How was your weekend? Mine was great–went out to get papers and comics and what-have-ya, and then came home to watch…
The Super Bowl.
Yay. What I usually do, for those of you who don’t know, is check out the commercials and then turn my writer’s eye to ’em (my writer’s eye is hidden right beneath the cross-piece on my glasses–the part that’s up by the top of my nose…ha).
Since I have an edit cooking, I won’t do as many commercials as last year, or the year before that–I’d say two or three.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
The first thing that struck me for this year’s Bowl was no Roman numerals (as pointed out by the Foxtrot comic in this week’s paper). It would have had to be “Super Bowl L,” which leads me to believe people may have thought someone had spelled Super Bowl with one L too many.
The first commercial I’d like to jaw about is the one during the Super Bowl for Quicken Loans.
They start out talking about home loans and buying stuff, and then finished up by saying how easy it is to get a mortgage with their app.
But the middle is what really got me. They started talking about the necessity of filling houses with things. And if those people who make products to put in houses get their own mortgage, and then those people get their own…you get the idea.
I thought it was interesting.
And here I see in the news the Quicken folks are having a hard time dealing with stuff because people are accusing them of trying to create problems in the housing market, and as a result folks are having literary heart attacks (usually brought on by seeing words and negatively reacting to them).
Let’s leave that behind.
What I want to talk about is the relationship here among people, products, and services.
Because, guess what? The Quicken people are right–people who buy big things usually fill up that space with other, smaller things.
Now as brand advertising, this wasn’t really meant to make people buy anything, usually, just to say that “hey, we’re here, here’s what we do, and we’d like to help.” To keep people aware.
A lot of products, services, and what-have-ya support one another–just like the Quicken people meant when they said things about furniture going in houses. That’s one example.
There are probably millions of interrelated transactions out there. I mean stuff like…
Mustard going into cabinets, which go into houses
Seat belts in cars, in addition to cup holders, floor mats, and more
Even books on a bookshelf is a transaction that benefits from something else being involved
Okay, since this is a Decode, I’ve gotta talk about some things that can apply to you as a writer, whether of fiction or emails.
For you fiction writers–where do books go? A lot of places. What do you like to do?
You could partner up with a coffee shop, and do a reading or a giveaway (even if it’s just a collection of short stories–or even do book-related physical stuff, like ribbons or marks, to get noticed).
Books and stories are a huge part of daily life, but sometimes people don’t realize it. It’s not just for bookstores. Yes that’s the majority of it, but people read other places now.
Or maybe a poet has an audience who likes to hear new things. Maybe a short-story writer can get in there, with permission, to shake things up.
For copywriters/email writers, things are a bit different. A lot of things will have to do with the audience (with fiction it’s the same thing).
What do you write about? And can you make that relate to people in a way that matters to them? If you can find out what an audience or your prospect deals with every day, you can figure out how to help them, and how your writing fits in.
What does writing have to do with vacuuming? Not much, on the surface. But if a local biz partnered with a writer to put a fabric or upholstery care tip sheet together, that’s a different story.
Both parties benefit, and so does the audience (in this case, vacuumers).
That’s partnership–getting in touch with people who are connected to other people and helping and/or entertaining them (both, if you can manage it).
So, rockets and mortgages aside, if you’re stuck for prospects, an audience, what-have-ya, just think of who you can benefit with your writing, where they hang out, and how to get in touch with them (this could also work to find blogs to guest post on–haven’t tried that one yet).
Until next time,
Ty
Fiction and Copy Decoded 