copywriting

Can the font used for important medical instructions affect how well patients follow them?

This reading isn’t required… but you’ll miss out if you don’t read at least a few of our top picks for the week!

Here’s this week’s eclectic mix of worthwhile reading from around the Web. Also, things may look a bit different – check out our new, easier-to-read (we hope!) design. Let us know what you think in a comment!

And here’s our reading list for this week:

Eloise Keating (@ellykeating)’s Brain gain: How neuroscience can improve your business’ marketing today picks up some of the key points from my Australian speech at the Creative Fuel Conference in Sydney.

Here’s some of the best stuff I found since last week… add your own great find in a comment!

Want to be the Titan of Twitter? The Giant of Google+? Demian Farnworth (@demianfarnworth), writing at Copyblogger (@Copyblogger), offers a simple way to focus your copy that is guaranteed to get your posts more engagement in Master This Copywriting Formula to Dominate Any Social Media Platform.

Headline writers have known for years that rankings articles like “Top 10″ lists generate clicks. University administrators have simultaneously dismissed USNews college rankings as inaccurate and irrelevant while still striving to improve their school’s own ranking.

What’s the most famous quote from the OJ Simpson “trial of the century?” Those of us old enough to have watched it on TV, or at lease followed the news accounts, would no doubt come up with, “If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit!” This phrase, or a variation of it, was used by Simpson’s lawyer, Johnny Cochran. During the trial, Simpson made a show of struggling to fit into a glove linked to the murder. Simpson was acquitted, of course, and Cochran’s defense earned most of the credit for that outcome. 

Multi-chapter, multimedia, highly immersive digital features from publishers seem to be becoming quite the thing. The latest is the rather lovely ESPN Grantland story of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which follows on from their similar feature on The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis.

Everyone knows who David Ogilvy is.

He is probably one of the worlds greatest “ad men” and the likely inspiration to Mad Men. In 1948, David started Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising agency responsible for some of the world’s most iconic ad campaigns such as Dove beauty products featuring real women, and American Express’ “Don’t Leave Home without it”. However, not many people know that he is a lousy copywriter, at least, not in the traditional sense.

It shouldn’t surprise Neuromarketing readers that choice of words is important when writing headlines, taglines, or copy, but brain scans show how specific words can have the same meaning but activate different areas of the brain. Emory University researcher Krish Sathian has shown that words that words related to texture, for example, activate areas of the brain associated with touch – even when their usage has nothing to do with tactile sensations. (Abstract, and an interview with Sathian.)