What You Need to Succeed
The seven habits of highly successful copywriters
Applied to your career as much as the door.
The previous nine lessons are about how to write copy. As we enter the home straight let’s look at how to be a copywriter—in particular, the magnificent seven qualities we think every copywriter needs to give their career a supercharged start.
No one will make your career happen but you. If you want to get on (and the fact you’re reading this sentence right now strongly suggests you do), then it’s your responsibility to learn all you can, demonstrate your commitment every chance you get, create opportunities where none exist, and generally give Lady Luck a helping hand. As Ogilvy wrote:
If you prefer to spend all your spare time growing roses or playing with your children I like you better, but do not complain that you are not being promoted fast enough.
So that’s what this lesson is about—the noble art of Getting On. Over the years we’ve noticed many of our more successful colleagues share certain well-defined characteristics and work in certain well-defined ways. This similarity suggests they’ve stumbled onto something important. What follows is a whistle-stop tour through a series of insights it might otherwise take you years to acquire through trial and error.
Habit no. 1—cultivate curiosity
The best copywriters—indeed the best creatives in any field—have an insatiable interest in the world. Many years ago US advertising executive James Webb Young described how the brightest writers he knew were “curious about everything—from Ancient Egyptian burial customs to modern art.” We suggest you cultivate the same universal inquisitiveness.
Top of the list of things every writer should be curious about is how good writing works. Luckily that’s easy to research—just read more. You’ll unconsciously absorb pointers on style, pacing, vocabulary, imagery, storytelling, and the rest, many of which you can make your own. Good prose often employs the “me to you” perspective that we’ve said is a hallmark of good copy. By reading the right stuff you’ll see how a range of authors make and sustain this connection, which is the first step to doing the same yourself.
What should you be reading? Anything from Dostoyevsky to DC Comics—the only real measure is that it works. So-called trash is as valuable as Shakespeare, provided it’s good, effective trash. If something speaks to you as you read it and its message stays with you once you’ve finished then it’s worth your attention.
Your authors’ top ten favorite books (well, for today). Roger left, Gyles right.
This pastiche, long-copy ad shows a real curiosity for period detail.
I’ve never liked the term “copywriting,” both because it implies that the act of writing copy is somehow different from regular writing (it’s not), and because it suggests that the writing itself is what’s most important (it’s not).
Copywriters, like all writers, have two parts to their job. Part one is figuring out what to say and part two is deciding how best to say it. Early in my career, I was much better at the second part than the first. I wrote beautiful, meaningless sentences that were universally praised for their poetry and universally criticized for lacking any real content. I think this is common among those of us who get into the industry because we love to write. In fact, that’s the problem right there—we love to write—and while knocking words against each other in an attempt to create sparks is certainly a big chunk of the job, it’s not all of it, or even the most crucial part.
First and foremost, copywriting is about ideas, whether it’s a brilliantly clear way of explaining a complex subject, a fresh angle on a well-trodden story, an act of synthesis that weaves together seemingly unconnected strands into a sturdy argument, or, quite simply, the truth. It may be a shock to see that last word in there, especially since the general impression of our kind is that we exist to spin bad news or just make things sound pretty, but at its best copywriting uncovers truths that were hidden there all along, in plain sight, and hoists them up for everyone to see.
Some of the best copywriters aren’t even very skilled as wordsmiths. They simply come up with astounding ideas and then present them as plainly as possible. A line like Nike’s immortal Olympic reminder that, “You don’t win silver, you lose gold,” doesn’t impress because of its mastery of the subtleties of the English language. It impresses because it gleefully pisses in the face of those sainted athletes who have trained their entire lives only to be second best. Those seven words communicate more about Nike than most brands could get across in a year’s worth of work. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.
