Ink on the Soul: The Psyche of a Copywriter

Okay, so where am I?

I sitting in my hotel room staring at a keyboard that doesn't move and won't move as a wrestle with my inadequacies that only copy can deliver to an imperfect mind. It both frightening and paralyzing. I have four books in print, countless commercials still on air, and a straight from Korean theater to DVD movie I've penned and yet, one client shakes her head at some ad copy and I freeze up.

But why?

Digging around the mind of anyone in this odd cricket-herd we call advertising and marketing is a virtuous way to see some bizarre and dreadful things. So, to poke a manicured finger into the hornet’s nest that is your own professional essence is less the subject of a quirky column and more the act of a dodgy madcap.

Nevertheless, the psychosomatic makeup of the regular Joe copywriter comprises the kind of struggle, hallucination, and outright hysteria that coerces us to peel away the aluminum foil helmet and renders the delirious truth. (I’ll warn you though, this column contains a daring amount of wild generality and no trivial degree of hypocrisy).

In most copywriters there exists an abnormal sense of privilege. Not that we demand a powder blue dressing room filled with green M&Ms, pricey writing instruments, and precisely-chilled Perrier, but more a obligation to be listened to. The very nature of the job is to be, not the loudest voice, but the most gripping – to say something predictable and common in a way that feels extraordinary and compulsory. How often have you seen a copywriter punctured by a message that, within the promotional vortex, whines timidly to be noticed?

We’re also guilty of a festering exasperation, a moral disrespect for those who believe that anyone with fingers, eyes and direct access to ink or Microsoft Word is capable of writing serious prose. And, we see these characters everywhere, even prowling in the shadows of our finest and most fruitful client relationships.

A sentiment that our contribution isn’t quite as valued by some as we know it should be is perhaps the energy fueling another common apprehension: a compulsive, crippling, infuriating conscientiousness. Leave some copywriters alone with a flawlessly erected headline and they will rip it to shreds, splattering the walls with a spray of progressively unsatisfying substitutes. I’ve met many a writer chase down a final draft on its way out of the door, paralyzed by a fear that there may be not enough, or indeed too many, commas.

Your typical, well-fed copywriter is also unsettlingly contented with their own professional schizophrenia. We are personas with endless voices and takes clattering around in our minds, with the aptitude to debate for, and against, any exact point with identical persuasion. And yet, while we’re capable of nurturing all kinds of dissimilar voices, we never truly release our own. Even in that 2200-word manual for a digital camera, our own unique style clicks quietly around the onscreen shutter speed menu.

We are, I suppose, beasts of inspiration trussed inescapably to authenticity. We define success by artistic genius, knowing ultimately it is only properly defined by commercial performance. And amongst all this, we bungee jump in and out of an offbeat state of absorption – spellbound by a brief about insect repellant, or chewing gum, or coffee drinks all the time knowing that none of it really exists. Writing, like advertising, is the art of sculpting fog.

That’s just a few of the phobias and idiosyncrasies I can identify in myself and other writers with whom I’ve interacted. There are some of us who share these, just as there are some with no recognition at all, for this somewhat lumbering picture of our vocation. There are some, I’m quite sure, with an even more complex relationship with the job.

Whether it’s the foundation of abnormality that the job that sends our way, or whether it’s our inherent foibles that direct us to this weird working life, I’m unsure.

Ink on the page, ink on our hands and, without doubt, ink on the soul.

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
The Olivetti girl

Advertising legend George Lois crafted the "Olivetti girl" ad for electric Olivetti typewriter in the mid 1960s. But just who is the Olivetti girl? (From the George Lois website:)

WE HAD TO MAKE THE OLIVETTI TYPEWRITER FAMOUS FOR SECRETARIES TO ACCEPT IT.

