WHOA.

Hundreds of entries. Hundreds of puns. Hundreds of better-than-what-most-brands-use taglines and slogans.

But there can only be one winner - and you’ll need to listen to find out who it is.

Bonus content includes hate mail, Hayden sweating bullets as he tries to distinguish Martin’s submission from those of Charlie and Gemima, and a brief discussion about Moët & Chandon and valet parking.

Congratulations to the shortlisted entrants and, of course, the eventual winner. Stay tuned for more Y-Fronts in 2025, and make sure to #spreadthebravenewword.

Most importantly: have a fantastic Christmas.

- Hayden and Martin

That’s right: our new Y-Fronts mini-brief is to create a slogan or tagline for jaGUar! You can even go the whole hog and make a full-on advertisement if you like.

Martin and I have different takes on the Jaguar thing. Martin, probably quite rightly, thinks it’s off the mark. I, on the other hand, absolutely want a new Jaguar and love at least 67% of what they’ve done with it.

But if you listen to the [quite short] episode, you’ll note that one thing Martin and I share is our grief over the death of great car advertising. We both Could this be your opportunity to win hearts, minds and the Jaguar account?

Not to mention a bottle of Champagne from Martin. S**T JUST GOT REAL.

Make sure to submit your Y-Fronts entries as soon as possible. Use our hashtag(s) #spreadthebravenewword and #yfronts to make sure we see it; you can also tag us in your posts.

Until next time!

Sarah “Human Dynamo” Townsend has just launched her third book, The Little Book of Confusables 2, and we were lucky enough to catch her for a chat ahead of the release.

Sarah rose to bestseller status with her first book, Survival Skills for Freelancers. Her new book is (as you’ll guess from the title) a sequel to the pint-sized, powerful Little Book of Confusables.

Each of these little beauties is built around hundreds of commonly confused words and gives “simple spelling and usage tips to help smart people avoid stupid mistakes.”

Sounds like the sorts of books every writer should have on their shelves.

We also talk to Sarah about how she manages to do it all, her journey to legendary status, how she feels about the state of the industry and a little about that old chestnut, Artificial Intelligence.

Learn more about Sarah at her website and make sure to buy at least one copy of each of her books from Sarah's Amazon page. Oh and you should join her email list and follow her on LinkedIn, too.

It’s time to talk books. We get asked about them all the time, and 43:26 is not quite enough time to do the subject justice, but we did our best.

We copywriters are lucky: we have an excuse to acquire and read as many books as we like. And there are a lot of great books about copywriting. This episode covers a few of the ‘core texts’ from masters like Gene Schwartz, Claude Hopkins and David Ogilvy.

But both Martin and I agree that to be a successful, well-rounded copywriter, you ought to look beyond the classics. Heck, look beyond copywriting!

* Breakthrough Advertising - Gene Schwartz

* Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins

* Tested Advertising Methods - John Caples

* The Copy Book - D&AD

* Hey Whipple, Squeeze This! - Luke Sullivan

* How To Write A Good Advertisement - Blake Schwab

* We, Me, Them & It - John Simmons

* Made to Stick - Dan & Chip Heath

* 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852 - 1958 - Julian L. Watkins

* Can I Change Your Mind? - Lindsay Camp

* Ogilvy on Advertising - David Ogilvy

* Several Short Sentences About Writing - Verlyn Klinkenborg

* The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Success - Andy McNab and Kevin Dutton

* Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss

* Grief is a Thing With Feathers, Lanny, Shy - Max Porter

Honourable mentions go to Dan Nelken’s Self-Help Guide for Copywriters (mentioned in a previous episode) and Andrew Boulton’s Copywriting Is… (unfairly banished to my garage and thus left out of my list).

But that’s not all we talk about. No, because someone asks us about snacks, and both Charlie and Gemima spit out weirdly similar answers yet again. We’re beginning to get a picture of the sort of people they’d be if they were, you know, people.

That’s all for now. Except for a quick mention that this was EPISODE 10! I did not think we’d make it this far in. Thank you so much for the support - please keep sending us your questions and comments, and remember to spread the word about Brave New Word.

Believe me, we’ll be back on this subject again soon.

