The way of the copywriter: the simple (and quite tricky) path to copywriting
Young rascals approach me all the time. Some just want to laugh at my trainers or yawn exaggeratedly at my talk of Sega Megadrives and a time when Jim Robinson was everyone’s favourite TV dad.
But most want to learn how they can become a copywriter. My instructions, like so much of what lies before any prospective new marketer, are simple but by no means easy.
Some rather wise words I once read were from a copywriter who declared that he shied away from referring to himself as a writer, preferring to be seen as a ‘person who writes’.
This is perfectly true, copywriting is very different from journalistic or literary writing. It requires a certain flexibility and a very specific commercial understanding that other written mediums don’t especially demand.
And for any young person thinking of becoming a copywriter, the absence of experience and understanding in this particular direction is usually the barrier between them and their ambition.
But copywriting is a matter of practice. There are courses available and the internet is loaded with helpful (and entirely unhelpful) tips on how to teach yourself copywriting. But while these lessons can provide direction, nothing will resolve the mind to a copywriter’s way of thinking more than attacking every possible blank surface with a pencil.
It seems slightly absurd that anyone should devote a blog of 400 words to something as straightforward as this, but I am frequently astounded by the number of hopeful copywriters who are not actually writing any copy.
Writing blogs, approaching magazines and newspapers even just scribbling thoughts into a notepad will all make you more familiar with the phrasing, rhythm and tone of effective copywriting. But practicing the commercial element is even more important. One particularly pertinent Ogilvyism worth remembering in everything you write is simply ‘we sell, or else’.
One especially wonderful exercise a pal of mine once gave me was to think of the most unsellable proposition possible and write an advert for it.
Grey Lightbulbs, Water Flavoured Crisps, Stan Collymore Bubble Bath, anything will do, just create the most undesirable product imaginable and sell the Jim Robinson out of it.
Because, you see, in reality copywriting is persuasion. And for one to be able to entice, convince and urge another requires more of the brain than of the fingers. Several hours of careful consideration may go into an entirely compelling piece of copy that is as brief as three or four words long.
Understanding how to persuade is, in a slightly reductive nutshell, the essence of copywriting. The rest is just playing on the Megadrive and watching classic Neighbours.
Follow Andrew Boulton on Twitter @Boultini
Andrew Boulton is a copywriter at the Together Agency. He is currently soaking in a Stan Collymore Bubble Bath.