There’s nowhere to hide when you write advertising copy

Such fun – baring your soul and pouring out fresh new conceptual ideas into a hard-nosed world of executives and bean counters. You’d have to be either stupid or mad to want to do this, or perhaps it’s the only thing that’s ever made sense to you. There is nothing to stop you joining those single-minded, creative wordsmiths who live and breathe advertising copywriting.

Most ad writers work in a specialist agency alongside art directors and designers, and often with account managers looking after the client relationship. Increasing numbers of copywriters are based in-house within a business, sometimes teamed with a designer or, more usually, a creative production artist helping to produce finished results, with advertising included in their mix of other briefs. This may offer less variety, but often allows you to have a lot more control over the copy. The other ad writers are freelance, working alone or in collectives. Some find themselves freelancing after redundancy, others to get their fledgling career moving, and some simply because they are in great demand for their consistently excellent work.

In every case the writer will be commissioned with a brief that will have originated with the client company. It may have passed through a few hands, and it is your responsibility as a writer to take the best possible copy brief, gather as much relevant raw material (background information and sources to follow up) as possible, and to make sure that you are completely clear about the objectives and expectations of the person briefing you. Any errors at this stage can escalate into big problems down the line.

How advertising developed

Advertising is constantly changing. The way in which messages are crafted and communicated is becoming increasingly sophisticated and your writing has to keep up and stay ahead. George Orwell described advertising as “the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket” and he was right, at the time. Early advertising was little more than an attractive sound and a directional sign, pointing people toward what they already knew they needed or wanted. It began as simple flag-waving. By the 1950s and 1960s advertising was trying a lot harder, telling us that the qualities of the new Cadillac included a more powerful engine and better top speed, or that a soap powder “washes whiter.” The audience were now being told what to think and, in general, they went along with it.

As western economies grew, increasing competition in the marketplaces and the growing awareness and sophistication of the consumer forced innovation in the way consumer products were presented, positioned, and sold. If the new Cadillac has a superb, faster engine, what this really means is not that the owners of the new car could arrive at places sooner, it means that they can look (and sound) cooler, have more fun, and feel more special while driving to their destination. So let’s tell them. They’ll imagine that the car will genuinely improve their lives, not just get them around. They may even pay a premium for this. Advertising messages had now started to focus on the customer’s lifestyle and self-esteem, fueling increasing demand by promising the fulfillment of dreams. Recent Porsche advertising exemplifies the state of the art in the automotive industry. The line “A devil on both shoulders” beautifully complements the stunning image of the new Cayman, and tips the wink to the target audience by giving the car an aura of dangerous glamour.

“Among the best copywriters there’s a flair for expression, of putting known and believable things into new relationships. We try to be more straightforward without being flat-footed. We try to be warm without being mawkish.”

Leo Burnett

The birth of conceptual advertising was open season for creative writers. It was exciting and fun, and the 1970s were full of strange ideas such as pregnant men advertising birth control, space aliens telling us about instant mashed potatoes, and a man in a suit telling us he liked a razor so much he bought the entire company. Messages, and the ideas behind them, were starting to evolve, and the consumer was ready to handle them. These are the roots of today’s advertising and direct-marketing copywriting.

The main lesson we can learn from looking back at the development of advertising is that it was always adapting, staying fresh, being surprising, and breaking new ground, and this is what we must continue to do today. It’s about being one step ahead of your reader. With all forms of advertising and direct marketing there are two challenges: reaching your audience; and interacting with them.

What’s the difference between advertising and direct marketing?

The two are closely related but clearly distinct. Advertising is one-way communication; direct marketing (or direct response) aims to be two-way. Technically speaking, advertising is paid-for communication where the client (the company paying for the ad) controls the message, and is identified as doing so (ensuring that there is no confusion between the paid-for messages and the editorial). It’s all about grabbing attention and influencing people’s habits. By contrast, direct marketing sends its messages directly to the consumer or business, without using any other media, and its marketing objective is to generate an immediate response.

Advertising aims to raise awareness of the client’s message to a specific audience, and it operates in every medium and in many different forms. Very high-profile advertising is created by large corporations selling products or services, who are looking to increase demand. Variations of this include charities and government departments promoting humanitarian or policy messages. Recruitment advertising is also a major industry, as is business-to-business or trade advertising. There are many new forms of advertising, especially with the rise of internet usage, and the development of guerrilla advertising (where the surrounding environment is used – sometimes illegally – to display conceptual messages). In today’s competitive commercial world, advertising is one of most dominant forms of communication.

