British-born David Ogilvy was one of the original, and greatest ad writers and someone we have always admired at Whitespace. In 1948, he started Ogilvy & Mather, the Manhattan-based advertising agency that has since been responsible for some of the world’s most iconic ad campaigns. In 1963 he wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man, a book that’s graces our studio library shelves to this day. With this in mind, we couldn’t pass up sharing with you this fascinating letter he wrote in 1955 to a Mr. Ray Calt, giving us insight into his writing processes.
April 19, 1955
Dear Mr. Calt:
On March 22nd you wrote to me asking for some notes on my work habits as a copywriter. They are appalling, as you are about to see:
1. I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home.
2. I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the past 20 years.
3. I am helpless without research material—and the more “motivational” the better.
4. I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve. Then I go no further until the statement and its
principles have been accepted by the client.
5. Before actually writing the copy, I write down every concievable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy
platform.
6. Then I write the headline. As a matter of fact I try to write 20 alternative headlines for every advertisement. And I never select the final headline without asking
the opinion of other people in the agency. In some cases I seek the help of the research department and get them to do a split-run on a battery of headlines.
7. At this point I can no longer postpone the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife
comes into the room I growl at her. (This has gotten worse since I gave up smoking.)
8. I am terrified of producing a lousy advertisement. This causes me to throw away the first 20 attempts.
9. If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy.
10. The next morning I get up early and edit the gush.
11. Then I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. (I cannot type, which is very inconvenient.)
12. I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If
the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose.
Altogether it is a slow and laborious business. I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility.
Yours sincerely,
D.O.
Source: The Unpublished David Ogilvy: A Selection of His Writings from the Files of His Partners
When it comes to SEO, a question clients often ask, is whether Google robots can read pdf content, or whether pdfs should be avoided in favour of HTML files. Here’s a run down of the facts.
1. Google can index PDF files
Google can access and index the majority of PDF files with the exception of encrypted or password protected files which are inaccessible to the search engines.
2. Google cannot index images from PDF files
Google cannot index images directly from PDF files unless they have a separate HTML page set up for them. Even on standard web pages Google cannot index images accurately unless they are attributed with a relevant and descriptive ‘ALT tag’ – this renders them inaccessible for the search engines when they are contained in PDF documents.
3. Can Google index links in PDF files?
Links in PDF files are treated similarly to standard HTML links. The one exception is that links placed in PDF documents cannot have the ‘nofollow’ attribute attached to them, but they can still pass PageRank and various other authority-relevant ranking signals. Links placed in a PDF file may even be followed by the search engines after the file itself has been crawled and indexed.
4. You can stop/remove a PDF file from the SERPs
You can stop a PDF file from being crawled and you can remove an already indexed PDF document from the results pages. The solution to both is to use the following command in the HTTP header where the file is being served: X-Robots-Tag:noindex
This will stop the PDF file being accessed by the search engines; therefore it will not appear in the results pages. If the file has already been indexed then the above command can still be used and the PDF will drop out of the listings over time.
5. Is it classed as duplicate content if copies exist of pages in both HTML and PDF formats?
Google has always suggested that only one version of the page is served to the search engines to avoid such issues occurring. If the same content was going to be used on multiple pages in the HTML format then the solution would be to use the ‘rel=canonical’ tag to nominate one version for indexation. The same applies to duplication between HTML and PDF versions of content. The canonical version can be specified in the HTML coding of the webpage or in the HTTP header with the PDF file source. A preferred version for indexation can also be made by including the URL address in the Sitemap.
6. PDF files can rank highly in the search engine results pages
The optimisation process for a PDF file is almost like scaling down the process of optimisation for an entire website. Excellent content in a PDF file with a diverse and authoritative link portfolio has as much chance at ranking highly as a well optimised web page (as illustrated by the first image).
7. Can you influence how PDF files are presented in the SERPs?
Google will use two factors to determine how a title for a PDF document is presented in the SERPs. These are the Metadata within the PDF file and the anchor text contained in the links pointing to the file. These will serve as strong indicators to the search engines about how they should title a PDF file when it is being listed.
While optimising PDF files might not be the highest priority for everyone’s SEO strategy, it’s worth knowing how content in PDF files is treated by the search engines. The PDF format is great for presenting long documents in a readable way and should be considered a valuable resource for company’s who produce guides, instructions or any other type of extended content.
Pictured above: Students debate their choice of colour.
