This month we celebrate Stratton Craig’s ability to bring personality and colour to detailed pieces of business to business writing. We also profile another team member – Nick Berry – creative powerhouse and prolific producer of always fresh and often amusing writing. The summer has been busy with some established and some new clients – we have completed interesting new projects for technology and process firms Xansa and Anite, scripts, language guidelines and brochures for the South West Regional Development Agency and articles and a script for the Welsh Development Agency. The summer has been busy and we hope the Autumn holds just as much excitement.

PS: Look out for our new brochure in the post – or to request a copy call 01225 314100.

Jeremy Stratton

Up close and personal

NICK BERRY

Copywriter

How long have you been writing for?

Professionally, about nine years; but I did unpaid stuff long before that, including a couple of hundred variously awful poems back in the early ’80s. Some of them got published in a deservedly forgotten poetry journal with a circulation of about four. I bought three of them.

What made you want to be a copywriter?

Arithmetic. I added up the things I loved doing and took away the things I hated. Writing’s always come easy to me, whereas wearing suits has always been a struggle, involving unpleasant personality shifts. So I needed a job that paid me for writing while actively encouraging casual dress. Which led to a new series of challenges. Try walking into Gap when you’re the wrong side of 40, pushing 16 stone and grey at the temples. Then try walking out again like you really thought you’d gone into Boots.

What was your first full-time employment?

Working in the warehouse of Bishop’s supermarket. I don’t think they exist any more. 70 quid a week, and I were grateful. If Ricky Gervais had been around then, he could have made a series called The Supermarket.

What is the most bizarre piece of copy you’ve had to write?

Not had to, but did. It was a corporate brochure for a City recruitment company, and I still don’t know how it ever got printed. I was working on it with a manic creative director who the client loved and would let do anything. One spread talked about Walter Raleigh inventing the potato. It’s still one of my favourite pieces and, curiously, it worked.

Any claims to fame?

As a child, I used to be able to impersonate Mike Yarwood’s* impersonations, albeit in a much higher voice.

*(previous incarnation of Rory Bremner, for our younger viewers)

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Apart from spending time with my wife, young son and friends (ours, not his), I enjoy singing, playing the guitar loudly, cooking, moderate amounts of decent booze and the odd crafty fag.

What do you enjoy most about writing?

The variety, and the fact that very few of the projects I work on last more than a week or so. I’ve got a terrible attention span.

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Writing the right way

Xansa, an IT management consultancy, recently called in the experts to help redefine how it writes about itself. Stratton Craig has introduced pragmatic, benefit-led copy for sector overviews and case studies for the new website – encouraging all staff to write about Xansa in the right way. 

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Highlighting the South West

During the last few months we have completed a series of significant communications for the South West Regional Development Agency. The first was a language guidelines document for staff and suppliers, followed immediately by a brochure that reflected these guidelines and distilled into four pages of plain speaking, everything that the Agency stands for – who it is, what it does, why it does it and how it makes a difference to the regional economy. This was followed by the 2004-5 Highlights brochure based on the full Annual Report and a ‘highlights’ DVD script. Both are to be used for the public presentation of SWRDA’s achievements this Autumn.

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Stratton Craig is the cream of the crop

Integrated IT solutions specialist, Anite, has selected Stratton Craig to articulate its refined proposition to the market. Stratton Craig was singled out based on its proven track record of working with Anite over the last three years. Stratton Craig, alongside a design agency, will be evolving Anite’s website and developing a series of case studies to help Anite stand out from the crowd and continue to grow its business.

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