Marketers like direct marketing because its effectiveness can usually be measured accurately, unlike that of most other promotional activities. The level and extent of the response to a mailer is tracked and measured, and the information it provides can be used to shape the next brief you work on for the client. Direct mail, where addresses are purchased and mailers are sent out in bulk, is the most common type of direct marketing. Next on the list are telemarketing and email marketing, as well as inserts in the press or packaging and internet banner ads. A criticism leveled at direct marketing is that it produces tons of “junk mail” and “spam,” and this can work against a brand.

“The first thing that marks a good writer is that he avoids the cliché. He avoids the cliché in his speech, not just in his writing.”

George Gribbin

Advertising that includes a response form or request to call a number or visit a website also falls within the category of direct marketing. This type of writing needs to use powerful concepts to communicate compelling messages effectively, in order to generate the maximum response from as many people as possible.

Getting the pitch right

Whether we admit it or not, there are always some ads that we like, or even love. We all like to shop for the things that we consider important in our lives. It may be to do with a favorite hobby or it may be the monthly supermarket run, but each of us enjoys shopping once in a while. If we enjoy shopping, we don’t mind being given ideas, updates, and information that will help us to shop. This is the attitude to adopt as you tackle each new advertising brief.

If you can pitch it correctly, which is a very delicate process, your audience may just lap it up.

You will be briefed by the client or an account manager from a creative agency, and while the main brief will apply to both you and a designer, you will need to take a separate copy brief or at least interview the briefer about the core messages, supporting information, target audience, and USPs on which you will be focusing.

When writing advertisements ask yourself who you are actually writing for. The answer is simple. The only people you’re writing advertising for are the members of your target audience. The better you know and understand them, the better your chance of getting a good response from them. You’re not waving a flag or rattling a swill bucket with a stick anymore, you’re moving into their private space, having a quiet word, and giving them new ideas that they simply cannot resist.

Getting to the heart of the problem

In almost every advertising copy brief you will find a core problem that is being solved for your reader by your client, by providing a product or service that addresses a clear need. This should lie at the heart of your thinking when breaking down and analyzing the content in the brief, and when deciding which message or messages to focus on in the advertisement. After all your preparation, these three essential elements will be the focus of your copy:

1. Who is your target audience and what are they like?
2. What is the core message to be communicated to them?
3. Why is this interesting, and what about it is different or unique?

It is not enough to be a creative thinker with a good vocabulary or a clever grasp of English. You’re writing about commercial activity and you must understand the business context fully. Too many writers rely on a good turn

of phrase, such as “we all know how hard it can be to …,” “if you’re like most people, you’re looking for …,” or “these days, it’s takes all you’ve got just to … .” Focus on hard information and save the padding for a brief that gives you nothing at all to go on.

The Greenpeace ad featured here shows a clear thought process that can be traced back to the brief. The writer understood something fundamental about the audience: they want someone to risk life and limb to stop whaling, but they don’t want to risk their own. It seems pretty obvious, really, when you think about it. Turn this into a succinct headline: “Some people risk their lives in the Antarctic to save the whales. Those people are called not me.” – suddenly everyone in the target audience can relate immediately to the concept. Apart from the stunning photography and excellent typography, the power lies in the strapline “You don’t have to join us, to join us.” This is a strong call to action. The whole concept comes from studying the nature of the target audience, as outlined in the brief.

“I find if I drink two or three brandies, or a good bottle of claret, I’m far better able to write. I also find that if I listen to music, this loosens me up. I also find that if I read the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for 15 minutes, this may start trains of thought.”

David Ogilvy

To understand your client’s business as a writer you have to view it through the customer’s eyes, and ask probing questions. Get to know the business by being a customer if you can, or by touring their factory floor. If possible, interview the key directors or managers, and ask plenty of those “stupid” questions to challenge the hype and see what is really going on. You’ll be surprised how many original creative ideas can grow from these conversations. You won’t know what you’re digging up until you find it, so don’t worry too much; just cover all of the ground and process it when you get back to base.

It’s time to commit

You can’t process your material forever. Sooner or later it’s commitment time. Set yourself up somewhere and get on with it.

