Copywriting News | Apprentice Runner-Up Abolishes Apostrophe Use

She gained acclaim by reaching the final of the 2013 series of ‘The Apprentice’, earning the respect and admiration of Lord Alan Sugar. However, Luisa Zissman’s Twitter followers were left mortified when she revealed her poor grasp of grammar.

Astonishingly, Zissman’s confession led to a barrage of criticism from her mass Twitter following after she posted an appeal for help on apostrophe placement in the title of her new cupcake business venture.

Her Twitter post read as follows: “Can you all help me out as I'm crap at grammar. Is it bakers toolkit or baker's toolkit with an apostrophe?! X.”

In response, one startled Twitter user replied: “You're kidding, right?” whilst others mocked her and questioned how she ever managed to reach the final of the prime time, BBC ONE show.

There were those that were willing to help however, informing her that it should read Baker’s Toolkit, or Bakers’ Toolkit, depending on the number of intended bakers.

However, despite the helpful advice Zissman went on to enrage ‘grammar geeks’ by declaring that she didn’t care about ‘grammar rules’ and she liked the way it looked with no apostrophe present at all.

She said: “I like the look of bakers. Would it be terrible to stick with bakers?”  

In a reply from one Twitter user, Matt Adams, he said: “You can't change English grammar even if it does look better on logos!”

Zissman retorted: “Think I'm going to!!”

To which Matt replied: “But why?! Why deliberately make a mistake in the title of your business for no good reason?!”

Zissman’s bakery business is set to launch towards the latter end of 2013 and will sell baking supplies online. It would now appear that the company name will be launched, minus an apostrophe it seems. Could it be a recipe for disaster?

Tell Write House your thoughts; leave your comments below… 

Write House, West Midlands, provides a comprehensive range of services that will help your business to increase its prominence including copywriting, proofreading and editing services, social media assistance and media consultancy services.

MarketingProfs Issues Report on the State of Digital Copywriting

Leading Marketing Hub, MarketingProfs, has issued an in-depth report detailing the challenges that marketers and content creators face when it comes to digital copywriting, Write House can reveal.

According to the report a high proportion (60%) of marketers and content creators state that a ‘lack of understanding about what good copy is’ represents the biggest challenge of digital copywriting.

Other challenges affecting the production of good digital copy include: work overload/lack of staff (55%), finding skilled writers (51%), meeting SEO requirements (44%), input from stakeholders (40%), lack of writing guidelines (37%), insufficient time to check copy (34%), and no copywriting training (31%).

Other key findings from the report, titled ‘The State of Digital Copywriting’, which was compiled following a survey of 365 marketers, copywriters, content editors, content strategists and consultants, predominantly based in the UK, revealed the following:

Copywriting Activity

• 74% of respondents check and proof copy before it goes live
• 58% use language and style guidelines
• Only 32% have a standard content structure format for their writing
• Just 19% train all their content creators in web writing

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Workflow

• 52% of respondents write copy on demand, in response to business needs
• Just 18% roll out copy according to a content plan, and only 9.8% always use a creative brief
• 43% have, on average, 1-2 stakeholders who need to sign off on a key piece of web copy, and 42% have 3-5 stakeholders
• 42% of time is spent creating content, and the rest is spent planning, delivering, and governing it

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Measurement

• 56% of respondents measure the effectiveness of copy by unique visits or page views
• 48% measure effectiveness by looking at conversions
• 20% aren't measuring the effectiveness of their copy at all

Source: Marketingprofs.com

Write House, Wolverhampton, understands that the majority of responses within the research came from marketers (20.7%), followed by copywriters (10.6%), content editors (9.8%), consultants (3.9%) and content strategists (3.6%).

Write House founder and copywriter, Daniel Waldron, commented: “The report gives copywriters and marketers valuable insight into the habits of copywriters and a glimpse into the state of digital copywriting as a whole. This information will enable the Write House copywriting service to improve its own standards therefore, the research is welcomed.”