the groupon voice guide
At the risk of turning this into a Ken Norton reblog, via a comment from him on yesterday's Groupon copywriting post comes the Public Groupon Voice Guide, "intended to help new and applying writers lean Groupon's signature writing style."
The voice guide includes instructions to use all the things you're taught to avoid as a young writer...
- Absurd images. Sweeping, dramatic nonsense. The absurd narrator.
- Hypothetical worlds / outcomes
- Fake proverbs, adages
- Mixed metaphors
- Fake history
- Negative comparisons: “…unlike when…”
- Highly technical language (medical, scientific, etc.). Use when it’s least called for to overcomplicate things.
- Illogical comparisons and lists
So good.