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Meanwhile lets just say that we are proud Dan O'Sullivan contributed a whooping 134 entries.
There’s a rising trend these days in viral location-based marketing. A lot of people have been talking about this clever campaign for TNT, these secret-agent Coke machines branded toward the latest Bond flick and this hilarious bus stop campaign from the folks at Qualcomm. What are the agencies behind these campaigns doing right? In a […]
Now that The Hired Pens is four Pens strong, we thought it would be fun to do the occasional roundtable discussion. Our plan is to tackle all the important, life-transforming issues of the day. Like our favorite TV ads from our childhoods. Enjoy … The Energizer: It’s Going to Surprise You (Dan) It’s 1987, and […]
We recently wrapped up two website projects — please take a moment to check them out! OneVision Resources is a really interesting business that helps rich folks manage all the personal technology in their lives. We worked closely with founder/managing director Joey Kolchinsky along with the superstars at Fresh Tilled Soil to create this new […]
Congrats to Hired Pen Karen Dempsey, whose essay, “Lockdown: Teaching Students to Hide From Guns, and Hide Their Fears,” went live on the NYTimes.com Motherlode blog yesterday.
Another new product name has cracked us up this week: The Hot Mess, brought to you by everybody’s favorite Halloweentown nightmare, Jack in the Box. If you are unfamiliar with the Mess, here’s all you need to know: Gooey jack cheese, onion rings, jalapenos, beef. Not necessarily in that order. Okay, so it’s messy. But […]
Sometimes a great idea gets all the attention it deserves. Case in point: This incredibly clever résumé by a man in Paris who found a new way to break through the cluttered mess that is the modern job search. His answer: a familiar Web product page, repurposed in every conceivable detail into a viral sales tool: […]
I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t blogged for about four months. I’d like to claim I have a good excuse, like I was writing wildly successful emails for the Obama campaign or fomenting revolution somewhere in South America (does anyone ever foment anything but revolution?). Sadly, those would be lies. I was just lazy. But […]
I’ve written before about online ads that confuse and/or scare me. It’s time for an update on this topic. Since writing that post over two years ago, online ads haven’t gotten any less weird. Case in point: While checking out a minor league baseball team’s schedule, I saw two ads bookmarking the month of August. […]
“First, do no harm,” is a phrase commonly associated with a physician’s commitment to the patient. Copywriters, too, should stick by this rule. So here’s an ethical dilemma for you: As a copywriter, what do you do when a client requests or, worse yet, insists that you do something not in her interest? Here’s a […]
It was shaping up as an ordinary morning at The Hired Pens headquarters. I got into work and mapped out a plan for the day. Suddenly, everything changed (cue foreboding horror-movie music). The phone rang. It was the owner of a small agency that we write for. Yes, I had sent her copy for the […]