LinkedIn is a hot topic, and we get questions about it all the time. In this edition, we answer three of the most common ones:

* How do you differentiate yourself on LinkedIn?

* How do you build a personal brand on LinkedIn?

* How do you come up with ideas for LinkedIn content ideas?

Of course, you’ll need to listen to hear our [occasionally questionable] answers. Charlie and Gemima chime in at first, but they are as generic and equivocal as they have ever been.

We also talk a little about music, with a SHOCKING REVELATION about Martin and Hayden’s gory story from a punk gig.

One last thing - apologies for the audio quality in this one. The echo in Martin’s voice is because he has such a powerful voice it was getting through his own headphones. We’ll fix it…one day…

Do you have a burning question or a suggestion for a short brief? Send it to bravenewwordpodcast@gmail.com or contact Martin on mail@mscopy.co.uk.

Show notes and mentions:

* Paul Taylor’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-taylor-ab2721163/

* Queen at Live Aid in 1985:

Boy, we cover a lot of ground in this episode.

First, we answer a common question: if we had to launch our careers again, how would we do it?

To be fair, both Charlie and Gemima come up with some good answers for this one - at least, on the surface. Something we realise more and more each week is that AI answers look good on the surface - but does regurgitated good advice still constitute good advice?

Martin and I chip in with our own thoughts, of course. Martin is a big advocate (and shining example) of writing consistently, almost obsessively, so that you stay top of mind and on top of your game.

On the other hand, I argue that it’s not enough to write - you have to offer something more. Something AI can’t [yet].

But that’s all I’ll reveal for now - you’d better listen to the episode for the actual advice.

You’ll also need to listen to hear our pick of the entries for the latest Y-Fronts for Songwood Meadows Retirement Village. Despite getting the In-Pod Award for Best Line last time around, I am soundly beaten by at least one of our listeners.

Oh, we also dive into the HUGE topic of James Bond films and talk a little bit about biscuits with questionable origin stories.

Enjoy, and please do keep sending us your questions and hate mail.

Hayden

Two copywriters and a robot talk about writing, creativity and whatever else comes their way. Hosted by Martin Sayers and Hayden Maskell, this episode features guest robot Gemima Grace Ophelia Orpington-Grantham Linsbury-Eastwood (Google Gemini).

This edition is a new Y-FRONTS special, aimed at retirees who like action sports.

Send us your creative responses! Send to bravenewwordpodcast@gmail.com or contact Martin on mail@mscopy.co.uk.

P.S., this is the first episode launched via our new website www.bravenewword.com on the Substack platform. Make sure to visit and subscribe, because we'll be launching a bunch of new content very, very soon - including subscription models, paid exclusive content and lots more.

SHOW NOTES:

Here's your Y-Fronts brief that you can submit responses for:

Company Name: SONGWOOD MEADOWS RETIREMENT VILLAGE Company Description: SONGWOOD MEADOWS is a retirement village for active retirees who enjoy the outdoors and action sports. Brief: Write a billboard for Songwood Meadows. The visual is an elderly couple smiling as they do archery.

HOSTS:

Martin Sayers

Hayden Maskell

GUEST HOST:

Gemima (Google Gemini)

THEME MUSIC:

Theremin or Thereabouts by Hercules Brown

Two copywriters and a robot talk about writing, creativity and whatever else comes their way. Hosted by Martin Sayers and Hayden Maskell, this episode features guest robot Gemima Grace Ophelia Orpington-Grantham Linsbury-Eastwood (Google Gemini) and Charlie Graham Patrick Terwilliger (AKA ChatGPT).

We receive our first hate mail and talk through it. Then answer our listener questions about avoiding the atrophying trap of relying on AI, ways to fight impostor syndrome and self-critique, and which copywriter would survive a zombie apocalypse. Hayden also makes yet another unsubstantiated claim, this time about Ernest Hemingway.

Do you have a burning question or a suggestion for a short brief? Send it to bravenewwordpodcast@gmail.com or contact Martin on mail@mscopy.co.uk.

SHOW NOTES:

https://hemingwayapp.com/

HOSTS:

Martin Sayers

Hayden Maskell

GUEST HOST:

Gemima (Google Gemini) & Charlie (ChatGPT)

THEME MUSIC:

Theremin or Thereabouts by Hercules Brown

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.