Selective Amnesia There was a point to this. But I forgot.

Answering questions

Ok! I’ve had enough of people asking me what exactly is copywriting. I don’t mind friends asking me, but not every time we meet. I don’t mind the occasional jokes about copying and writing, and Ctrl C & Ctrl V, but sometimes, one just gets the feeling “enough is too much”.

So here’s an explanation. Sit back, listen. And as the famous line goes, “Dubara mat puchna..” Don’t ask again.

A copywriter, quite simply, writes. To fully understand the term, a little primer of an Ad agency structure is required. The Ad agency consists of two main departments. The Creative, and the Client Servicing. Let’s concentrate on the Creative.

Shall we begin then? Good. The Creative department is headed by a person who is called the Creative Director. Under that person are two kinds of animals. The Art Director/Visualiser. And the Copywriter. Now, why such a structure is anyone’s guess. Probably, it all made sense to the guy who set up the first Ad agency. Volney. B. Palmer, by name. Nice chap, and pretty sane in all other aspects, except he had this morbid fascination for buying space in newspapers to sell at discount to advertisers.

Wake up now, and pay attention. Cause it gets all technical now. Awake? Good. Any self-respecting ad has a minimum of 2 of the following four elements

• Headline
  
• Visual
  
• Body Copy
  
• Logo and Signoff.
  

A copywriter, or the menial labour, as we are sometimes called, has to come up with an idea/theme/concept for the ad under discussion. Once that bit is done, he or quite possibly, she, has to write the headline bit of it. A headline is something that screams loudly about what the central benefit/feature of the product that is being advertised. A headline is something that needs to be, by definition, memorable, easily understood, and quite catchy, if one may use that term here. It was also required for the headline to stop a newspaper reader from reading the rest of the newspaper and read the ad. Which means, a half-a-decent knowledge of the language (English/Tamil/Hindi/Swahili)

The next task, if you are still awake, on hand is the writing of the body copy. Copy, as in newspaper copy, is a bunch of text that details out, and communicates a story. Advertising copy, therefore, is a bunch of text (used to be a minimum of 100 words, and stretching indefinitely) that details out the benefits and uses of the product or service, and will touch upon the price, why the competition sucks, and why Lux is the best soap for Indian women.

Bye.

Oh, still with us? Good. You passed the test. It was upto the copywriter to write the whole bunch of words in a way that people who read it don’t nod off partways, and that the product or service actually gets sold.

That was what a copywriter in the early half of this century had to do. A boring life. Really. One often had to resort to cheap tricks to keep the reader awake. Such as mentioning how boring and long the ad was. Or asking him if he was awake. Or using images to break the monotony of the copy.

What the copywriter of yore was faced with was a monumental job of not only capturing the attention of a reader, but sustaining it. His job therefore, was to write, and write brilliantly, cleverly, and simply.

What does a modern Copywriter’s job involve? is a question that’s been asked.

The modern dude(tte) has it a lot easier. Well, almost. Modern pressures, and the lack of time, and the increased news content means that newspaper ads no longer have to be wordy. And somebody started believing in the proverb of “A picture speaks a thousand words”. People started coming up with more and more visual ideas for advertisements. Visual in the sense that the ad had a stark, attention grabbing picture of a feature/attribute/benefit of the product or a visual that explained the idea behind the ad.

Plus, the boom in electronic media, lead by TV meant that advertisements could move, and talk and dance and entertain.

A modern copywriter, therefore, could concentrate on generating ideas for a Television commercial or a Radio. A simple story, that clearly communicates the product benefit, is all it takes to do a TV Ad.

My job typically involves writing ads that have no more than 50 words including the headline. More often, I need to come up with half-a-dozen scripts for TV and radio advertising. I would have to write the text that goes into a brochure/leaflet/sales literature/user manuals and the like. Only rarely do modern copywriters write long copy ads. And that, only when the idea and the message is strong.

There, now you know.

Originally written for The Scian Wiki’s career page. http://www.thescian.com/wiki/index.php/Advertising_Copywriter