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  • 2-JAN-2025 | Excerpts from Neil French’s “Feeling A Bit Gloomy This Morning?” Ad for Beck’s Beer

2-JAN-2025 | Excerpts from Neil French’s “Feeling A Bit Gloomy This Morning?” Ad for Beck’s Beer

Author

Dan Bogachek
January 02, 2025

Excerpts from Neil French’s “Feeling A Bit Gloomy This Morning?” Ad for Beck’s Beer

So, you’re feeling a bit gloomy this morning?
Read on. By lunchtime you can be suicidal.

1. Concentrate. How miserable are you exactly? A little ‘down’? Depressed? Or on the verge of crying, stamping, and generally behaving like John McEnroe on one of his better days?

…

6. Beck’s Beer is outrageously, unfairly, expensive. Ordinary beer isn’t.

7. Life itself is unfair. (See above).

8. It is, you’ll agree, the rich what gets the pleasure, and the poor what gets the blame. The poor also gets the sticky end of every deal going: Viz and to whit, no Beck’s. If you are poor, you’ll agree this, too, is very unfair indeed. If you are rich, get on with your Beck’s. And I hope you drown in it.

9. One red traffic-light is always followed by another red traffic-light.

10. Especially when you’re in a hurry.

11. More especially when you’re late for an appointment you wish you hand’t made in the first place. 🏁

  • Engage your reader with imagination. “Concentrate… one of his better days?” — strong because 1) it tells you what to do (and yep, you did what it told you to, didn’t you?), 2) gets you in touch with how you’re feeling and commiserates with you, then 3) puts a funny image into your head.

  • Callbacks are ace. They can subtly acknowledge the journey you and your reader have been on, double down on a joke, or pleasantly tie together a motif.

  • Complete ideas >> complete sentences!

You glance at your watch.

It’s 6:28. You’ve been at it since 3.
Crap. Your hot date is at 7. Running late. Sink shower it is.
Nowhere close to done editing…

“…at least all the ideas are laid out, so there’s that. Did I miss anything? I don’t think so? Ok, but how do I make it flow? I need to get the final draft to Stacey for design asap, team cutoff is at noon Thursday…”

You’ve spent dinner completely distracted. Your date just took off. You go home exhausted, plod to your desk, and flip open the laptop.

Or… what if:

5:41 — you’re out of the shower and lip-syncing.
6:17 — dressed to the nines and zenned out.
7:03 — the sunset glints off your aviators as you smile hello.
8:36 — it actually feels like you’re hitting it off. Not just hot, funny to boot.
Next morning, 9:27 — final draft ready in your inbox.
10:31 — Stacey messages back, “thanks, looks good!”

The difference?

Copygloss handled it. Before you left for the date, actually.

For help with editing, email Dan:
[email protected].