Olivetti, the great ltalian typewriter, had been advertised in America with a primary emphasis on the beauty of its design. Among industrial design cognoscenti, Olivetti was always synonymous with beauty, but most people wouldn’t recognize good design if they tripped over it. Sales of Olivetti’s splendid line of electric typewriters had gone stagnant while mighty IBM had the market locked up. IBM was so dominant that purchasing agents of large corporations would rarely even consider buying another brand. We had to breakthrough the IBM barrier. To plot our strategy, Jim Callaway interviewed many key buyers and found that while they regarded Olivetti as a top-notch typewriter, their hands were tied. Secretaries, they explained to Jim, felt that IBM gave them status. So we conceived the Olivetti Girl, who would out-status everyone. We told secretaries that Olivetti was the typewriter to type on. And we were putting across a message that was being seen by her boss, her girl friends, and all those reluctant purchasing agents. We produced six ads and nine TV spots that showed the Olivetti Girl as the star performer in her office, as the secretary who typed faster, neater, sharper, as the girl most I likely to succeed. (One of our headlines summed it up: “When you want to do something right, give it to the Olivetti Girl!”) In a few weeks, brand awareness of Olivetti leaped, and sales of Olivetti typewriters went through the roof.

THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN VS. BROADWAY JOE NAMATH

Believe it or not, these ads were the genesis of the first #TimesUp movement.  The Olivetti campaign burst on the scene in 1972, just as the National Organization for Women was flexing its muscles. NOW attacked the campaign for stereotyping women as underlings (they were furious that only men were shown as bosses while only women were shown as secretaries), and they called me a male chauvinist pig.

They picketed the Olivetti building on Park Avenue and sent hecklers up to my office to un-n-n-nerve me. Something had to be done. Who can fight a woman’s fury? I capitulated. I would do an ad and a TV spot, with a woman executive giving orders to a male secretary. I cast an actual woman exec (not an actress) as the boss. I cast Jets great Joe Namath as the secretary (because he could type).

Lois invited the women of NOW to view the spot, but when they saw the boss ask her secretary for a date at the conclusion of the spot, they were aghast. (You do very good work, Joseph. By the way, what are you doing for dinner tonight?) “It’s an old story,” I said. “The boss always tries to make the secretary.” They cursed Lois, walked out, and never bothered that male chauvinist pig again.

From “Rebel Secretaries,” Time magazine, March 20, 1972:

“This infuriated a group of New York City secretaries, backed by members of the National Organization of Women, a feminist organization, which picketed Olivetti’s headquarters. The 2,000,000 U.S. secretaries —nearly all women, many underutilized and underpaid—would seem to be ideal recruits for Women’s Liberation. Yet few so far have joined the cause. Nevertheless, with new pages being turned almost everywhere else, some are being flipped over in shorthand notebooks too.

Last week, responding to complaints from employees, the U.S. State Department ordered its executives to stop treating secretaries as “char help,” to show a little more diplomacy toward them and to encourage independent secretarial decision making.”

SUMMER LEARNING: Bras Can Solve Road Rage

Okay, so where am I?

I just pulled off an impressive haul at the 38th Telly Awards. I'm stuck in traffic on the 101 Freeway near Hollywood, watching the world swirl around me in a rage (more on that later). One good thing about traffic is that you get a lot of chance to think.

Who wore it better...yeah, Adele did...

I've been to 38 states and spent considerable amount of time in 18 different countries. I've lived on the west coast and the east coast. I've spent upwards of 1,000 days in the Middle East. Having seen the world through different eyes, this expanded living has immensely helped me in my career as an ad man.

"Why is that?" you ask...

...simply you have to live to understand.

Understand the people.

Understand the micro-cultures that exists in pockets of the globe.

You have to get stuck in a traffic jam there. Eat there. Deal with the weather there. You have to deal with a crisis. You have to build a rapport with the people there. Understanding is the key to great advertising, marketing and public relations.

Through all of these experiences you begin to see the differences beyond the stereotypes and the superficial reporting of the media. You see how united we are and how divided we are. But the power of culture is an overwhelming attribute that many mid-level media types miss when researching a new project or campaign.

Yet I digress in traffic as people yell at one another, salute with their middle finger, and slam their cars into each other while texting.

