But what also sets Monday Note apart is its formatting. Perhaps here at Plain Text we just don’t read enough blogs, but I don’t recall seeing others that use this one’s simple technique of starting paragraphs, and major points in the story, with a sentence or a few words in bold.

It’s simple, but using bold this way really works. Having it at the start of the para makes it somehow more convincing, more credible than if it were a subhead. And Gassée and Filloux make sure that whatever’s in bold is also properly interesting, usually a short, attention-grabbing sentence. It draws the eye down the page and through the argument.

Maybe it’s the weight of what they write that makes it work. But these bold beginnings, together with some choppy paragraphs and a smattering of images, make their long, involved posts a joy to read.

Contrast this with ‘traditionally’ formatted pieces (or my personal pet peeve, the multi-web page mega-article) where no matter skillful the writer, it still seems harder to appreciate their words online than in print.

Let’s hope they haven’t been pesky and copyrighted the technique. Because it really works – and could maybe help businesses to cheer up some of their ‘thought leadership’.

It’s a near 2,000-page all-copy ad by ad guru David Ogilvy selling the skills of his agency and I’d wager that all the wisdom still applies. As a writer it’s good to hear affirmation that people read long copy (”the more you tell, the more you sell”) and although one of Copyranter’s commenters disagrees I think that’s still the case today.

The ad is also a great example of thought leadership – letting your wisdom and insight drive business rather than battering people over the head with sales messages.

Not sure what Ogilvy would think of one his agency’s recent copy-heavy efforts, though, a full-page press ad that’s part of the ‘new logistics’ campaign for UPS. I took a pic of its closing paras at the time, a little dumbfounded by the verbosity.

Was I missing something or is it a little too abstract?

“Skid-lid bonk-stink crack tech cracked in Germany”

Connoisseurs may take issue with the repetition of ‘crack/cracked’ but I reckon it’s sheer headline genius. Just as good if not better than famous tabloid newsletter efforts such as The Sun’s “Obama Lama ding-dong”, fronting an article which implied a geopolitical rift over the US president’s meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader. Although that was surely a headline that had been sitting in a drawer somewhere just waiting for the flimsiest pretext to be used.