Bad practices to carve away
 
Some creative practices persist over the years, even though they’re anything but creative. In this article, we’re going to single out some turkeys (given this posting’s proximity to Thanksgiving) that really jar our preserves. The good news: Once you see these examples, presented as such, you’ll surely find them galling enough, too, to regard them as cautionary tales. In other words, you’ll consciously avoid them in the future, too. 
 
The definition of annoying
 
“Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘Quality’ as…” 
 
Oh goodness. Stop right there. This is a pointless time-waster. Don’t tell your audience what a word means. They know already. And the tacit message that they don’t—since you need to define the word for them—is insulting: “Hey, reader! You’re so stupid, you don’t know what ‘quality’ means. And I can’t define it well myself (I’m not smart, either), so I’ll copy-and-paste a definition from an online dictionary (I’m lazy and a plagiarist).” 
 
The pronunciation of annoying
 
But wait, there’s more! These typically get even worse. The cutesiest ones attempt to mimic the look of an actual dictionary entry, with the heavily-hyphenated phonemic transcription that, we guess, attempts to make it look “official.” Uggh. And not only that, they’ll often get it wrong! For heaven’s sake, if you’re going to insult the reader by telling them they don’t know how to pronounce a word they already know, at least condescend correctly!
 
So, continuing our example from above, it might go something like this: 
 
Quality. n. kwah-LIT-ee
 
—with lots of little accents and umlauts and you-name-it’s atop the letters. Note that we’ve been given the “part of speech,” too, with that little “n.”, for “noun.” Gee, thanks! How could we have gotten through the day without this helpful information? 
 
Note, too, that if you read that “pronunciation” aloud, you’ll actually mispronounce “quality”!
 
The takeaway: Whatever you had to say after that cute “definition” will never get read. You lost the reader from the get-go. That’s a big, fat fail. 
 
“Slide-show creative”
 
We’ve seen ad agencies actually make TV spots for clients that are little more than an announcer track with either still or video images laid directly atop it, in flawless, anal sync with what the announcer is saying. This makes a PowerPoint preso exciting by contrast. We call this egregious practice “slide-show creative,” because it reminds us of being trapped in someone’s smoke-filled 1960s living room as they click their Kodak Carousel slide projector through each blurry picture of their latest vacation. 
 
Give your audience more credit than that. They can—and daily do—make the leap between one thing that’s being said, and another that’s being shown. That’s called synergy. Use it to your advantage. 
 
And this is for more than just TV spots, although that’s still a valid example. Whenever you’re marrying more than one medium, play them off each other. Interweave different aspects of the same content. The resulting tapestry will be far richer—and more memorable and impactful—than any “slide show.” 
 
The one-note song
 
As humans, we’re wired to thrive on contrast and variety. You want a three-course meal, with something different for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You don’t want a bowl of the same exact thing, every single time (think: “dog food”). 
 
The same thing applies to creative—in all media. A radio spot that screams at you for 60 seconds straight will only motivate the listener in one way: They’ll change the station. Just as a joke builds to its punch-line, your radio spot should be orchestrated dramatically. You can have loud stuff in there, sure, but there is no “loud” without soft, just as there is no “shadow” without “light.” So this advice applies to visuals, audio, composition, copywriting… pretty much everything. It’s hard enough to hone your business message in the first place; don’t stumble when it’s time to deliver it. 
 
Speaking of screaming, you know to avoid ALL CAPS IN THE WRONG CONTEXT, RIGHT? Ouch. 
 
A final disclaimer
 
Our disclaimer is this: Avoid disclaimers! “Oh,” you might say, “that’s a legal consideration, not a copywriting consideration.” 
 
We beg to differ. As soon as your reader sees that asterisk, their guard goes up. They’re on the defensive. Transform the disclaimer copy into body copy. Especially for stuff that’s easy to transform thus. Here’s an example from the past several years: Over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical products used to make claims about their efficacy—and then disclaim it with an asterisk. So—quick!—you look at the bottom of the ad, and there’s the disclaimer: “Use as directed,” with FDA fingerprints all over it. 
 
In a word, huh? Why think of that as a negative—something to hide? The pharma companies, and their ad agencies, eventually figured this out; the new copy would read (whether in print or as, say, a TV voiceover), “When used as directed, this product cures all ailments…” What’s so scary about that? 
 