Begin by letting your imagination explore the links and connections between the benefits of your product or service and the lifestyle of the target audience. Day-dreaming – the structured sort – helps, as this sort of lateral thinking will help you to make connections that business-thinkers will never see. Your goal is to inspire yourself first, and then inspire your audience.

For example, if you are writing advertisements for Harley-Davidson, build a picture of the audience. The brand is clearly aspirational, giving people the sense that they are rebels, individuals, not part of the rat race. Who aspires

to this? Free spirits, free thinkers, strong characters, independent minds.

And what are these people like? They do their own thing, they make up

their own minds, and they don’t take any crap. How are we going to advertise motorcycles to them? Very directly, with no sales speak. We need them to recognize themselves in the ad, and then see that a Harley fits into their lifestyle. It has to be their thought process, not ours, that gets them there.

The early stages of developing your creative ideas will feel a bit strange. With your notes from the brief in front of you, you’ll consider the selling points and benefits, and how you can link these to your audience. Some sensible connections will come to mind first, followed by seemingly random ideas and loose concepts. Keep jotting these down and revisit them. At this stage it makes little difference if they are good, bad, or indifferent.

Working on your imaginary brief for Harley, you should be sketching out some character profiles that fit your audience. Get the clichés out of the way – the Hell’s Angels, the big scary nasty bikers – and steer toward the bulk of your audience. We’re not dealing with kids here, these are people who have lived their lives, know who they are, and what they’re looking for. Come up with a few phrases for each of the character profiles you’re doodling (using cartoons or words). What sort of things would they say?

At this early stage you’re not assessing the quality of your ideas, you’re simply getting them (formed and unformed) out of your head and on to the page. Keep pushing yourself and remain confident that you will eventually shape one or more of these roughs into an effective creative solution.

With your Harley ad you’ve decided, based on your audience profile, that you’re not going to try to sell them a bike. You’re going to portray their lifestyle, and what better way to do this than putting some of them in the ads, accompanied by typical things they might say. Make sure you get this right, or you’ll lose all of your readers and might damage the brand.

“In most agencies – in all agencies – there’s a shortage of copywriters. Good ones. And the good ones are so overworked they almost stagger from one assignment and one meeting to another.”

David Ogilvy

Take a break after your one-person brainstorming session. Make a cup of tea or walk around the block, and let go of the brief. When you come back

to your desk, review your ideas dispassionately, referring back to your overall objectives. Although some of your ideas will be too poor to be developed, others, though incomplete, will have something good about them. Sometimes the solution lies in the merging of several rough ideas into one new one.

Your portrait-sketches of Harley bikers should be feeling quite real now. It’s time to take these and create advertising with them.

Prepare two or three routes that you feel confidently address all of the main elements in the brief: the core message being presented with a clear benefit and a strong point of difference (highlighting the product’s or service’s USP) in the audience’s own language. Consider how your copy lines can be brought to life with imagery and graphics, and be prepared to adjust the copy to facilitate the design treatment. One element must dominate the page, and if this is going to be a visual image your copy may have to be more passive.

If you’re showing Harley riders, use the best photograher you can find, and don’t use models – only the real deal will work with this approach. Take your best three or four portraits and give each of them the best line you can write. You can let them breathe. Just have a full-bleed shot showing aspects of their lives, let the line speak for itself, and brand it with your logo. No other motorcycle company can claim this territory, so make the most of it.

The main types of advertising

Having settled on the best route or routes to work up into finished design treatments you can now edit your copy into its final shape. You may have a precise word count, or a space on the page to fill, or you may have been given a fairly free rein.

The real Harley ads have beautiful photography, great character portraits, and cracking lines. One has a close-up of a biker’s grizzled beard next to the line “May wind be the only product in your hair.” Another shows a female crouching to apply makeup, checking her reflection in the chrome of her bike. The line reads “Do this, do that, blah blah blah.” No need to water it down or spoil the effect with body copy, you can leave the rest to the reader’s imagination.

Take your creative ideas to the extreme

Creativity is not simply about going off on a flight of fancy and painting grand concepts for your audience to decode and interpret. You need a strong nerve and a confident approach to use abstract ideas to make your point, and your concept must be rooted in the core message in your brief. For each format there is a different set of guidelines:

Product-specific

Focus on a single, overriding benefit, keep the whole thing very simple, and let the few elements you use breathe.

