Comments on: Web Copywriting for Dummies: Be Interesting, Not Brilliant

By: Ricc Webb

Ricc Webb — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:15:20 +0000

I’d just like to say that regardless of whether or not this is creativity, legitimate or awesome…which it is…I can vouch that it works.

I tried selling my car with a very basic post to Twitter “VW polo for sale R109’000”…then I remembered the wicked sick BMX project and decided to re-write my ad a little differently. You can read the post here (http://riccwebb.posterous.com/the-story-of-riccwebb-and-sophiathe-vw-polo)

Basically, within 30min of putting up the “new/awesome” story, I managed to sell my car, after having no responses at all during the first week of having the original story up.
Thanks guys, your inspiration helped me get rid of the only thing keeping me back from leaving South Africa.

By: Springer

Springer — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:14:05 +0000

There’s an old adage in sales that states: Don’t just sell the steak, sell the sizzle!

Certainly not lost on these two young pups, eh?

By: Karri

Karri — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:06:28 +0000

@Louise Yes, you make a good point re exploitation of innocent people. I would never ever encourage such a thing of course. And we have to always strive for media education versus infatuation. Moreover, as adults, I believe in educating our children to think critically about what they see in the media.

I don’t think the guy who ended up buying the bike was unaware of what was going on – i.e. that he was buying a clunker.

IMHO it comes down to creating meaning with your product or service, meaning for your target audience. I think our 2 BMX guys achieved this in spades. And I think they achieved it without really tricking anyone at all. That’s what I loved about the video. They say that “hype” is what sells. But if you dig a little deeper, you see that it wasn’t hype at all. Everyone who spread the video and certainly the guy who ended up paying for the bike loved the story attached to it. It had meaning. It had relevance. Everyone wanted to be a part of the story in all it exaggerated, gnarly glory

Sorta comes back to the old “Are you buying a drill or the hole in the wall the drill helps you create?”

By: Louise Desmarais

Louise Desmarais — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:12:29 +0000

This was pure entertainment Karri – which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Kudos to those two guys for their creativity!

I can’t help but be a little concerned about its irreverent nature though. This approach is becoming so widely acceptable among the younger set, and sometimes the “hook” boils down to making innocent people look like bad because they’ve been duped. And I don’t think that that’s where we want to see the future of web marketing.

But, great diversion on a Monday!

Thanks for sharing.