Good Copy, Bad Copy

Last week, the Investment Management Association (IMA) announced it was renaming a particular type of investment.

From now on, says the trade association for investment managers, the “Absolute Returns Sector” will be known as the “Targeted Absolute Returns Sector”.

The reason for the rename? With rumblings of another mis-selling scandal in the works, the IMA wanted to make it absolutely clear that if you put your money in these investments, you might lose some of your dosh.

In what sensible person’s head does “Targeted Absolute Returns Sector” say “you might lose some of your dosh”? Read the rest of this entry »

We regularly get people coming to this blog who have searched for the phrase “advise and revert”. Invariably, these visitors are from Asian countries where English is not the first language.

I suspect an Anglophone colleague has utterly befuddled such readers by sending them an email promising to “advise and revert” or asking them to “please advise and revert”. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite announcing record sales, Apple experienced a 10% fall in its share price yesterday. Investors, it’s been claimed, are out of love with Apple.

Is it any wonder, when the firm’s investor relations homepage contains this sort of impenetrable gunk: Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we have a guest post by copywriter Phil Williams. Thanks for bringing this dreadful bit of ad copy to our attention, Phil! Read the rest of this entry »

We spotted this van outside a building site across the road from Doris and Bertie towers:

Fluid transfer solutions?

It could mean anything, couldn’t it? Read the rest of this entry »

On finishing a delicious Doris and Bertie power lunch from itsu yesterday, I was confronted with this image…

…and this one…

…and this one…

They’re what Naomi Wolf once described as “beauty porn”: pictures of women, aimed at women. And designed to make us all feel rubbish about our wobbly bits.

What made them all the more alarming was that they were accompanied by this nauseating bit of baby speak:

Like the pics, the infantilised tone of voice seems primarily aimed at the body-conscious woman. Whoever wrote it must be the only person on the planet who hasn’t noticed that Innocent-style “wackaging” is deeply annoying and the subject of mainstream ridicule.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on here. Read the rest of this entry »