Posts Tagged ‘copywriting’
Melted Crayons: What Writing Collaboration Looks Like
Not yours. Not mine. But a new thing created between us.
Years ago we took our kids on the consumerist hajj to Florida’s Disney. We’re more national park vacationers but we resolved to make the best of it. So we battled through the hucksters and scam artists on every corner in Orlando and made our way to the magic kingdom.
It was…ok.
Some of our kids were scared of the rides. Some were thrilled at points. Others (including parents) grew weary of the constant stimulation. I would not be a good spokesperson for Disney.
The most memorable part of the trip was post-Disney, on a drive through the orange groves. At one point we left the rental car for not too long a time to see some Florida oddity. We came back and found crayons melted on the back seat. It gets hot in a Minnesota summer, but I don’t recall crayon-melting hot.
Turn up the heat.
Melted crayons are not any one color. They are a new color that has no name.
Recent writing collaborations got me thinking about those crayons again. Some of my favorite clients invite me into the process by explaining what they want to accomplish with their target audience. They outline the main messages but do not hold those main messages too tightly. They point out the content and invite me to organize and hone the argument so it makes sense. They invite me to retell the main messages. When I come back to my client with something they can react to, we talk and the work gets better and more solid.
The thing is, what we create is not totally mine and not totally theirs. It’s a melted melding of motifs, which we continue to sharpen and fit to the purpose.
It’s a process I enjoy very much.
And it’s a process that is not that much different from our best conversations, where we generate some surprising new thing between us, beyond what either of us set out to say. A sort of intentional, verbal, melting of crayons right before our eyes.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Today I’m Listening
What can you hear between the lines—and where will it take you?
I’ll start by listening to a set of phone conversations my medical device client fields constantly. I want to hear the questions. I want to hear the responses. But I especially want to hear the tone of the questions. I’m listening for urgency and for actual language used. I’ll write down the words and note the flow and capture quotes. These notes and my listening will guide the communication that takes place next.
Listening goes places.
I’ll spend the balance of the day listening between the lines for another client. But this time I’ll be listening to the text I am creating for them. And I’ll listen to the process they use to serve their customers. Listening and revising and re-jiggering and re-listening.
Listening is required to know where to go next
What—or who—are you listening to today?
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Ratcheting Expectations in World that Demands Viral
Again: what does success look like for my project?
Do you have outsized notions of what is important?
Of course you do.
We all do, because we assume (wrongly) that what is important to me is important to everyone. Turns out that is not the case. For all the videos or stories or songs that go viral, there are countless that arrive stillborn—at least as far as numbers go.
What shadow will your project cast?
It’s easy enough to see that not everyone shares our passions and drives. Not everyone is fascinated by Star Wars or Wes Anderson films, for instance. Not everyone longs to spend hours tinkering with their lawn, or building perfect pectorals or diagramming the stars in the night sky. Not everyone asks “Why?” Not everyone asks “How can I do that myself?”
So if we are looking for our idea to go viral, we had better negotiate together what we consider viral. Will my idea get 3 million views? 3000? 30? And which am I satisfied with? What can we be satisfied with? That’s worth talking about before a project goes out the door.
I’m reminded of that bit of faith that writing will find its audience. As we prepare to launch our idea, and as we talk about who is open to hearing/acting on the idea, some frank talk about what success looks like will help immensely. Realistic expectations at the beginning of the project will help set the stage for the eventual self-scourgings or pats on the back, in a week or month or year, when you see how the project did or did not do.
And for the artist or writer—just doing the work may be enough.
And maybe that is not a bad place to dwell.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Let’s get visceral: Choose your signal before you gut-punch
What forms say before we know anything
I recognize a business card because of the shape and size. I recognize a sermon more by a particular tone and rhythm (which signals a certain intent) then I do the presence of a pulpit or podium. I know a joke is coming because Letterman is on stage and it is 10:37pm. I know the joke will have a setup and a payoff. Or perhaps the third of three statements will be funny. I am ready for the joke because of these forms.
Before we know anything we recognize a form. Our brain sorts how to react to that form, and then, once that is settled, we process communication content. Long before I hear any content, I know what category to place each of those communication events. It is the context that prepares me: when I see X, I know Y is not far behind. My nervous system anticipates the next piece.
But what if the form is out of whack?
What if I hear preaching on a street corner? What if a clever copywriter uses a rubber stamp instead of a business card (“Here, give me your hand and I’ll stamp my contact stuff on you palm.”). And what if Letterman was serious? He has been a few times: right after 9/11 his serious tone—entirely uncharacteristic—began a bit of national healing.
I tell my copywriting students to follow the forms at times and to bust the forms at other times. For instance, we must make our ideas as easy to understand as possible, and so we present our ad concept to a client in a form that is immediately recognizable—even if the idea itself is challenging. And sometimes one thumbs one’s nose at the form on purpose, just to bust through (that is, the communication gut-punch).
In any case, following the form or busting the form is a conscious decision.
And the form is not God (not even a god).
By the way, Dan Pink has a great story about the Pixar way of presenting a concept here.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
What happens when we say stuff?
An Epistemology of Writing
I just realized I run my college writing courses in ways possibly dissimilar to how others do it. We have texts, of course, and readings. We have my dry lectures, which I try to turn to discussion (with limited success). We have examples of excellent copywriting and we talk about why they work and when they don’t. We have questions. We have answers (some from me, many from the class). We have cordial fights and the occasional snark (more remains unsaid, I think). We have yawns and longing looks at the clock.
And we have assignments.
You have my attention.
A portfolio addition due ever Saturday night, five minutes before the stroke of midnight. Way to ruin a perfectly good weekend, right? (Ahem: for the record, one need not wait to start an assignment until 10pm on Saturday night).