You have to build a house before you can decorate it. You may have the perfect painting ready to brighten up the dining room, but without four walls and a roof, there’s nowhere to hang it. It’s the same with copywriting. Without a strong idea to hang your words on they’ll collapse under their own weight, shapeless. Build the house first. You may even find, in the process, that the house is interesting enough on its own without a lot of embellishment cluttering things up.
Don’t write copy. Write the truth, write it clearly, and then get out of the way.
Ben Hughes is a writer, creative director, photographer, and filmmaker. His advertising career has included stops at Ogilvy & Mather, R/GA, Mother, and, most recently, Wieden+Kennedy, where he was one of the youngest creative directors in the agency’s history. In addition, he has written about music, books, and technology for Esquire; directed and edited music videos; created Web content for Le Grand Magistery, Esquire, and Little, Brown & Company; and written screenplays for Tribeca Film and Maker Studios. His work has been recognized by the One Show and AICP and nominated for an Emmy. We’d hate him if he wasn’t such a thoroughly nice guy.
Of course it’s not just books that have something to say —you can learn from anything and anywhere. If it’s got words on it, it’s your job to understand how those words work. Having done so, file away what you have learned for the future. It’s amazing how often some tiny feature of a long-forgotten text can suddenly present itself as the perfect solution to a seemingly intractable problem.
What we’re saying is, get into the habit of automatically analyzing the words you meet in the world. Immerse yourself in text at every opportunity—how many other professions are there where you can genuinely improve your expertise while appearing to stare vacantly at the label on a beer bottle? As Marcel Proust wrote,
“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
This is an important point—more or less anything can suggest an idea, it all depends on how you look at it. The more you take in today, the more raw material you’ll have to work with tomorrow. Implicit in this is the idea that creativity is about seeing connections, something we’ll look at next.
Habit no. 2—seek connections
Connections are the essence of creativity. The best writers, artists, musicians, and so on combine isolated ideas to produce something new that’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s a 1+1=3 thing.
According to actor, producer, and Monty Python member John Cleese, “Creativity is not a talent. It’s a way of operating.” And that “way of operating” is about finding connections in order to make something fresh. Back in 1933 Harry Beck, an engineering draftsman by trade, created one of the best infographics ever when he combined the chaotic London Underground system with the clarity of a schematic wiring diagram.
The result was the Tube map that Londoners still use today.
This ability to connect the unconnected is a key skill for copywriters. Work at it long enough and you’ll automatically develop the creative “way of operating” described by John Cleese. Seeking—and finding— connections will become second nature; once that happens your creative thinking will come on in leaps and bounds.
Habit no. 3—nurture resilience
Every copywriter needs some iron in the soul. Without inner strength you risk being bruised by the many disappointments you’ll encounter in your career. This habit is about finding a way to “keep buggering on” (as Churchill colorfully put it) in the face of all adversity.
To help you, we can’t overstate the importance of developing a quiet confidence in your abilities and worth—if you don’t believe in you, then why should anyone else? Crass as it sounds, you’ve got to believe you can have great ideas on demand, convert them into magical words, sell them to whoever commissioned you, and generally do your job to a stratospheric standard. If you think you can, you will, so consciously practice self-belief by reminding yourself of your successes, however slight. Everyone is prey to the occasional wobble but if you make a habit of self-doubt then you’re lost.
As well as inner strength you also need exterior armor in the form of a rhinolike thick skin. H. G. Wells—author of The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man—wrote, “No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone’s draft.” This urge to tinker is a reliable source of grief for all writers. The only solution is to toughen up so the slings and arrows of outrageous copy changes don’t hurt quite so much (Wells also wrote that “Advertising is legalized lying,” but let’s move swiftly on).
In retrospect Harry Beck’s combination of map and circuit diagram seems obvious, but then all great ideas do.
Complicated ideas communicated with ease. A masterclass in making unexpected connections.
