The Learned Copywriter: The many (and sometimes strange) things you learn along the way
As it happens, I have an A-Level in Geography. I’ll prove it. Ask me a question. Simply shout it at your computer, no one will think you’re weird. Whatever your question was the answer is ‘Oxbow Lake’.
It seems that my mind is somewhat disinclined to retain information. I blame an overabundance of knowledge relating to Wesley Snipes films.
I am therefore entirely fortunate to have a profession which provides me with access to a vast and diverse range of knowledge.
Copywriting presents you with a varied range of topics that you will be entirely unfamiliar with. It is therefore a copywriter’s obligation to learn your subject so that your conversation may be as authentic as you hope it to be persuasive – the two qualities are, as you’d expect, inextricably linked.
As a consequence of this there is now a wealth of new (and occasionally useful) information I have become inadvertently in possession of. I understand the surprisingly elaborate procedure involved with killing weeds. I am well aware of the intricacies of ready-to-bake cake mix. I even possess an unnerving degree of knowledge regarding the once entirely baffling world of bingo.
Such acquisition of knowledge is necessary for the job and an indelible lesson I learnt about 20 minutes into my career is that copywriting is a profession with no patience for pretence.
If one failed to do the fundamental research for a brief of which they had no previous understanding, then even the most innocuous of incorrect detail will be instantly spotted by someone in possession of that particular knowledge. There are many people all too quick to question the necessity of copywriting, and such sloppiness in the act of preparation is cheap ammunition for their misguided objections.
Aside from the inevitable interspersion of occasional misery, the life of a copywriter is on the whole a joyful and privileged existence. Few vocations afford the opportunity to diversify our expertise quite so much as this one, and even if the particular knowledge being acquired is hardly captivating, it is nonetheless experience that develops us as writers.
The myth I all too often have to disperse from students aspiring to work as copywriters is that our function is to make exciting things seems extraordinary. While this fills part of our remit, I would argue that the majority of the job is to make things that don’t seem engaging to us sound as compelling as possible to the people to which they are designed to appeal.
Sexy headlines may earn you a slap on the back, possibly even a trinket or two, but thoroughly researched, empathetic and informed copy will gain the commercial results that ultimately define us in the industry.
A well researched copywriter is like Wesley Snipes in Blade 1,2 and 3. A copywriter who has no need for background reading is, quite frankly, up an Oxbow Lake without a canoe.
Andrew Boulton is a copywriter (and foremost authority on Oxbow Lakes) at the Together Agency.