Can we calm America’s road rage? Seriously we all need to take a deep breath. Road rage is frightening. Sometimes it’s deadly. It's where flaring tempers mix with two-ton machines and continues to be a problem on America’s highways, leading to accidents, assaults and occasionally even murder.

It’s a perplexing problem in part because it can happen at anytime and anywhere that roads and vehicles are involved, yet specific statistics on its frequency are hard to come by.

All that aside, though, there are solutions that can at least reduce the number of road-rage incidents. People who are easily angered by slower drivers, detours and other traffic disruptions can be taught to be more aware of their responses and modify them to reduce accident risks, according to research published by the Society for Risk Analysis.

That let’s-calm-down approach is applauded by Scott Morofsky, author of the books “The Daily Breath: Transform Your Life One Breath at a Time” and “Wellativity: In-Powering Wellness Through Communication."

“Sometimes there’s this tendency to throw on the brakes when someone is tailgating us, or use an obscene gesture at an aggressive driver,” says Morofsky, who developed the concept of Wellativity, which helps people address any behavior that inhibits wellness.

“But when you encounter an aggressive driver, you don’t want to engage them or do anything to further agitate them.”

What are some of our behaviors that can aggravate other drivers? The No. 1 culprit is drivers who are texting, according to the Expedia Road Rage Report. Those texting drivers upset 26 per cent of us. Other offenders, in descending order, are tailgaters, left-lane hogs, slow drivers and drivers multi-tasking.

Of course, those examples represent situations that can raise your ire after you are behind the wheel. Often, the foundation for fury on the highway was laid before you got into the car. Maybe you had an argument with someone earlier. Maybe you are stressed because you are running late for an appointment.

“Probably all of us at some time have been angry and someone wisely told us to take a deep breath,” Morofsky says. “That’s actually good advice because breathing and taking in oxygen plays an important role in every area of our health and well-being.”

He offers these tips for heading off your own road rage or avoiding the rage of others:

• Don’t turn that ignition. If you are feeling stressed and anxious before you even start your trip, then the time to calm down is now, not after you are on the highway. Get a grip before you start the car, Morofsky says. Take that deep breath you always heard would work. You might even try counting from one to 10, inhaling on one, exhaling on two, up to 10 and back to one again. “You want to be relaxed before you head out,” he says.
• Stop right there. If you are already driving, and you feel your anger is starting to impact your judgment, pull over for a few moments. “Breathe and ask yourself, is my problem important enough to risk lives?” he says. “Taking a few conscious breaths could prevent a catastrophe.”
• Don’t react or retaliate. You can’t control those other drivers, but you can control how you react to them. If someone is tailgating you, flipped you off or is just infuriating you with bad driving habits, ignore them, Morofsky says. Engaging in some sort of road-rage argument will just further raise your blood pressure, and could prove dangerous in some circumstances. This is just one more opportunity to take that deep breath, he says.

AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
"How to Put on a Bra"

There's been a lot of talk recently about hacking, spy work and the like. I remember back in the day working on an intimate line of clothing and trying to push the envelope on the commercials I wanted to make. Alas, could not get my cutting edge ideas to air. I stumbled on this clip recently and whenever the road idiots get in my way, I imagine them being one of these keystone cop types against this brilliant atomic blonde.

Cutting Corners, and Lackthereof

Everything starts with denial.

"I don't need my glasses."
"I’m not gaining weight."
"I’m not slowing down."
"I’m not out of shape."

But I was.

All of it!

The 1920s penny scale in the entry way and the notches on my belt didn't lie. Those bastards have crystal balls. So about a year ago, I decided to face facts and make some changes.

The ad game is a lonely expedition.

Now I’m lighter and back into jeans that aren't rapper baggy. I’m downward dogging through yoga classes. And I’ve got energy to spare. I feel pretty good about this, but I keep remembering how much I disliked it all and how long it's taking An entire year of my life to get within shouting distance of getting back in shape.

You see, I’m the kind of (media) guy who wants results immediately. I mean, who doesn’t? Well, there are some people who don’t, but they’re about as intelligent as a bag of bricks and I don’t like folks like that. I'm all about getting things done.