It’s the assignments—these portfolio additions—that are the real teachers. I try to direct. I try to offer my small ways of thinking, but the real work of this education happens deep in a student’s brain pain: where sparks fly and catch the dry tinder of panic: “What do I say—and how?”
So it has always been with me: I learn as I write. I often don’t know what I think until I write it. Or say it. Just ask Mrs. Kirkistan. But when I research a topic and begin writing about it, all sorts of synapses fire and connections meet and angels sing and the sun shines on my keyboard, where doves and baby deer have collected. Especially after three cups of coffee.
And this is what I depend on in my class: that the threads of our discussion will come together in the doing thereof—the writing of copy. This capturing of a brand, or a dream. The useful words that direct and possibly encourage as they launch into a reader’s mind.
But this: just doing an assignment dampens the angels singing. This class is less about getting my grade and approval and more about creating something you will proudly show to Ms. Creative Director or Mr. Small Business Owner who can hire your magic for their capitalistic endeavors. I can already see those who get this concept. Their work shows it.
Bless them.
And bless all the rest of us, too.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Tip #9: Launch Your Idea. Don’t Detail It.
We all repackage our stories for the best effect
Writing copy can be disorienting—especially for English majors. Rather than grading on how they develop an argument and how well they follow particular usage rules, they are graded on how well their copy meets a marketing need. They are graded on how well their creativity pulls in the target audience—and how quickly. Each exercise and assignment becomes more about the big idea and the execution of the idea rather telling all the detail in an orderly fashion.
It can be disorienting because we might have mistakenly thought copy was just emotional marketing hype, the (nearly invisible) stuff that abides in much of our current messaging (“clutter,” you might say). Copywriters just toss any word in an ad, like “new” or “organic” or “protein” to get people to buy in, right?
But copywriting is more like a lab where you boil down the raw material to get an essence. Then you adjust the pheromones in that essence to get the behavior you want in the audience you seek.
Wait—that sounds manipulative.
If it is, it is a common trait and practice shared by all humans. We’re all packaging and repackaging our stories in real time. We constantly change-up our experience and knowledge and opinions as we deliver them to friends and family, prospective mates, acquaintances and strangers. It’s not a purposeful misleading, it’s just that the human condition is constantly changing and we see things differently at any given point. And we all want to be heard, so we change how we say things.
Mind you—orderly telling is still critical for copywriting. But audiences don’t make time for essays (sadly). And developing an argument is still critically important—it’s all just very, very fast.
The key is getting—and holding—attention.
Eight other copywriting tips for English majors here.
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Image credit: Dumb sketch by Kirk Livingston
Let’s have a prune party
In what odd corner of the universe could “prune” and “party” ever fit together?
C’mon copywriter: not everything your product marketer says is true.
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Via Vintage Ads
Why Name a Problem?
“They won’t recognize a great solution until they see how big the problem was.”
Along the way to becoming a copywriter one must learn to name problems. This is an essential skill for anyone trying use their creativity out in the world of real people and real issues. Because when you present your bit of inspired copy to a prospective client (as one does when planning for serendipity), they will not see how inspired it is until you tell the problem the copy solved. Once they understand the problem, they can begin to appreciate the genius of the solution you created.
Naming a problem is best done in story form: there was this nasty condition and people worked around the nasty business in this way, which was inconvenient and bad. But we saw that this could be done, and so I created this. Which seemed to work and everyone was happy. Problem solved.
But naming a problem can sometimes be uncomfortable. Not usually after the fact, when everyone can easily see that it was a problem. But before: if you are the first one to notice a problem it takes a bit of courage to say it out loud to others. What if you got it wrong? What if you just don’t understand? If you name the problem, will you be responsible to fix it?
Here’s where a lesson from work fits back into real life as a human: naming a problem is the first step toward fixing it. That is true with my clients and it is true with students and it is true in all sorts of relationships and life situations. To name something is to register that a problem exists. It puts the problem on the radar and communicates to others that there may be an issue.
Until you name a problem you have very little opportunity to address it.
Naming is a bridge to fixing.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Tag:
Copywriting is a Full-Contact Sport
James Young: a Technique for Producing Ideas
Today we discuss Mr. Young’s book on how to have ideas. It’s an old book and disregarded by some of my copywriter/art director friends. But I come back to it again and again. I like how Mr. Young serves up the notion of a way to go deeper than our immediate surface reaction. I like the book because he provides signposts and mile-markers along the road of getting to the heart of a notion.
Now that’s good copy.
To me, copywriting is a full-contact sport. Here’s what I mean: ideas do not come from sitting in a dark room and thinking deep thoughts. That is called a “nap.” Ideas come from a mind-body connection. Copywriting starts with gathering materials (Young’s Step #1) and then writing out the connections between those materials and the target audience’s problem or perceived need (Young’s Step #2—Masticate). This mastication or digestion step involves pages of false starts and headlines and mind-maps. It involves shuffling index cards and drawing with crayons on the walls/arms/shoes and many dumb sketches. It involves telling others your nascent point and watching their reaction (“What the…. Huh? Get away from me.”)
I particularly love Young’s Step #3—Walk Away. It’s when I go for a bike ride or a jog or a walk. Or lunch. Anything other than the problem at hand. And then—Behold—the solution pops into being. Fully-formed. Sorta. Sometimes it’s an ugly baby and needs, shall we say, a trim. But out of this process come useful ideas that get to the heart of the matter and may—just possibly—cut through clutter rather than add to it.
Check out Maria Popova’s take on Young’s technique here.
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Image via Copyranter
conversation is an engine 