Toxic Words in Copy.

    Be fresh.

    copywriting

    Fresh.

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    “The hardest thing to realize in fashion is that the future lies in the past.  The second hardest thing is to forget the past.”    Cathy Horyn, NYT 7/5/12

    These words are true for branding and advertising as well. Creative ideas that break through must be new and unique. Retreads are boring.  Yet, it’s important for ideas to offer some attendant context. It’s easier to remember numbers in patterns; the same is true for ideas.  That’s why alliterations are common idea conventions. ZDNet’s original strategy “content, commerce and community,” for instance.

    How does one explain the Higgs boson (creating matter out of nothing) without some context?  Not very easily. Same thing with string theory.  These are some of the world’s most heady concepts. They need context.  Conversely, how do you give life to a new lemonade that is less sweet, or a cookie dough that is more natural?  As Cathy Horyn suggests “forget the past.”  Find context for selling premise (create bias toward purchase) then be fresh. Really fresh. Uncomfortably fresh.

    Either Walter Weir or John Caples (godfathers of copywriting) once said “good copy sounds like copy.”  That was then.  Seventeen billion words of copy ago. Today fresh wins the day.  Peace.  

    Copywriting? Creative Writing? Or Writing?

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    Writing is a core competence in marketing. And copywriting an even higher-level competence. A most powerful one. (Albeit there’s no Pulitzer Prize awarded. Hee hee.) Yet, one of the flaws of copywriting — and it’s a big flaw — is writers are often not well-informed about the products under their care. They may know a handful of key selling points but have few, if any, backstories or history about the product. What results is nicely written prose but very little of substantive value. 

    It’s almost writing by numbers.

    There’s an old axiom in advertising “If you don’t have something to say, sing it.” And that is what most copywriting is today. Sing songy assemblages of words that do little to convince. And they don’t convince because most ads aren’t built using a brand claim, or a cascade of proof to build a case for purchase. An ethnographer would say today copywriters live in copy bullpens, never setting foot in the product or consumer room.

    Copywriters aren’t given enough time to adequately understand their products and services. They’re on the clock and unprepared. It’s not their fault they lack product training and understanding, that’s the fault of brand managers. 

    Creative writing is what they do. Without proper product understanding it can’t even be considered creative.

    Peace.  

    PS.  There are a hundred of so brilliant copywriters out there, don’t get me wrong. But thousands and thousands of songsters.

     

     

    Think Before You Type. People Are Listening.

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    Any copywriter will tell you words are important.  Of course, they will.  But how many will dig deeply enough to find the right words that connect with the target. That demonstrate to a target they understand, sympathize, empathize and gets the reader?  Words can be found in a dictionary.  AI copy is not that far away, if it is not here already. Auto AdWords anyone? Good copy is personal.

    I heard something on NPR this morning that struck me as a great example of words versus copy.  The story was about the shooting of Jayland Walker, a black man, in Akron, OH and this was the lede: “One in one thousand black men in America can expect to be shot by a police officer.” It’s a real smack in the face line of copy — but it must have been written by a white person because it is utterly untrue. I’d say nearly all black men in America worry about being shot by a police officer. Not one in a thousand. Parse the sentence and it may have been accurate — statistically one in one thousand black men may be shot by police. But that’s not what a black man is likely to hear.

    We have to listen to our words. We have to try to contextualize our words.  That shit isn’t woke. It’s listening and thinking. Think before you type.

    Rest In Peace Jayland Walker.

     

    Tossing Copy Poems.

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    I was just listening to a radio commercial for lawn mulch.  The main idea the commercial was that a person got a delivery containing nails and other foreign thingies. A start. 

    But then two copywriting issues.  One was the line “all bark no bite” which seemed to play to the aforementioned purity point. And another tagline sounding ditty: “You can see the difference.” Or something to that effect.

    First, I have no idea who the company was, so the commercial failed immediately. No brand or name recognition. As mentioned, the heart of the ad was the offer of clean mulch — a problem I didn’t know existed. But at least it’s a believable problem. As for “all bark no bite” it sounds fun and tips its hat to the strategy, yet what does bite refer to? And lastly, the idea of mulch for which “you can see the difference” is silly. A waste of words. All mulch looks the same. Colors may differ but that’s it.

    This is an example of a copywriter without any sales skill. Perhaps a radio station copywriter doing spots by the pound. Tossing out copy poems.

    Ask yourself what’s the idea?  Build a story around the idea. Prove the story claim. Then get credit for the idea by repeating your name a few times. And a few more times.

    Peace.