Annoying though some of these copy changes may be, if they come from someone paying the bill then you must pay attention. Looking on the bright side, they’re almost certainly well meaning and might even be beneficial. Back in the day Roger worked at an agency whose boss advised his writers to “assume positive intent” if they were on the receiving end of client criticism. Similarly, Bill Bernbach allegedly went into every client meeting with a typed note in his jacket pocket that read, “They might be right.” Both make the same point—like you, the client wants the work to be as good as it possibly can be. The fact they’ve just rejected all your carefully crafted headlines is simply their strange way of showing it.
Habit no. 4—sell yourself
Most copywriters are in the business of helping brands present their best face to the world. To get into the industry (and get on once you’re inside) you need to do the same for yourself. Here’s how.
First, your résumé. Visit the websites of established copywriters you admire, download their résumés, and see what features you can borrow—not the words, obviously, but rather any good ideas or layout details. For example, a one-paragraph summary of who you are and what you do right under your name gives interviewers a convenient synopsis/memory-jogging device if they’re seeing lots of people over the course of a day.
If you’re starting out then you won’t have much in the way of experience. Don’t try to disguise this. Instead put the most positive spin possible on what you have done. Mention absolutely any writing you’ve produced that could count as copywriting and include any creative endeavors you’ve been involved with that show problem-solving and persistence. In the absence of a track record, aim to emphasize the quality of your thinking and your character traits. At this stage it’s about communicating your potential.
As if there isn’t enough to be angry about.
Next, your portfolio/book. Again, the best advice we can give is look at how others are presenting their work and learn from their approach. Elaborate physical portfolios are probably unnecessary; you’ll get far more mileage out of an e-mailable PDF document. Each page needs to include the client name, the agency name, a description of the job format, a summary of what the job was about, and a sample of the choicest text to impress your reader. If the work achieved any useful results then shout them out. Top and tail your PDF portfolio with an intro page at the front (perhaps describing your writing philosophy in a few short lines) and a contact details page at the back.
Next, your website. At a minimum you need a single page that introduces you and prominently features a résumé and portfolio. A good photo never hurts, but for God’s sake don’t make it inane. If you’ve got other stuff worth saying then say it, but padding your site is pointless —one lean, mean page is better than six slack ones.
For all these items it’s worth investing in some design help. A real designer can make a remarkable difference to even the humblest résumé or portfolio. Do it yourself if you can, but be realistic—if your skills are less than stellar then seek assistance. If you’re strapped for cash then find a young designer who needs something writing and swap services—that way you get good-looking promotional material and a job you can include in your portfolio.
Finally, let’s talk tone. We suggest you keep your résumé and portfolio straight and professional. These are functional documents and not the place to project your personality. You can have a bit more fun with your website but as always, remember your reader. They don’t want to see anything about your hamster, your holiday, or your love of table hockey. Instead they want to see a quick, intelligent problem solver who’s crazy in love with copywriting and who’ll be fun to have around the office. Subtly show that your face will fit, and you might get the chance to prove it.
The importance of platform
One way to get yourself noticed is to build and maintain what’s sometimes called a platform.
A platform is simply the collective name for the various things you do and the channels you use to tell the world about you and your work. Platforms typically comprise a mix of on- and offline comms, although according to influential US writer Michael Hyatt, they’re really built of people in the form of contacts, connections, and followers—whatever tech happens to be involved is incidental and only there to make and sustain connections.
In the online world, blogging is perhaps the most effective way to build a platform. Blog regularly and well about subjects that interest your intended readership, and in time your rep will increase. That’s because success today is down to a combination of two things—a compelling product (you), and a compelling way of promoting the product (your platform). Just be aware that nothing will happen overnight and finding an authentic voice (and subject matter) for your blog can take some trial and error. By all means exploit other social-media channels, but the humble blog is probably the best place to begin.