A group of year 5 students from three primary schools in Bradford came to Whitespace recently to learn about design. Part of the Reach for the Stars project and supported by the Joshua Project, the children spent the day designing a logo for their initiative. Said Hayley Marshall, Head Teacher of Southmere Primary School:
“We had lots of fun and the children learned an enormous amount. It will be a day they’ll never forget. We are very grateful for the support Karen and the team have given us. We are looking forward to a great, long term relationship with Whitespace.”
I was interested to read about Ray Wang this week who argued that Facebook’s lack of respect for privacy would ultimately be damaging for brands.
Speaking at the Neolane Evo-lution Conference in Paris last week he said ‘Brands should be using Facebook as a lead-generation tool,’ he said. ‘If you have Facebook doing commerce and being the intersection of all your communications with consumers, you have to ask where that data is going.’
Facebook responded by defending its privacy record, saying: ‘Brands use Facebook to grow their audience and engage with them where they already are.’
My view is that brands must go where consumers are, but not at all costs. If technology means we live in a world where privacy has no meaning, that can only be damaging on all fronts, to all concerned. Some may argue that this is the way of new media marketing but for me that’s a short term view. We can’t allow ourselves to get carried downstream. We have to take responsibility and consider the consequences and above all retain a sense of ethical best practice.
Facebook should be used by marketers as a tactic among several others at our disposal. Relinquishing data control for a quick return is dangerous, not least to the survival of the populist support that keeps Facebook going in the first place.
Karen Woodhead, Marketing Director, Whitespace
We’re celebrating again today with another award for our ‘Little Book of Whitespacisms’. It helped our printer Northend, take Gold at the Print Week Awards at the Grosvenor Hotel in London last night in the Best Book Publisher category. The judges were particularly impressed with the production and finishing of our book. Well done to Northend for the print, and another well done to the Whitespace design team. 
I wanted to share with everyone some insights for handling work and life pressure from a friend of Whitespace called Kay Gill. It goes something like this . .
Are you feeling the squeeze? If you are you’re certainly not alone. It seems the financial pressure on many people has been steadily increasing since the banking crisis back in 2008 and, from where I’m sitting, there doesn’t seem to be even a pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s difficult to avoid hearing the doom and gloom around. If you regularly watch the news or read the papers then I would imagine you may be feeling even more pessimistic about the future.
BUT! As one of my key beliefs is that there is always a positive in every situation, there must be something good to come out of this prolonged downturn.
So, what can it be? How could the economic situation have a positive impact on your life? Let’s look at nature for an answer…
Question: How are diamonds formed?
Answer: Under pressure! Without the application of IMMENSE pressure over a period of time diamonds would not exist.
Another question: How are pearls formed?
Another Answer: By a tiny grain of sand or other IRRITANT getting in between the shell and it’s lining
And so it is for us. If we dawdle along in the safety of our comfort zone life tends to be pretty boring. We have a tendency to live an unconscious life, doing the same things over and over, taking the path of least resistance until one day we suddenly wake up and wonder where the past 10, 20 even 30 years went!
And what is it that wakes us up? Can you guess? It’s usually one or both of these two things!
It’s either PRESSURE or an IRRITANT!
Consider now what shifts you. Is it…
The pressure of a smaller budget at work, being asked to deliver more for less?
The pressure of having limited funds, of being made redundant and having to find a new job, maybe this time one you enjoy?
Or the pressure of having to find new clients when your old reliable ones either go to the wall or make cut backs, one of which is your service?
Or the pressure of having to feed your children with less money and rising food costs?
Remember PRESSURE CAUSES CREATIVITY
Or maybe it’s when the small niggle that’s been there for a while becomes a large IRRITANT, such as…
When someone’s behaviour that you’ve been tolerating for far too long finally tips you over the edge?
Or when your waistband becomes far too tight for comfort and you just KNOW something has to change?
Or when your staff or your boss takes that one liberty too far?
Remember IRRITANTS CREATE CHANGE
As with everything in life, in the face of both pressure or irritants you have a CHOICE. You can choose to crumble or be irritated or you can DECIDE to TAKE MASSIVE ACTION.
When the PRESSURE gets too great to bear or when the IRRITATION moves you to the point of ENOUGH IS ENOUGH learn to CELEBRATE and ask yourself some great questions!
Celebrate the fact that you aren’t willing to tolerate this any more. Celebrate your power and creativity over the situation and ask yourself the following questions:
What am I not willing to tolerate any more?
What is within my control in this situation?
What am I willing to do differently to create positive change?