Need help avoiding that next creative turkey? Contact us today. You’ll give thanks that you did. 

A simple fact of the consultant’s life is that most work is performed under the veil of secrecy. You can’t even review input until you sign a nondisclosure agreement or NDA. 
 
How, then, can you tell the world about all the great work that you do? 
 
In this article, we’ll address the thorny issue of NDAs and anonymization. We’ll also explain the numerous ways you can share and leverage that story, once it’s safe to tell. 
 
Defining success
 
Before we get to the issue of scrubbing success stories of sensitive client information, we have a prerequisite to discuss: Success. 
 
We’re not going to tell you how to do great work for your clients. That’s your job. For our purposes, we’ll assume that you do it, and do it often. 
 
We’ve talked about sharing your stories of success. But what exactly is “success”? It may be very different for Client A than Client B. It depends on the goals they’re pursuing, the constraints under which they’re laboring, the target audience they’re serving, and so on. 
 
But that’s not the lens through which to view this. You need to take a more selfish approach. Who do you want to sell to? Who are your sweet-spot prospects? Answer that question—and then revisit the “success” of Client A. If it’s congruent with those of your target audience, you’re set. If not, you need to make some choices. You’ll need to either consider other clients/success stories, or perhaps other angles/challenges/outcomes of the original story. Don’t put the effort into telling the world a story if your world doesn’t care. 
 
How to anonymize data for safe storytelling
 
We recently interviewed a subject-matter expert (SME) for a white paper, concerning a client engagement/success story. The SME shared with us tons of sensitive data about this client and the specific challenges they faced. 
 
No company wants this kind of information publicized. As you can guess, this was all under strict NDA. 
 
But our job, as we’d mentioned, was to transform the story into a white paper for broader consumption. 
 
You might think that this was a problem. But in fact it wasn’t. 
 
As it turned out, the “embarrassing details” were simply too specific to that customer’s situation to really matter to anyone else. They didn’t pass the “sweet-spot prospect” test. Which is great, because they were so specific that they would’ve been tough to disguise. 
 
What did pass the “sweet-spot prospect” test, however, was the context in which they resided. The broader issues which they represented were universal pain-points for prospects in this sector. Knowing that, they were a goldmine for the white paper’s input. 
 
You’ll find the same thing as you work. You really don’t have to worry too much about the “identifying data,” simply because it’s too arcane for a broader audience. Conveniently, it’s the exact same stuff you’d have to censor. 
 
Sharing the story
 
There are different flavors of white papers. Some, such as those often promulgated by the big-box consultancies, offer to show trends in a given market, function, or vertical. Others are simply thinly-disguised case studies. Those are the kinds we’re interested in here. 
 
To transform your raw SME input into a compelling white paper, think about it from your prospective client’s point of view. If the pain-points you’re addressing are universal, then think backward from them: “If I were Prospective Client A, and I had this problem, what terms would I search on to try and find the answer? What topics would make me sit up and take notice? Could I find best-practice case studies of others, in similar situations, who were able to surmount these same challenges?” 
 
Answer those questions, and you have the approach for your white paper. 
 
Make it readable
 
Some—okay, most—white papers are unreadable. They fall squarely into the MEGO (“my eyes glaze over”) category. Which is tragic, because they may well have great information starting on Paragraph Two, given that 99 percent of readers have tuned out by Paragraph One. 
 
So tell a story. Tease. Set up the problems. Make them believable, relatable, and (apparently) insurmountable. Quickly tag your characters (we wrote an entire article about this which you’ll like) so that the story is compelling and that it’s easier for the reader to follow. 
 
Then be humble. It’s a given that your company is the one that helped to bring about the great outcomes. But share the glory. Give credit to the hardworking people on the client side and all their great input and ideas. Heck, the white paper will have your logo on it, so it’s instantly apparent that you were the catalyst. So you can afford to be humble in the text. 
 
Leverage
 
We’ve been saying “white paper” a lot in this article. But in an age in which content is king, you needn’t limit yourself to one venue or deliverable. Once you’ve crafted the story, there are lots of ways to share it. There are blogs. Press releases. Social media. Presentations. Direct mail. E-blasts. The list goes on and on; it’s just a matter of tailoring the same story to different audiences and media. 
 
Need help with that next success-storytelling challenge? Contact us. We’d be delighted to help you—just as we help others like you, all the time.