When a copywriting formula no longer adds up
Every now and again a copywriter will find themselves face to face with their own words. Typically, at least in my experience, this results in the rather undignified tugging of sleeves, the giddy nudging of nearby eyeballs towards my professional standard spellings.
Rather more sadly there are also times when, on noticing work I’ve been responsible for, my reaction is nothing more triumphant than a brief shudder and a hasty, head-down exit.
This week I experienced one of the latter. Idling around town I was confronted by a 48-sheet I had worked on several years ago. At first there was a brief, inward surge – being confronted in the real word by something that initially existed as scribbles and muddled conversation never ceases to surprise.
But then, seconds before I directed my wife towards my very public achievements (as I often do with varying degrees of unedifying haughtiness) I noticed that the billboard in question made absolutely no sense.
Now, a poor line is bad enough – whether lazy or obvious or simply clumsy, it should rightly sting a copywriter’s professional pride. But a nonsense line, something genuinely impenetrable, even meaningless, goes beyond mere sloppiness.
I confess that as the massive words in front of me stubbornly refused to present anything lucid, as I thrashed around for some unknowable meaning, I felt a vivid, thumping sense of shame. I am nothing, dear reader, if not dramatic.
Fortunately, as is often the case, I soon found a way to make it all someone else’s fault. Unusually, in this instance, I think I was probably right.
The campaign I had worked on years ago had been a brief most copywriters are familiar with. Essentially we were asked to create a language formula, a headline where certain components could be switched to adjust the meaning– while always retaining the thread of the concept. Think, ‘Carlsberg don’t do X’ only, obviously, not that good.
It’s a troublesome challenge for any writer not least because it means, in most cases, the person tinkering with the structure at a later date is unlikely to be a copywriter.
And it was this very sequence of events that culminated in 40 baffling feet of words being thrust upon an unsuspecting public.
The perpetrator (a gentler word than necessary) had in the simplest possible terms followed the prescribed formula. They had removed words A and B and replaced them with new ones. ‘Job done’ they must have thought ‘let’s go for a damp packet-sandwich and a moan about how expensive our agency is’.
It’s why the copywriting formula can be a treacherous route. Even in the hands of a professional writer, a formula that seemed rich in possibility will eventually, invariably wither. At some point, a formulaic line, unless possessing the simple, inexhaustible brilliance of a ‘Carlsberg’, will become an exercise is smashing jigsaw pieces into the wrong spaces with our inky fists.
In fairness, the concept in question was never a work of genius. Even at its best it was a compromised creative, grudgingly ticking the various contradictory boxes of an incoherent client. But nevertheless there is a sense of despair and deflation that something I had worked on could evolve into something so pointless.
No one around me seemed to notice the ad, or the nonsense it so expensively projected. And although a copywriter’s need to be noticed is a powerful, primal urge, perhaps this time it was better if everyone just looked away.
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