Then, simply step up, take back control, take ACTION and let the gem inside you grow and shine!
But remember, whatever you do… have fun!
Karen Woodhead, Marketing Director, Whitespace
Kay Gill can be found at www.redshoescoaching.com
Cloud computing. A buzz word at the moment, which many may not understand or feel they can’t ask, what is it?
The Cloud, in the simplest of terms is a means of storage!
Your files, photos, videos and music are stored externally on cloud servers, all over the world!
You’ve been using cloud computing for sometime if you have a web based email account, like gmail or hotmail. Your emails are not stored on your computer, but you knew that. They are stored on your email providers cloud of servers, meaning you can access them anywhere and at any time until you delete them.
The same applies if you’ve ever uploaded your photos to a ‘photo sharing’ site like ‘flickr’, your images are being stored on the companies cloud. So no need to clog up you computer, think of it like a bank, you know where your money is and can access it anytime, rather that keeping under your mattress.
In the past you would back-up you files, photos and movies on CD or external hard drives, with cloud based services you can store, share and back up your files, plus you have the benefit of accessing them from anywhere.
Is it safe? Generally yes!, cloud companies have extremely sophisticated protection and encryption methods for making sure that no one can get to your files but you. So unless someone has your password it’s highly unlikely that anyone is going to get hold of your data. Also when it comes to clouds your data is replicate on many different servers all over the world, meaning if there is a natural disaster or a problem that affect one, your files are backed up all over.
Web based email accounts, photo sharing sites and storage/sharing sites all use cloud based, the majority are free and easy to use. Apple has just introduced the iCloud, the latest iPhone software iSO 5 now allows you to backup you phones content to their iCloud, leaving you more space on your phone and meaning you don’t lose you data if you lose your phone.
James Wharf, Head of Digital Design, Whitespace
Whitespace takes silver at Roses Awards
Filed Under: Creative ideas, Get inspired, In the news, Literature
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Whitespace are celebrating after winning Silver in the category of ‘Best Agency Self Promotion’ for our ‘Little Book of Whitespaceisms’. Karen Woodhead, Whitespace’s Marketing Director said: “This was an extremely tough category in what is arguably one of the most respected awarding bodies in our industry. We are thrilled to bits.”
If anyone would like a free copy of the winning piece, please drop us a line via our website www.white-space.co.uk/contact_us
Responsive web design – what’s it all about?
Filed Under: Digital, Marketing strategy, Website design
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When it came to designing websites, in the past we only had to concern ourselves with the computer screen. Now, working as most agencies do, across a plethora of fully internet-enabled devices with scores of different shapes and capabilities, we must design our websites to fit comfortably in as many screen sizes, shapes, and resolutions as possible. The old fixed-width layout approach no longer cuts it. Today we adopt responsive web design practices. (Or RWD, if you will).
The idea of Responsive Web Design is that our websites should adapt their layout and design to fit any device that chooses to display it. A digital designer must understand the basic concepts of RWD so as to better design websites that will become responsive when coded.
The relevancy of this to marketers raises its head if you try to save budget by buying cheap or by using print designers inexperienced in digital application. The fact is the site will be out of date quicker than you can ever imagine. RWD is also a key area to consider at planning stage. For example, knowing what proportion of your audience is likely to view your site on the move, and/or via mobile devices and ensuring the site is designed accordingly from the offset can save you money and headaches in the long run.
James Wharf, Head of Digital Design, Whitespace
Our ‘Little Book of Whitespacisms’ nominated for Roses Award
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Our ‘Little Book of Whitespacisms’ is an amusing collection of quotations, stories and anecdotes, lovingly illustrated with the intention of invoking joy, pain, comfort or just good old fashioned fun. However, they all have one thing in common – they are all real or have been inspired by real situations.
The world of design, branding and digital brand communications is steeped in mystery, jargon, rules, processes and forumlae, some of which are open to interpretation or rather misinterpretation. In over 16 years of business we’ve had the privilege of being on the receiving end of requests and demands ranging from the hilarious to the utterly bizarre.
As creatives and designers who collect anything and everything we were never going to let these pearls of wisdom pass and even coined a name for them, ‘Whitespacisms’. Then someone suggested we publish the best in all their glory so that everyone could enjoy them.
So we did. The names have been omitted to protect the innocent but you know who you are.
To request your free copy contact karen.woodhead@white-space.co.uk
The Little Book of Whitespacisms – ROSES DESIGN AWARDS NOMINEE 2011
Nick Birch, Creative Director, Whitespace
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