But over the years, I’ve grown to understand that speed is not always practical or possible. As a purveyor of all things marketing, I adjust my expectations when I start advertising campaigns because I know every campaign isn't an award winner or designed to make the phone ring off the hook. Sometime, it’s a longer process. So instead of expecting things to go through the roof, I’m satisfied with brand extension -- campaigns designed to maintaining the good work and gaining good feedback. These is the work that builds the foundation and eventually leads to campaign greatness.

My desire to create genius ads like this...

Every now and then, you hear about an ad (wo)man who graduated from college and six months later rose up to director status at one of those big agencies landing account after account. Well, that person is the exception, not the rule. The majority of us serve in the trenches for years before they catch that big break.

There’s no instant gratification in the ad game.

The key here, for both Media Guy and client, is to recognize that results take time. You can’t have one without the other. If you don’t agree, you’re a walking contradiction, and that path leads to failure.

One of my issues with the powerhouse companies that get featured in Adweek and AdAge week after week is that most of them don’t know how to develop campaigns. Those ad guy sign clients and from day one, they use their big budgets to overwhelm consumers with commercial after commercial, massive social media pushes, and favored induced earned media. That’s called swinging for the fences, and it’s a bad idea because the competition is fierce and the odds are stacked against you. Sure, the clients are excited by those opportunities because they feel like they’re cutting the line, but after a year of flat sales, the powerhouse agency will probably create an internal conflict and leverage it into landing a competitor, leaving them with little to show except a stack of inane commercial spots that may or may not have resonated with new customers.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to take your time—creating guerrilla and micro campaigns that that lead to bigger ones, carefully building your circle of engagement, working toward a successful annual strategy built on a foundation of hard-earned wins?

...led to creation of this masterpiece. PERSEVERANCE!

There’s no cutting the line in this industry. Not to get all Tony Robbins on you, but I genuinely believe you must fall in love with the process. That means embracing the bumps in the road.

It’s knowing that every campaign that doesn't send metrics completely through the roof is giving you valuable experience.

It's the perseverance to lead a diversified campaign and not put all your eggs in one basket.

It’s realizing that resting on yesterday's success won't give you the resources you need to book your business class seats for that Italian vacation.

Embrace the journey, not just the end of the road.

The Idea

In the beginning of advertising, it was all about The Idea.

The goal was to be talked about, from the playground to the bar. To be a cultural icon. Viral before viral was viral.

The goal now? I have no idea. We’re not talking about commercials, jingles, and magazine ads anymore. They aren’t about us.

A long time ago, the goal of advertising was to connect.

Now it’s numbers. Adtech. Data. Internet. Machines.

Why? Because ads are created and clicked on and measured by machines. Engagement is an algorithm, not a feeling.

Where did the message go?

When did the users become less important than the technology?

For all the clever metaphors you’ll ever come up with, for all the phrases and images, the formatting breakthroughs, the clever taglines, and everything else… nothing will pack more career-building punch for a copywriter… than mastering the art of coming up with “big ideas.”

By no coincidence, that alone could take you a lifetime of writing.

Great copywriter and originator of the “big idea” idea himself, David Ogilvy, once claimed that he came up with only about 20 so-called “big ideas” in his entire career. And yet, that was enough to more than create his fame and fortune.

So what does a “big idea” look like? I’ve seen many try to define it.

Here’s one more list of filters to add to your collection…

If you want to realize your dreams, you gotta believe.

Big Ideas Have Instant Appeal:

Have you ever had a ‘gut’ feeling about a person? Have you ever asked a long-married couple when they decided to get married, only to find out they ‘just knew’ after just meeting each other?

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book “Blink,” calls it ‘thin-slicing.’ And it’s what we do, naturally, whenever we encounter something new.

Your target audience will do it too. Which is why you have ZERO luxury for trying to convey a complex idea in that very first instant your copy flashes them in the face.

They’ll “thin-slice” you, as a reflex.

