school like Notre Dame demonstrates exactly the kind of leadership other corporations should follow.

Think different? Perhaps Microsoft should one-up Apple with a new slogan: Act different.

Okay, we all know the story about Absolut vodka: A hip ad campaign that plays off the shape of the bottle turns an unkwown product into a brand superstar with a 150-fold increase in sales -- one of the truly unambiguous success stories of print-based brand advertising.

Now vodka, by definition, is a neutral spirit: odorless and tasteless. I'm willing to believe that, were you to drink pure shots of the stuff, you might be able to distinguish one vodka from another. Yet most Americans drink vodka in cocktails where, honestly now, there's no way you can taste the difference.

But as the president of Aboslut once said, "You don't taste the vodka; you taste the advertising."

I suspect that's true. Which gets me to thinking: Maybe this is one case where we should turn the advertising paradigm upside-down. Usually the ads exist to encourage us to consume the product. But with Absolut, the product (a neutral, tasteless substance) exists so that we can consume the advertising.

Or maybe that's what contemporary culture has been all about for years and I'm just slow on the uptake?

My friend and colleague David Meerman Scott has released a new, free e-book I encourage you to download, The New Rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly.

In it, David argues that press releases are no longer just for reporters and editors, written in the hopes of attracting media attention. Today, through the use of Web distributors such as PRNewswire, BusinessWire, PRWeb and so on, the press release is an online content distribution medium. Packed with keywords, the new Web releases attract spiders and traffic; embedded hyperlinks draw readers to your site while boosting your search engine rankings.

I think David's ideas are provocative and worth exploring, though I'd advise discretion. David recommends writing releases as frequently as possible, whether or not they meet the usual standards of newsworthiness. Frankly, I fear a glut of meaningless information that will make it even more difficult for Web readers to find the content they need, making the tactic a potential victim of self-sabotage -- instead of helping us rise above the clutter, it may generate even more clutter we have to cut through.

But I can see the value in pursuing this method as a complement to, not a replacement for, the traditional press release strategy. If media relations is important to you and your business, I suggest you follow the old rules -- write cogent, story-focused releases backed with facts and quotes that encourage editors and reporters to write about you.

At the same time, you could use David's approach -- a constant stream of content distributed via the Web -- as a search engine optimization strategy to build traffic to your site.

In time, the relative merits of the "old" and "new" press release strategies will become more apparent. I look forward to seeing hard numbers, and/or real business anecdotes, that will substantiate, refute or simply modify David's thesis.

How about you? Are you deploying a press release strategy similar to David's? Is it working? Would you recommend it to others?

I check my website statistics every day and have assumed (foolishly) that every other site owner/operator/manager does the same.

Not so.

When I first conducted my web-writing workshops, I asked participants what their statistics revealed about the relative popularity of various pages/elements on their sites. I got a lot of blank stares in return. "What statistics?" they asked.

Subsequent events repeated this scenario. Turns out my perspective, as a solo practitioner in charge of his own site, is quite different from marketers in most businesses, who apparently DO NOT have regular access to the stats.

If this is standard industry practice, it is madness. How on earth can a company's marketers, PR people and communicators make sound decisions about the website without this data? How can they understand what works, what doesn't, what's popular, without the numbers?

They can't. Which means they're obligated to make guesses instead. Which means disaster.

What's the deal in your organization? Do you have access to the stats? Or are you at the mercy of IT?

In November, I wrote about my aborted attempt to shop at Ikea on the first weekend after the store opened in Stoughton, MA. Last week, my wife and I successfully made the adventure.

Yup, I was impressed. When we entered the store, we were greeted by an employee who explained the system (look at furniture in the show room, pick it up in the warehouse below) and handed us maps and pencils to record the necessary location info. By the time we arrived, they had run out of maps in English; we got one in Spanish, which was modestly more helpful than Swedish.

The show rooms were well-lit, well-organized and, though crowded, comfortable and free of any unwelcome sales pressure. The furniture itself is a great value -- intelligently designed at terrific prices. We bought four bookcases, a comfy chair for my office, and a cart-load of miscellaneous tchotchkes.

The cafeteria was a pleasant surprise: healthy, tasty food, such as cold seafood salad, Swedish meatballs and chicken marsala, at exceptionally reasonable prices (my poached salmon, with purple potatoes and steamed vegetables, was just $5.95).

Faults? The carts take some getting used to, as all four wheels, front and back, swivel; with heavy loads, inertia drives the cart sideways when you attempt a clean turn -- I nearly took out a rack of wine glasses.

As a consumer, I'd say Ikea lives up to the hype. As a marketer, I'm impressed at how they've leveraged their Swedishness to their advantage; instead of toning it down to "fit" an American audience, they use it (in product names, design qualities and promo signage throughout the store) to brand themselves as something different, something you can't get anywhere else.

No, Ikea won't replace Jordan's; Ikea's furniture is best for storage, kid's rooms and other areas where you want cheap ways to make limited space work. For more durable and elegant furniture, you'll probably consider other options. But in its own niche, Ikea rules.

Save the date: Join me February 22 at 1:00 p.m. EST for Crafting Killer Web Content. Hosted by Communitelligence, my seminar will cover the ins and outs of website copywriting, including architecture, tactical options and special style issues for increased readability and improved SEO. All you need is a phone (and a willingness to pay the Communitelligence fee) to participate.

Have any suggestions for what you'd like covered in the seminar? Write me or leave a comment. Thanks!

Happy new year!

Soooo . . . do you have any major resolutions for 2006?

Me, I plan on doing a significant amount of pro bono work for Notre Dame High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, one of a network of schools in the Cristo Rey Network.

The Lawrence school is just two years old, but like all Cristo Rey schools, it offers an outstanding academic curriculum with a special twist -- the students pay for their tuition by working one day each week in a corporate office or other white-collar setting.

From the 60 Minutes spot I saw about the original Cristo Rey school in Chicago, the work program developed out of necessity, as a way to cover costs. (The schools are exclusively for families who cannot afford private school tuition).

But the work program has proven to be as constructive a part of the students' education as the classes themselves. For kids from poor neighborhoods, the barriers to upward mobility are more about social/cultural unfamiliarity -- being strangers in a strange land -- than intellectual capability. The work program shatters these barriers.

I've offered to teach students, faculty and administrators about marketing communications and copywriting. They've also asked me to help with development -- that is, raising money.

In coming weeks and months, I'll post blogs about what we're doing: what we're trying; what works; what doesn't; what we learn. I earnestly hope you'll reply with comments, suggestions and ideas of your own.

What would you do to raise money for a great school with terrific kids?