Tag: marketing

A Pleasure in Grammar

iOS 8 makes typing easier by suggesting contextually appropriate words to complete your sentences. It even recognizes to whom you’re typing and whether you’re in Mail or Messages. Because your tone in an email may be different from your tone in a message.

via Apple—iOS 8 - Overview.

It's rare to see correct use of "whom" in modern marketing material. Nicely done, apple.

Telling me it’s raining

Screenshot from an email subscription offer.

Dear The Age,

This week's news has been filled with reminders of your disregard for quality journalism. Why would I bother taking out a subscription to a paper that claims to be "independent" but has just committed to purchase more news imagery from Getty?

How do you define independence? My first thought is that it would have something to do with a unique voice and not just a whole lot of imagery that looks like everyone else's.

To try to sell me a subscription this week is just plain chutzpah. Even your email shows how little you expect me to value the actual journalism in your paper. An 18 word sentence references the quality of your product while a further 57 describe the perks of being a subscriber like undefined discounts and access to "competitions, event invitations and money-can't-buy experiences". So is the journalism also only worth under a third of those largely valueless perks?

Disregarding the ridiculousness of asking for money in exchange for "money-can't-buy experiences", how are you intending to build any sort of confidence in your product? Your words here betray a commitment to truth. The movie tickets aren't "free", they're a gift with purchase. There's a very large difference. It's an important difference and the kind of difference that a source of news should be aware of.

Maybe you'd have a better chance trying flog something else instead. At least then I won't have all of your piss in my pocket.

Yours,

Josh