Copywriter No.2

New weetabix ad it quite good. Very similar to the ad below though...

The ad that restores my faith in copy

The last thing you want to do is write 'ads'.

Tony gave me some great advice on Tuesday. And it hit me like some sort of revelation.

First of all, he gave me some simple tips which I took on board.

My book was too robotic; Brand - Proposition - Executions.

I was simply writing the strategy as a visual ad.

There was no 'vehicle' - no intermediary idea to carry the message.

It needed to be Brand - Proposition - Idea - Executions.

Then, crucially, he said that with it was clear that I was sitting down and trying to write 'ads'.

He said "The last thing you want to do is write ads"

And it hit me... I've been trying to imitate that which I admire, rather than originate.

I've been mimicking the kind of ads that find their way into Luerzer's Archive, the kind of ads you see on I Believe in Adv.

I've been doing things how I think they're done.

Big visual - logo - tag. Or some combination of the three. Product demos. Too formulaic.

At first I thought to myself: didn't VW get the strategy It's small, but it's also tough - and just write visual ads which dramatized it?

Adding the tag 'Small but tough'.

Wasn't the copy simply restating the strategy?

But then I realised: that kind of ad is not what Tony is looking for.

He wants to see something more.

Something that can take on a life of it's own.

Something that looks no ad he's seen before.

Something that looks like nothing he's seen before.

Take pretty much every idea that Droga5 have come up with. Each one looks like no idea they, or anyone else, has ever come up with before.

That's exactly why they picked up 2 black pencils last year.

That's what I need to be aiming for.

Like Vik Kayno, a current student at Watford, told me - I need to push my thinking, get it to the next level. I need to stop writing ads, and start having ideas.

What a revelation to have!

Anyway, I've got more work to do than ever.

Tony said there was such a thing as a third shot (even a fourth and fifth), but he'd let us know how we did next week.

In other news, Uber Agency got back to me. They said I could come in for a crit session with the CD and/or go on a one week placement sometime in April. So that's nice news. Also, the Saatchi & Saatchi facebook recruitment scheme is well under way and after two rounds I'm in the last 250 or so. Excited for the next brief.

There's light at the end of the tunnel.

Ad Strategies: Yo mamma's so fat she X

Yo know the type of joke? It goes, "Yo mamma is so fat she X"? Here's a few:

Yo momma's so fat, at a restaurant when they give her the menu she replies " yes Please"

Yo momma's so fat, when she went to the beach Greenpeace tried to drag her back in the water.

Yo momma's so fat, she makes Big Bird look like a rubber duck.

We'll my dear readers, ad land has it's very own version: this product is so X it Y. (Also labelled more simply, by Peter Barry, as the 'exaggeration' strategy).

Here's a few classic examples with the literal (as opposed to lateral) translation underneath:

This knife is so sharp, it cuts through the chopping board too!

This cement dries so quick, you don't even have time to write your name in it!

This marker pen is so permanent, an autograph will stay with you till your old!

Now, as you can no doubt tell, verbalizing the idea behind the visual takes away the magic... if they'd been posters with the same idea in words, they'd have been burnt instantly.

The wit of these ads seems manifest in the 'play' between the product logo and the image itself.

I imagine the writer going on a little journey... coming up with an incredibly short story to dramatize the benefit... eventually arriving at the idea after a long period of time and a lot of lateral scribblings...

The viewer then takes that same journey, but a hell of a lot faster...

Maybe that's what makes you laugh... the G-force in your tummy?!

The result? 'A smile in the mind' as the old book title has it!

Ad Strategies: X looks like Y

Looking through the annals of ad history I've found countless visual ads that make me feel a little bit excited inside. A fair few that make me feel a little sick too - sick with envy.

I have, however, noticed a few trends, the first of which I'll talk about here; X looks like Y.

Here are some classic examples:

These are described by Pete Barry as 'visual puns'. Just like Meerkat sounding like Market, or Mental Floss sounding like Dental Floss (an old Mac ad) they simple tax in on the idea that one element of the product resembles one expression of the benefit. To come up with them, it seems you just have to spend hours looking at the product and it's use, waiting for that nugget - that ad gold. Of course, at the end of the day they're still puns and everyone knows that's a low form of wit. Still, visuals works quicker than copy and somehow (don't ask me about the science of it) seem to give more of a laugh.

The visual pun: but one weapon in the copywriter's arsenal.

Sullivan on Simplicity

I've mentioned him before... it's the author of the fantastic 'Hey Whipple, Squeeze This', Luke Sullivan, giving the definitive lesson in the art of the ad.

Luke Sullivan from Mediastash.tv on Vimeo.