In the offline world, platform building is about doing relevant, interesting stuff. By “stuff” we mean practically anything—from organizing an event to writing a book to making a movie to starting a business. That’s because there’s real value in side projects that somehow support your wider career goal. Done well, these things can act as a creative crowbar you can use to prise open the door to agencies and get yourself in front of decision makers. They can work as talking points during interviews and as gifts to soften up hard-nosed prospects. They give you a place to try out ideas that might bear fruit in your day job. And they show you’re a self-starter who can make stuff happen and who doesn’t spend all their spare time watching trash TV.
The point is that while the industry might not be falling over itself to pick you, you can pick yourself by making your own way with side projects and personal initiatives that enable you to put your skills into action. As Todd Henry, the chap behind the excellent Accidental Creative podcast puts it, “You will be known for what you do, so you better start doing what you want to be known for.”
Habit no. 5—work smart
The great microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” If you want to capitalize on those rare moments when fate presents you with an opportunity to advance your career then it pays to be prepared, and that means knowing a few tricks about working smarter.
Firstly, you’ll struggle to write well if you haven’t got inside your subject. While cutting and pasting from source documents is a convenient way to amass raw material, it also means you’re not really engaging with what they have to say. Retyping or, better still, writing important material out longhand, creates a far deeper connection. It’s the difference between skimming and understanding. And while you’re involved in this process of paraphrasing there’s a good chance you’ll stumble upon a few choice phrases that might make great sticky lines.
Next, we strongly suggest you can explain and justify your work to clients/bosses. As Dave Trott puts it:
“If it’s the right thing to do we must be able to explain it. If we can’t explain it maybe it isn’t the right thing to do.”
He goes on to point out that “I like it/don’t like it” isn’t a reason, it’s an opinion. A far better approach is to say “This works/doesn’t work because….” Thinking in these terms forces us to introduce a dash of objectivity. Typically that means making some reference to the brief and/or audience. It barely matters what “I” think anyway; it’s what they—your readers—think that really counts.
Next, you need to cultivate your listening skills. When you’re interviewing someone to root out raw material, remember the old salesman’s saying, “you’ve two ears and one mouth—use ’em in that proportion.” However, even the most switched-on listener won’t catch everything. It’s just not possible to simultaneously take notes, think of the next question, and provide the many reassuring uh-huhs that interviewees need. The solution is a voice recorder or Dictaphone—either a smartphone app or dedicated device. Recording what was actually said means you’ll capture every detail. Transcribing it can be tedious, but all that listening and typing concentrates the mind wonderfully and gets you inside the material in a way little else can. We massively recommend the Dictaphone approach.
Lastly, let us praise professionalism. This covers everything from a dogged determination to get the job done regardless of obstacles, through to not stealing from the stationery cupboard. It’s all very well being a maverick genius who’s on a one-way ticket to immortality and raising hell to get there, but not preparing for meetings, losing important documents, forgetting people’s names, avoiding eye contact, leaving the office kitchen looking like a medieval pigsty, texting while talking to clients, and taking a relaxed approach to timekeeping won’t win you any friends. So be nice, be sincere, look people in the eye, do tedious stuff with a glad heart, and generally treat your job like, well, a job. People will notice, just as they’ll notice the opposite.
Most writers I know got into this business by accident, reflecting the diverse group of people we are. I think it strengthens an industry that needs depth and variety. I’m not knocking the many writing courses around; just pointing out that there isn’t an approved route or required qualification to be part of this business. Talk to people about how they got started and you’ll find no one’s the same. And the great thing is there’s nothing stopping you.
Having said that, the next thing to say is this isn’t about you. If every tone of voice you create—every piece you write—sounds just like you then you’re missing the point. All that matters is the voice of the brand.
Every professional writer listens, watches, and reads voraciously. Do the same—way beyond what you write for a living. It gives you a better perspective. There are lines in any soap opera worthy of Pinter at his best. Confront your tastes and comfort zones. Be critical but not prejudiced.
Good writing is good writing wherever it is. Enjoy it. Of course there’s rubbish, but Terminator 4 doesn’t make Terminator 1 a bad film. It just makes 4 a mistake.
