BTS (Behind The Site)

The Word by Sonder and Tell. Writing Worth Reading

There are currently are 1.92 billion (and counting) websites online. On average, a user is likely to spend less than 15 seconds on one.

Websites are a showpiece and a great way to communicate your value to your customer – and to the world. As marketers, not only are we vying for the attention of our audience, but we’re also fighting for our audience to stay long enough to recognise us as authority figures who can help them to solve their problems.

At Sonder & Tell, we’re all about building stories for clients, and we wanted to tell our own story really well too. So last year, we revamped our website to encourage visitors to stay.

How did we do that? Our about us isn’t about our founders but our clients, because they’re the real heroes of our story. Our team bios are written in limericks and haikus, because brands choose to work with us for our language skills and not our university degrees. Our thinking page, where we pontificate on brand story and tone of voice, has been built with animation and interaction to snap back at the mindless scroll. Just like we try to break the mould with the strategies we create.

This playful spirit was brought to life in the design, thanks to graphic designer and illustrator Anita Cheung (read more about that below). The community page is where we engage with wordsmiths and content creators from all over the world, because we believe that writing worth reading is also worth sharing.

Think...
Who is your brand?
What is your positioning?
What is your brand’s tone of voice?
And then ask: would this be clear in a 15-second scroll on your website?

There’s only one way to find out. Go.

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”

— Leo Burnett, advertising executive

Graphic designer and illustrator Anita Cheung helped us level up Sonder & Tell’s digital brand, working on a refurb of this very newsletter, our website and a digital advent calendar of writing exercises. Her doodles are playful and warm, and we’re so here for the homemade meals analogy that she cites to explain her creative process. We asked Anita about the inspiration behind her work and she told us: “If I had to narrow it down to a general category, I would say I’m inspired by beautiful children’s books.”

READ THE INTERVIEW

Vacation is the world’s best-smelling sunscreen brand, with quite possibly the world’s best website. With retro design and 80s typography to match, it's like stepping back in time 30 years. Scroll through its web page and you’ll find FUN. Like Club Vacation, where you can get a virtual business card declaring you 'Manager of the Swim Up Bar' or 'Head of the Competitive Sandcastle-Building Committee'. There’s even a vibe generator (yes, a vibe generator) on its FAQ page where you can create your own personalised calypso sound as you shop around. Steel drums and ocean waves? Yes please.

SCROLL HERE

Your brand’s website is in need of a refurb. Write a feature you'll introduce to switch things up. Include copy examples too.

Hit reply to submit your prompt

Read
The Word is Art – Michael Petry
The Brand Mapping Strategy – Karen Leland

Scroll
Marketing Examples – Harry Dry
Make Sunscreen Fun Again – Kathleen Hou, The Cut
What You Think You Know About the Web is Wrong – Tony Haile, TIME Magazine

Listen
Why You Should Write Your Own Website Copy – Copy Dates The Podcast
S1E6: Mark Wright, BBC's The Apprentice Winner – Marketing Mini Bites

We’re hiring for a part-time Content & Community Manager to join our team (3 days a week). We’re looking for someone with a passion for branding, storytelling and writing to head up this very newsletter, to interview storytellers in the brand world and keep our social channels alive with new work, conversations and culture. You’ll also run our Slack channel The Wordsmiths, facilitating conversations on brand writing to nurture and grow the community, and help us throw online and offline events.

Please apply for the role here, or pass on the details to anyone who you think might be interested.

Applications end 30 January

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Sonder & Tell · Sonder & Tell, Unit 28 · 40 Bowling Green Lane · London, EC1R 0NE · United Kingdom