For example, Nokia’s press advertising for the 6300 model showed an immaculate image of the phone with the lines: “Simply beautiful” and “Beautifully simple,” which conveyed everything about the new model.

Service-specific

Outline the problem it solves. Be clear about who provides the service, how it is accessed, and why it is the best value for money.

Clever Wally’s direct marketing (pages 50–1) is headed “We make it, you bake it” and “Free delivery,” followed by a phone number. Once this has been made clear, the mailer/menu expounds on the fun of cooking a fresh pizza at home.

Business-to-business

Trade customers are primarily interested in making profit. Reassure them about quality, service, and delivery, but focus on professionalism and trust.

The Royal Bank of Scotland advertise to their business customers using the line “Less talk” to support images of suited men in a meeting spouting the words “bull, bull, bull, bull, bull, bull …” and “bluster, bluster, bluster, bluster … .” This suggests that this bank is sharp, focused, and on-the-ball.

Recruitment

Outline the company, the opportunity, the candidate, the package, and the process. It makes a lot of sense to put the bulk of this on the website and lead the readers to the additional content through the press advertisement, which can then focus on attracting their attention.

In the UK’s Creative Review magazine, a design agency ran an advertisement alongside glossy, half-page advertisements (with 500-word descriptions) that read simply “We would like to meet a passionate designer to work on a wide range of web and print based projects,” with just an email and web address for following up. The website explained how to apply, and provided all of the necessary background material. This is efficient, cost-effective, and clear, and projects great brand values, suggesting the agency is organized and acute.

To profile your audience you will need to:

Profiling your audience

Your twin goals are to attract your audience and interact positively with them. You must find out who they are, where they are, and what they are really like, using your own instincts as much as the background information you’re supplied with, in the same way that Greenpeace and Harley-Davidson might do in order to create their advertising.

To help develop your ability to get a clear insight into the different characteristics of each audience you’ll write for, take a bit of time to think about the people in your life, how they each speak to you, and how you speak to them. What is it that characterizes those people that you most like talking to, and those that turn you off? Could you replicate this on paper? What do their voices look like when written down?

Developing your “bedrock” body copy

For your copywriting bedrock, build up a confident tone of voice that you can draw on in many different situations to convey a message warmly and succinctly. This needs to be inviting, fresh, and very concise and is perfect for all sorts of body copy. Write out your body copy fully and then edit it down as tightly as possible. Use your instincts to develop a feel for the sort of language and approach with which everyone is most comfortable, and use this as the overall tone of voice for your copy in support of the more creative copy for the conceptual elements.

Creative angles for you to consider

There are several tried and tested approaches:

How creative do we have to be?

Let’s forget about being creative and get on with the job of writing advertisements. The creativity is inherent in the process, but if you try too hard to make your ad better than anyone else’s you’ll only skim the surface. Put all of your energy into understanding what presses your reader’s buttons, and then think about how to press them, which is the fun bit.

You can brainstorm concepts on your own, but it’s more enjoyable and more dynamic to share the process with another creative thinker (usually a writer or graphic designer), especially with the guidance of an experienced creative director. As a beginner you’ll experience each brainstorming session as a one-off, bursting with new ideas, but there are patterns to this type of work and an experienced creative director will be able to distinguish between writing that is truly fresh and that which has been done before.

Direct marketing is about generating an immediate response

A great deal of the effort that goes into direct mailers, and other forms of direct marketing, is put into strategic planning and media or list buying. Everyone on the team involved in the direct-marketing process is trying to profile the same audience. The strategists should lead the way, explaining to the client exactly who they are targeting and why. The media planners and buyers will then select the mailing lists from the many available from specialist list brokers, in order to reach as many members of the target audience as possible within the available budget.

This is all very helpful to you, because it provides lots of information about your audience, as well as how the piece of communication will reach them. If the mailer is inserted into a mainstream music magazine, study the readership profile and work out what it is they like about their magazine, then you can complement or mirror this. If it’s going through the mailbox alone it needs as much help as it can get.

You don’t have many options with direct-marketing copy, because it has

to be so immediate, so it makes sense to follow a pattern in most cases, as outlined below. By following this structure you can put all of your efforts into creating a truly new and appealing approach, and when you have a strong concept in mind simply organize the raw material into the structure provided.