They’ll compress all their judgment about whether to read on into that moment. If you don’t manage to win them over, in milliseconds, say hello to the trashcan.

So, the Big Idea is an idea that can be sorted, absorbed, and understood instantaneously. Which is why cleverness and complexity in advertising can be so dangerous for even the most skilled of copy wordsmiths.

Big Ideas are Tightly Expressed:

Just because an idea has impact, doesn’t mean it has to be dense. In fact, the opposite is the idea. The more insightful the idea, the tighter you can usually sum it up.

And you should aim to do exactly that. Preferably in 8 words or less. And as early as possible, so that your reader knows as soon as possible what you’re getting at.

Big Ideas Have Momentum:

Gladwell has another more famous book that I’m sure you’ve read, “The Tipping Point.” He starts off talking about a suede shoe.

It was big in the ’70s, and then disappeared. Suddenly, over 20 years later, it came back with a vengeance. First, on the hip street corners of Manhattan’s East Village. Then across town… uptown… then to young and artsy areas in cities across the U.S. Why?

Nobody, even the shoemaker, could tell.

Only that an idea started to build. It spread. By the time everyone noticed, it suddenly petered out again. It was too late. The trend had come and gone, elusive to all who’d tried to do anything but hang on for the ride.

Ideas are like that.

They catch on, they build, and then, just when you least expect it, they can recede out of popularity again. The best marketer is plugged in enough to see the swell of the wave coming, before it crests.

Big Ideas Are Timely:

Related to the idea of momentum is the timeliness of an idea, especially when you’re selling information products. How so?

I write almost exclusively, these days, for financial products. My best promos tend to hinge on what’s happening in the markets.

For example, when oil sold at $147 per barrel, anything I wrote about oil and energy related investment products was almost a sure bet to do well.

In the mid 1990s, the market’s mind was elsewhere. You couldn’t say anything about investing without talking about the Internet, telecoms, or biotech.

When that market crashed in 2000, the tide of desire had shifted over night. Trying to write tech pitches suddenly became about as tough as talking a tabby into taking a dip in a hot tub.

Of course, the greatest asset you get by finding the timeliest ideas is that timeliness brings with a sense of urgency to your message. Maybe as a warning. Maybe as an unfolding opportunity.

But either way, you’re much better off when you’ve got that element to whatever you’re writing.

Big Ideas Are Original:

Ideas feel biggest when you’re among the first to deliver the message. When you’re playing catch up to everyone else, not so much.

Even an idea that’s already current, already popular, and already talked about… gains new life when you can make it even more ‘new,’ simply by finding the extra twist.

This is why headlines built on “secrets” are so effective. We naturally want to read the story nobody else is telling.

The new angle… the new information… the overlooked discovery… there are many ways to do this. All of them, almost always, are buried in the unique details of the story you’re telling.

Big Ideas Have Depth:

Yep, I said that ideas need to be simply and clearly expressed. But can you have clarity and substance, even in a short line?

Absolutely, you can.

When we say that Big Ideas need “depth” what we mean is richness and life-altering impact. Ask yourself; does the Idea suggest major change ahead? Is it something that will shock, awaken, or fascinate your reader?

If not, why would the reader want to read on? And why would you want to get the success of that letter… or your business… on something that thin?

Big Ideas Are Emotionally Stirring:

Too often, we mistake the preponderance of proof behind an Idea as all the “Bigness” we need for selling.

With smugness, we script any old headline, knowing it’s just a set up to hit the reader with blazing, double guns of the most rock-solid bullet points and factoids you’ve ever seen.

Sure, proofs matter in persuasion.

But, in the end, the one thing that makes one Big Idea compelling beyond any other, is it’s ability to sneak behind that locked door of the mind, where the emotional reasoning resides.

It must make a connection with that core, unspoken, and perhaps unrecognized place where the reader’s heart really resides.

Are there other ways to know if you’ve got your mitts on a “big idea” or not? Absolutely, there are. But this is a pretty good start. Try putting your next piece of copy through these paces and see for yourself.