He was bemoaning the shortening of people’s attention spans and the subsequent necessity to write for a less focused audience.

Yes, it does change things. Yes, this is perhaps not what you entered the industry to address. But the simple fact of life is that everything moves on.

We move on as workers. Thankfully with change comes challenge. And anyone in the creative industries should be by the very nature of the discipline, in a state of high alert and positively responsive to flux.

We covered the necessities of 21st century advertising in a recent WAM post.

I’ve repeated my words of compassion (and a brutal reality check so it’s a balanced response!) below.

Let me know what you think. Are you a classical copywriter with contemporary issues, or have things worked out for you a treat?

Jaded, despondent and disillusioned – the clarion call of a classical copywriter in this modern maelstrom of life.

While I indubitably concur that progress renders much of yesterday’s strategy for copywriting excellence redundant, I find the pace of change incredibly inspiring, challenging and refreshing.

I strive to stretch my creativity and thirst for versatility any which way to sate client and consumer impartially. This ‘evolution’ towards a constant craving for the quick hit sometimes takes me way beyond my comfort zone and into new realms of creativity unmatched by copywriting efforts in days of yore.

Much better to seize the bull’s horns than to lament the passing of days of yore.

Well folks, if we are to believe the hype/surveys (judge for yourself which of the words separated by a slash are the most plausible) then web users are becoming even less focused on the job in hand.

Broadband and loud babies have evidently been working in cahoots, for the tolerance point for surfers waiting for web pages to load is down to just two seconds.

Two seconds. That’s not even enough time for Usain Bolt to run across America. I can’t even drink a pint that fast. But long enough for this little guy to get bored…

Let’s forget for a moment the whys that have driven us to be such fickle and ignorant consumers. Let’s instead focus on what we can do to meet our customer’s expectations.

Stop trying to be clever. Ask anyone who has met me and you’ll know I’m the world’s biggest hater of Flash. I don’t have an argument against it; I don’t need one.

I met an optician the other day and he said Flash is great when you want to showcase a catalogue of products. I disagree. Javascript works just as well (but may need a click rather than a twitch of the mouse) and the code required is minute.

I use this example purely to demonstrate that Flash, even among its supporters, is barely even being used for its raison d’etre - dynamic and interactive animation – any more.

Flash started bugging me when its biggest supporters started using it on those intro screens. I Clicked to Skip. Every time.

Flash labours load times. Get rid of it unless you’re a farty creative type who needs to showcase his Flash skills. In which case drum your fingers waiting for the phone to ring because any rational soul will be looking to romance the customer with meaningful content.

That’s where we’re at right now. Meaningful content. It’s the stuff that gets you up the search rankings. Gets you noticed.

I delivered a speech today about Word And Mouth. About the fact we produce creative communications that build profitable relationships for SMEs. We do. And included in the work is producing the kind of content that’d make your hard-nosed sister weep tears of joy or pain, depending on your objective.

We’ll reinforce the content with a follow-up business blog to keep the emotions flowing. And we can bring down the house with some podcast radio featuring mouths and sounds of your choice.

If you don’t truly understand the validity of a simple, clean and uncluttered webspace for your business, take a look at the outpourings of one Jakob Nielsen. Quite aside from the ramifications of his tongue-twisting name I swear we could be separated at birth.

Just check him out. It’ll make you think. And once you’ve had a nice think, get down the pub. It’s Friday.

Enjoy your weekend!

Attention span survey

Just like Edison and his quest for artificial light.

While Word And Mouth doesn’t quite attain the same sort of Herculean success (yet) as Tom and his bulb, it’s been a long and winding road to get here.

And now we’re here, we ain’t going anywhere. Apart from up.

Candidly: Word And Mouth was conceived on Tuesday. That’s the ‘other day’, as in 10am on 15/09/09.

A mini whoop, a small investment in a virtual letterbox and WordAndMouth.com was born.

Word And Mouth is the product of a multimedia-trained consumer journalist’s dream to relinquish the corporate environment in pursuit of a goal: to discover his talents.

Working for The Man finished in October 2008. What followed was a prolonged bout of travelling, introspection and indulgence in the company of many, many inspirational people.

And finally that lightbulb moment. To harness the disciplines of writing and broadcasting to offer Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) the opportunity to reach out to their customer bases using dynamic, exciting and passionate communications.

We delight clients with incisive marketing content, product promotion, podcasting and social media tools. Wrapped up in sincerity and charm, as you’d expect from a company based in the cultural paradise of Liverpool.

Success used to be measured in the three Ps of persistence, patience and purpose.

As consumers we are losing the will to exert ourselves. We’ll snatch up the most convenient products, often snubbing the best. We’re time poor. And we don’t really know what we want, apart from conspicuous consumption.

Scratch that last sentence. We do know what we want: we want to be loved, we want to be pampered and preened. And we won’t – under any circumstances – settle for anything but immaculate customer service.

So business owners have to be smarter than ever. To be prepared, passionate and principled. For these are the three Ps that drive business today.

Word And Mouth lives and breathes Three Ps 2.0 in pursuit of achieving the modern SMEs goal of customer service, loyalty, delight and referrals.

And we think we’ve cracked it.

We leave clever communications to the big advertising agencies. We do straightforward, because no-one has time to rationalise confusing messages.

Word And Mouth is all about:

• Clarity
• Conviction
• Simplicity
• Measurability

To surmise – we reach out to your customers with your messages in their language.

As this site evolves, we’ll introduce case studies to help you figure out how Word And Mouth can work best for you.

Til then, look around. And don’t hesitate to contact us. Anytime. About anything.

Because communication starts with the heart. Like Word And Mouth, it’s a miraculous organ that never stops beating.