In an article in the New York Review of Books (2/14/08. p. 18), Sarah Boxer implies that the idea of corporations paying people to write (or help write) blogs for them is doomed to failure.

“Bloggers are golden when they’re at the bottom of the heap, kicking up,” writes Boxer. “Give them a salary, though, and it just isn’t the same. And this includes, for the most part, the blogs set up by companies.”

Why? “When you write for pay, you worry about lawsuits, your boss, and your superego looking over your shoulder. And that’s no way to blog.”

Does this mean that “corporate blogging” is at best, an oxymoron, and at worst, an outright fraud?

Or is it perfectly legitimate for corporations to hire bloggers, blogging coaches, and blogging consultants, just as they hire ad agencies to create ad campaigns and ghostwriters to pen speeches for executives?

Your thoughts?

The business editor of our local daily newspaper e-mailed me about a story on marketing during a recession.

Economists are divided as to whether we are officially in a recession, but most agree the economy is in a troubled state, to put it mildly.

My advice was that, during a recession, companies should be more flexible and accommodating in matters of price, terms, delivery, service, and sales.

For instance, a printer of specialty films might have a minimum order quantity of 1,000 sheets.

If during a recession, customers complain that they don’t need that many, they should consider waiving that minimum order or at least reducing the minimum order quantity.

That was MY tip.

My question is: what do YOU do in your business — in terms of selling, marketing, pricing, and customer service — to survive and thrive during economic downturns?

An article in BtoB (1/14/08, p. 43) notes:

“Today, long-copy ads are relatively rare. In an Internet-driven age, people are conditioned to absorbing only flashes of information. There’s much less tolerance for a well-told tale or an ad that builds its arguments with words, not images.”

Do you agree with the article’s argument that our attention spans are so limited, prospects only respond to short copy — and long copy is obsolete and just doesn’t work anymore?

Or do you disagree –and believe that informative, well-written copy can still engage readers from start to finish, regardless of its length?

What say you?

Playwright Edward Albee, author of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” has some harsh criticism for critics.

“Some critics cater to existing taste,” says Albee. “What they should be doing is trying to improve it.”

It seems to me that opinions as to the function of critics vary, and there are basically 3 schools of thought as to what a critic should do:

A) Let you know what he, the critic, thought of the movie, play, book, or record.

B) Help you determine whether you’d like it and should spend your time and money to read, see, or hear it.

C) Help you improve your tastes so you CAN enjoy a higher level of art (as Albee seems to think).

Which do you think is the critic’s role — A, B, C, or something completely different? And why?

A radio commercial for a financial services firm talked about how their investment advisors could help ensure financial security for “older senior citizen folks.”

Are there younger senior citizens? Are there citizens who are not folks? Why not just say “senior citizens”?

This may seem a small point. But everyone today talks about how no one reads long copy or has time to read. Redundancies add needless words and waste the reader’s time.

A few more: armed gunman … living survivors … RAM memory … foreign imports … past history … stupid idiot … new innovation … consensus of opinion … add together.

Any others you can think of?

And does avoiding redundancies matter in writing? What’s your personal opinion? Oops, I mean, what’s your opinion?

Today a potential client said he could not hire me to write his Web copy because I am too expensive.

He then informed me that he had two bids from other copywriters who would write his 18-page Web site for $1,000.

That comes to $55 per page of Web copy.

My question: what kind of copy do you think this marketer will get for $55 a page?

If it takes the writer 4 hours — including research and rewrites — to write each page, his hourly rate is $13.88.

Has copywriting become a total commodity? Or do the words on the page or screen still matter?

What level professional copywriter works for $13.88 an hour?

I am reminded of John Ruskin’s famous quote:

“”There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey.”

There seems to be no shortage of buyers who want to pay less and get worse for so many things today — including copy.

If I were the Bad Copy Police, I’d have to write a ticket to the local BMW dealer whose radio commercial I heard today.

The spot, announcing a sale on preowned BMWs, said the dealership was “making an offer even a Dickensian miser couldn’t resist.”

Huh? A “Dickensian miser”?

You and I know the copywriter is referring to Ebeneazor Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.

But many listeners will hear the phrase “Dickensian miser” and think: “What does THAT mean?”

And the point will be lost.

My rewrite: “making an offer even Ebeneazor Scrooge couldn’t resist.”

Even better: have a character identify himself as Scrooge and say he is rushing down to the dealer because even he can’t resist the offer.

Why on Earth would the copywriter use such a bloated, pretentious, intellectual phrase in a car commercial?

Would you?

My friend IB, a well-known marketing consultant, says that copywriting may be fading into the sunset.

“Copywriting is not as valued as it used to be,” she maintains. The reason: marketers today are gravitating toward other marketing tools.

Home-made videos create buzz on YouTube. Blogs are content, not sales copy. Print advertising is in decline. On the Web, researching and optimizing for keywords seems to be more important than “copy.”

Copywriters, do you agree? Are you finding that, in the age of Web 2.0, copywriting has diminished in importance?

Or does the old rule “copy is king” still hold?