We help people sell stuff—however you define selling. We are in business. Be a poet in your spare time (but don’t stop writing or reading poetry—it teaches you precision). David Abbott—arguably advertising’s best writer—said if your readers are concentrating on your wonderful writing, they’re not paying attention to the argument. It’s not that I don’t like wonderful writing, it’s just that brilliance is incidental unless it’s what the brand calls for.
Which brings us to murder. Either William Faulkner or Graham Greene said it first, but both were right: “kill your darlings.” We’ve all fallen in love with a fabulous phrase; sometimes we’ve organized whole pieces around it. It has to go. Kill your darlings.
Biographies of writers are great sources of insights into how to improve your craft. Along with many, many people, I think the best book about writing is On Writing by Stephen King. Whether you like his novels or not, can any of us honestly say we have nothing to learn from him? And as you’d expect, it’s a great read.
Finally, Cuban crime novelist Leonardo Padura Fuentes gets asked why he still lives in a Havana suburb when his fame means he could live anywhere in the world. The question says a lot about the assumptions of his interviewers.
Padura talks about living in the house his grandfather and father lived in. How essential good coffee is, how important casual conversations on the streets are, and how we balance our perceptions of how life functions around us.
The point he’s making is about understanding the context in which you work.
I think that’s the first duty we have as writers.
A former Director of Verbal Identity at Interbrand, Andy has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands. Today he’s a writer and strategist based in London whose clients include The Clearing, OPX, Siegel+Gale, and Fitch. Andy’s background in advertising means he’s also written for the likes of Leagas Delaney and Publicis. With a foot in both the branding and advertising camps, Andy is just the sort of chap to help readers benefit from his considerable experience.
Habit no. 6—practice pragmatism
“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.” Salvador Dalí
Perfection doesn’t exist. Pursuing it is a waste of time and energy that can only end in disappointment. While Writer A is struggling (and inevitably failing) to create a masterpiece by endlessly revising a draft or torturing themselves about whether something works or not, Writer B is just getting on with it.
Lorne Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live, puts it like this, “The show doesn’t go out because it’s ready; it goes out because it’s 11.30.” It’s a cliché that good enough is good enough, but that’s only because it’s usually true. We’re not saying be satisfied with the first nonsense that flows from your fingertips—clearly you must do the very best you possibly can, but having done that, it’s important to acknowledge that getting something reasonably evolved in front of the rest of your team or your client is the best way to make progress. Giving interested parties the opportunity to help develop a piece by suggesting improvements also creates a sense of shared ownership and involvement; that way they’ll come to work for your idea and not against it.
So our strong advice is this: Get something decent down on paper, make clear it’s a first draft, and ask for comments from the project’s inner circle. If you’re on the right track you’ll get a boost to your confidence and the opportunity to address whatever points were raised during this first review; if not then you haven’t wasted too much time and you’ll have a good idea of how to put things right.
In short, iterative development in public beats quietly killing yourself in private. Remember, this isn’t art—no one is expecting a big reveal whereby you pull the dustsheet off your exquisitely wrought masterpiece to gasps of amazement all round. And even if you manage to cook up something you think is perfection itself, the client will inevitably have some comments that disturb the balance of your creation (and possibly your mind). However you look at it, pragmatism eats perfectionism for breakfast.
Roger’s reply to a recent graduate asking how to get started as a copywriter:
Dear Nick
Thanks very much for your letter. If you’re serious about becoming a copywriter here’s what I suggest you do: start learning. Invest in a course or two (only good ones, mind—D&AD and Dark Angels in the UK) and read everything about copywriting you can find (ideally taking notes). The more you know, the better you’ll be.
As well as reading about writing it’s also a good idea to find one or two heroes and learn from them. There’s nothing wrong, and everything right, in apprenticing yourself—formally or informally—to those with more knowledge and experience than you. We learn by copying those we admire. If that means buying the occasional beer or three then so be it. A bar bill today could mean a better career tomorrow.
