Too long; didn’t read — Tips for digital copywriters — pt. 2
As I prepare to exit the agency world and move client-side for the first time, my team asked me to prepare some thoughts on some areas of my experience. I agreed. This is part five of a several-part series on doing creative work in the world of digital-first advertising, and a distillation of what I’ve learned over 8+ years of agency life at Essence and beyond, as a designer, writer, and all-around creative problem-solver.
Little brilliance
Now that you know how to tell a great story. Throw that all away and learn how to write micro copy. Maybe you got into writing because you wanted to write The Great American Novel, but have since had to adjust to the world of clickbait and cunningly engineered hashtags. Maybe you just prefer a bone-broth approach to writing as compared to another’s eight course tasting menu.
Plus, long form is time-consuming, the planet is on fire, and our average interaction with a reader online is about 1.4 seconds. Even this Medium article you’re reading has been assigned a number of minutes in order to coerce you into reading it over doing something else; like watching someone try to make homemade Gushers Fruit Snacks or tweeting about a Goose with no name.
That being said, writing a sentence can be harder than writing an essay. So here is some good advice.
Make a toolbox:
Gather inspiration
I give you permission to be inspired* by anything that isn’t an advertisement. Think back to your essay writing days and look for primary sources: Rap lyrics, poetry, stage directions, instruction manuals, album liner notes, stand up comedy, Twitter, Reddit, advice columns, newspapers, birthday cards, on-boarding experiences in apps, video games.
Remember, inspiration isn’t theft. You still need to think (and write) for yourself.
I’ve never metaphor I didn’t like
Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Practice writing metaphors. Only when thinking in metaphor becomes second-nature will you be able to come up with some real gems.
“Don’t give them 4, give them 2 and 2.”- Andrew Stanton, Pixar
No lesson in creativity is complete without a nod to Pixar. This serves as a powerful reminder not to over explain in an effort to be understood.
There are two kinds of words; “verbal” and “visual.” - Al Ries, Copywriter
When in doubt, use visual language to connect with your audience. One of my favourite examples Ries provides is in the case of Little Caesar’s Pizza.Their infamous slogan, “Pizza, Pizza” is the perfect visual way of conveying their two for one carry-out special without over stating it.
“Brevity. It’s concise.”
When I was an ambitious teenager and aspiring writer back in Seattle, I had a dream of attending college on the east coast. I had an obsession with Thomas Jefferson at the time, and knew I wanted to attend either William & Mary or University of Virginia (Biff Loman, anyone?) That dream was dashed when I got mononucleosis in the winter of the 10th grade and failed pre-calculus, but what I did get out of the deal was a tour of those dream schools and this incredible anecdote:
There’s a famous entrance essay prompt from UVA, it goes something like, “What is your favourite word? Why?” Of course, there have been thousands of essays over the years about words like “freedom,” “please,” “love” and that sort of thing, but there was one essay that stood out. The admissions officer recalled this essay, with a sparkle of admiration in their eye, and read us the text in its entirety:
Brevity. It’s concise.
The whole room laughed nervously. Not only could no one ever top that, but few of us would ever match that essay in our entire writing careers. From the word count, to the two full stops, to the BRILLIANT contraction, it’s perfect.
I hate that brilliant 18 year old, and I hate how that essay haunts me to this day.
Think about how it’ll look
Punctuation matters. It matters even more when it’s laid out on a 50 foot billboard and that sentence reeeeallly could have used a full stop.
Accept the fact that all-caps are hard to read, that alliteration can look absolutely jacked when the letters line up vertically, and that all writing appears in context. Also, some fonts just have an air of sarcasm.
Get used to reviewing your end copy in situ, and with your design team.
Thesauruses and Idiom Dictionaries aren’t cheating
Use all the tools and all the research you have at your disposal. And, if you think you’ve made up a new word or written the joke of the century, make sure you Google it first.
“The story is very complicated and very hard to follow. But my style, my prose, is very easy to read. There’s a sort of magic balance between those two factors; perhaps that’s another reason for my success.”
— Haruki Murakami
As a copywriter, your job is to make complicated things seem easy. Make your effort invisible. Dance backward and in heels. But also, to know loads about syntax, grammar, and industry best practice. It’s hard and it’s a privilege.
In the end, being a hired-gun writer takes grit.
No one reads anymore, and yet, everyone thinks they’re a copywriter.
tl;dr: Don’t waste your words whilst shouting into a void.
