Typical landing page rubbish: 231 words, one misprint and not a bloody clue

>You really have to wonder how some people survive.

I just read the landing page (wrong layout, no human being) of the utterly useless website of an agency run by someone I know who, amazingly, managed to do very well for quite a while.

That, however, was in corporate noddy-land where you can get away with all kinds of silliness.

In the real world his copy is the highroad to failure.

Yet what is sad is he probably laboured over it – or even sadder, paid someone else as clueless as he is.

But never for a second did he ask himself,”Should this be about me – or about what’s in it for my clients?”

It has 231 words, 14 of which are “we”, “us” or “our” with exactly one “you” – but of course the obligatory “innovative business solutions”.

What a pool of puke.

People who run this kind of stuff should be required to go and stand in the middle of Trafalgar Square and read it out loud through a loudhailer, because they won’t have much else to do in a hazardous 2011.

I shall be doing my best to steer people away from folly in the months ahead.

Meanwhile …

Merry Christmas and don’t do you dare do that kind of shit in the New Year.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

4 Comments

  1. denisthornton

    Merry Christmas to you too

  2. denisthornton

    Merry Christmas to you too!

  3. M Jacob

    Drayton, thank you. Too many nice people, saying too many nice things in too many nice ways, without any meaning or consequence. Thanks for continuing to speak what's on your mind.

  4. Saw this today:

    'we thrive on the ability to offer second to non attention to detail'

    From the public profile of a design agency on a networking site.

    Doh.

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