Then you need to get a toe in the door, and that means approaching agencies. The people to seek out are creative directors. You need to put together a résumé and a portfolio in PDF format of whatever work you think really shows your writing prowess.
It’s important you tailor the cover e-mail (which should also be short and appealing) to the agency—look at their website and see if there’s anything there you can latch onto—perhaps you’ve worked in a similar area or know something about one of their clients. You just need a sentence or two to make clear you haven’t done a batch mailshot.
Make a list of every agency you can find that employs copywriters and methodically work through, doing say ten applications a week to stop yourself going insane. Offer to do anything; emphasize your teamaking skills and suggest you’re just the person to do all the writing work no one else wants to do.
Above all keep at it until you can’t stand the rejections any longer, then keep at it some more. And always be aware that a job in a less than perfect company could be a stepping-stone to greater things. I started out as a technical writer for software companies and gradually moved over to creative work through much blood, sweat, and tears. Anyway, good luck and keep in touch. Oh and by the way, it helps to get people’s names right. There’s no D in “Roger,” as my e-mail address makes clear. Just saying.
Cheers
What they don’t tell you at school is that work stinks. Oh sure, you might relish the buzz of getting through the interview process for a few happy months, but the chances are that one day you’ll wake up, look at your cheap suit, and think, “What the hell am I doing this for?” OK, you get money, but only in exchange for a large chunk of your life. And you don’t get that back.
The good news is that although there are a thousand deathly dull jobs out there, copywriting isn’t one of them. It has the potential to be highly rewarding in every sense. On a good day it allows you to combine the best of being a teacher, a journalist, a storyteller, a poet, a carnival barker, a propagandist, a businessman, a psychologist, and any number of other occupations. It allows you to join a motley crew of commercial writers whose history, in one form or another, stretches back to at least the eighteenth century, when Dr. Johnson commented, “Advertisements are now so numerous that…it is necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic.”
Successful copywriters are aware of all this. They know things could be a whole lot worse, and whether by luck or judgment (it’s usually a bit of both) they’ve found themselves with a career many people would kill for.
Instead of feeling smug, this knowledge spurs them on to greater things—more hard work, more study, more commitment, more achievement, at which point the process starts again as their status and salary rise.
So give thanks, remember what you’ve read here, and try to make the next piece of work you do better than anything you’ve done before. Good luck.
Now you have a go
Ambition shows in everything you do, including sticking at it to the very end. So go on, one last effort before you close the covers and say good riddance to this damn book.
Workout One
You’ve missed your train. Instead of reaching for your headphones while you wait for the next, have a look around for the nearest piece of copy. It might be an ad, a piece of signage, a public-information statement, or something else entirely—it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you cast a critical eye over it and assess what’s good and bad about the text. Does it succeed or fail? If it works, how exactly does it achieve its effect? Write a series of bullet points describing and analyzing what you see.
Next, ask yourself what you would change. In other words, how would you rework the copy to either correct any faults or increase its impact? Write out the changes you’d make.
Finally, what can you steal? Is there anything impressive about the text that you feel is worth stashing away for future reference? Write it all down.
Workout Two
Earlier we mentioned the importance of being able to justify your work to colleagues and clients. Thinking about what to say in these situations serves two purposes—it forces you to confront any weakness in your work, and it encourages you to find exciting ways to sell your words (some of which might find their way into the piece itself). Remember, if you don’t feel a thrill when you read your words then it’s unlikely anyone else will.
To practice this we want you to write a press release for a recent piece of writing you’ve completed. It should be pithy—three paragraphs are plenty. Describe your work in the most compelling way you can—it doesn’t have to be polished, but it does have to be captivating. Your goal is to leave readers desperate to read the piece your press release describes. Our point is that every significant idea you produce should be able to justify the press-release treatment—get that right and you’re well on your way to being a star.