The Carpinteria Times

So you want to be a Copywriter?

Tar Pits Park, Carpinteria, California - (now the oil tar towelettes in Holiday Inn Express make sense)

Can you pass this test?

Jan 25, 2012

The Carpinteria Times

Holiday Inn Express, Carpinteria saves the day with a toothbrush

A resident from San Jose staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Carpinteria on Baillard Avenue, wakes up in the morning (half hour away from a business meeting) to discover she has no toothbrush or toothpaste.  She is panic stricken until her eyes light on a placard in the bathroom which says:

” If you forget to pack a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, a razor or shaving cream, call the Front Desk and we will rush a complimentary one up to you.”

Half-hour later, she's at her business meeting with a clean mouth.

Your Assignment:  View these ads (appropriately called “Holiday Inn Toothbrush”) and come up with one of your own targeted at the same demographic – a bunch of men on a business trip.

The Mini Cooper vs the Kia Forte

At approximately 3.30 p.m. on Jan 24, 2012, a representative of Avis car rentals at Burbank Airport in Southern California, tries to convince a person who has pre-booked an economy car online to upgrade to a Mini Cooper “for just 8 dollars more per day”. Refusing the upgrade, the renter is assigned a Kia Forte, which she drives 79 miles north to Carpinteria on 101 to get to her hotel.  At the end of the drive, she observes that the Kia Forte feels just like the Hyundai Elantra.

Your Assignment:  View this banned ad for Hyundai and come up with a cheeky one of your own that might meet with the same fate - (be banned).

Caffeine at Taco Bell

At 8 p.m. on Jan 24, 2012, hunger at the end of a flight and a 1 hour drive makes a certain someone enter a Taco Bell on Las Pasitas Avenue in Carpinteria.  She is taken by surprise. In addition to staples like cheese quesadillas and tacos, the menu has Seattle’s Best iced coffee. The novelty of being able to buy coffee at Taco Bell is irresistible. This decision she regrets later when she can’t sleep.

Your Assignment:  View an ad for a fast food restaurant (here’s one for Carls Jr.) and create one of your own about someone discovering coffee at Taco Bell.

Lynda.com – fast becoming one of the leading video tutorial companies

On Jan 25, 2012, an Xactly Configuration Consultant visits Lynda.com in Carpinteria, California - a web-based company at which you can source video tutorials for almost anything under the sun.  Lunch is a gluten free buffet lunch consisting of salad, soup, turkey, shrimp skewers and a vegan veggie dish – catered from outside and free to all employees. The Xactly Configuration Consultant is awed by this and many other things about the Lynda campus, including the fact that the gray glasss doors of the conference room are actually whiteboards you can write on and if you look out the windows from the break room, you can see the ocean. The Xactly Configuration Consultant is also impressed that one of the Business Analysts she meets with is organizing a duathlon in his spare time to raise money to give back to the community in the City of Montecito.

Your Assignment:  View some of the free video tutorials on Lynda.com and then create a print or video ad for them.

This completes this addition of the Carpinteria Times.

(And oh, yes, a copywriter must be a good proof-reader too.  So see if you can spot the extra ‘s” on one of the words used in this post.  Also see if you can spot where I’ve used a wrong word in one of my sentences – because it sounds just like another.)

P.S.  If you guessed that the common denominator in all the experiences listed above is “moi”, you are right.  I recently went to Carpinteria where all this fun stuff happened to me.

P.S. 2: The City of Montecito is where Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries got married. Montecito and Carpinteria are both burbs of Santa Barbara.

P.S. 3 – If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy A Short Stint in Advertising and MAJvertising - other advertising related posts.