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Culture

Hot off the press: our thoughts on what's happening in the world of brand language and business writing. Warning: may contain the occasional rant.

Culture

The next chapter at The Writer: Charli Nordone appointed as CEO

We sat down with Charli to ask what advice she has for brands, now and in the future. And a little on what she hopes her future might hold.

Consulting, Customer experience

Culture

Digital Poets Society: will AI replace or enhance human writers?

Let’s start with the good news: writers aren’t about to lose their jobs to robots.

Consulting, Learning & development

Culture

Words can change behaviours – if there’s a will and a way

Changing behaviours is tricky. We need to want to do it (The Will) and be able to do it (The Way). And the parts of the brain in charge of motivation and learning new skills are completely separate. So if you want people to change the way they write, you need to work on both. Here’s how...

Consulting, Brand & marketing

Culture

Unprecedented copy: the best brand writing of 2020

There were new words: coronacoaster, furlough, maskne. There were old words: clichés landing in our inboxes quicker than you can say now more than ever. There were frustratingly woolly words from governments, and plenty of brilliant words, too.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Wading in on why play has a place in workshops

On BBC Radio 2, Jeremy Vine was talking about a workshop where a group from Walsall Council were asked to use Lego in an activity. The participants weren’t happy and the workshop was being mocked online.

Consulting, Learning & development

Culture

The Writer’s 2019 round-up

We do like a writing geek out. (If we didn’t, we’d have to think about putting our name out to tender.) And we don’t discriminate. Ads, road signs, mum’s to-do list – if it gets us talking, it’s going in our bank of favourites.

Writing, HR & internal comms

Culture

Netflix can chill: it’s National Book Lovers Day

Nowadays, our beloved books too often play second fiddle to a binge on Prime or a Killing Eve marathon. Here’s a reason for us to ditch The Crown and cosy up with a good old fashioned novel this evening.

Writing, Customer experience

Culture

Bots are from Mars, humans are from Venus.

Remember the days of buying cinema tickets over the phone? Wasted minutes bellowing ‘Jumanji… JU-MAN-JI’ into your landline as the disembodied voice on the other end says ‘Sorry, I didn’t get that. Did you say Batman Forever?’ Thankfully, voice assistants have come a long way since then.

Writing, Customer experience

Culture

Our favourite words of 1980: the ultimate Throwback Thursday

Gossamer. The UK’s third favourite word, as of 21st September 1980. How do I know that? Well, a while back I bought a copy of The King’s English for 50p at a secondhand bookshop and today, out fluttered a newspaper cutting. And it was all about words. Beautiful words.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Work experience: but not as you know it

Hello, we’re The Writer, the world’s biggest language consultancy. We’re looking for people who get nerdy about words to come to our two-day Word Experience (in London) on Thursday 12th and Friday 13th April 2018.

Training, Learning & development

Culture

Why it's good to learn by doing

My daughter’s learning to play the flute. And while her squeaky blasts and spit-spraying puffs into the mouthpiece might sound terrible to our neighbours, my more generous ears think otherwise.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Everything is awesome*

It’s 9.30am on a chilly Sunday morning in October. I’m negotiating my way across a gigantic car park with two very excited little people in tow. At last, we reach the gates of the Promised Land (or ‘Legoland’, as it’s otherwise known).

Consulting, Customer experience

Culture

How brands own words

You might have seen that Specsavers has applied to trademark the word ‘should’ve’. And they’re not the first; Carlsberg managed to trademark the word ‘probably’ (and cunningly got round a ban on alcohol advertising at Euro 2016 by using just that word on billboards).

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

The Co-op: rebranding a national treasure

How can language help revive a much-loved brand? The Co-op brand team tell all. Oh, and the word ‘clart’.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Why writers are hypocrites

I was watching The Big Short a few days ago when a thought struck me. If you haven’t seen it, the film is set just before the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007, and one of its major themes is the tendency of the banking industry to overcomplicate simple concepts.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Medalling is here to stay

A lot of people have been getting worked up about commentators using 'medal' as a verb during the Olympics. Everybody calm down. The English language is packed to the rafters with verbs that didn’t start out as verbs. Like these:

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Eight interesting wordy things to come out of Brexit

‘Democracy’ is a word that’s being thrown around a lot at the moment. What we've found interesting lately is how social media has ‘democratised’ the opinion piece.

Writing, Customer experience

Culture

What?!

What an appropriate time for a grammar rant! Our Neil has his say on the UK Government's latest mark on how we teach grammar in schools.

Writing, Brand & marketing

Culture

Lessons from mice. And werewolves.

Superheroes and shampoo. Werewolves and washing powder. Writing for telly might feel a million miles away from writing for businesses. But it doesn’t have to be. That’s what we learnt when we got together with scriptwriters Andrew Burrell and John Jackson.

Writing, Learning & development

Culture

I’m having a bronde moment

Our LC is championing a new fashion movement (with a little help from J-Lo).

Consulting, Brand & marketing