A story is still one of the best ways to capture someone’s attention. That’s all we are as advertising creatives: storytellers.
Long copy is the purest form of this since it’s close to a real novel page. You have the same tools as a classic writer. Even the approach and thinking is somewhat the same. Except the moral of any story you write will be to buy the product.
Conflict/Resolution:
This is very important for body copy. Your product must solve some problem, or be the resolution to some situation. The first part of this is to define the con-fict. Sometimes the conflict is intuitive and you can set it up with just one word: “Termites.” Other times it’ll need more targeting: “Is it enough to eliminate most of your termites?”
Climax:
Build up to a single point in your copy. Have a distinct high point. It can be at the beginning or the end or anywhere else, but put it in there.
Visual language:
Make your reader see it. It’s easier to remember a picture of someone’s face than a detailed written list of what someone looks like. Make people see your story and it’ll stick with them for longer.
Characters:
You are not an ad guy talking, you are a character of the company. You don’t have to create a fictional cartoon spokesperson for your product, or the story of some guy who founded the company. The characters don’t have to be that close to the brand. In fact, the further away and more abstract they are the better the story can get. Though the further they are, the harder it is to connect them back to the selling message. Be careful.
You won’t always define or introduce your character. You might just write from (or about) the character. For example, the Iliad didn’t begin with Achilles saying “hi, I’m Achilles, I’m the best warrior ever. I don’t like Troy.”
Dialogue:
Just because you’re not writing a script doesn’t mean there can’t be quotes. You can have a back and forth conversation with the reader. You can have a one-sided conversation. You can make your copy into a scene. You can answer your own rhetorical questions. Can’t you?
Foreshadowing:
If your first line of copy hints at the end of it, then even if a reader doesn’t finish reading, they get the gist.
Example of copy with story language:
Office supplies few into the air, sent there by the blissful tornado that was Dave, standing triumphantly after his fantasy football victory. “Who’s the man?” Dave inquired from his coworkers. But with a subscription to the latest football insights, delivered to his inbox daily, his coworkers in the league were all too aware of the answer.
WRITE TO A VIBE AND
THE COPY WILL COME.
Long-form advertising writing is a fairly unnatural process. You won’t make a graph or an outline. You might eventually, but to start, you have an idea in mind and then you write until it appears on paper. I used to have trouble doing long copy because I’d get stuck in the structure of it, trying to land the ad perfectly from the very beginning. Logic and order come more in the editing than the writing. Treat long copy like a piece of documentary footage; you gather a bunch of content before you chop it together.
VERB A NOUN.
Hammer away. Feather past. Anchor in.
Nouns made into verbs are inherently visual. They play scenes in people’s minds that make them harder to forget. They also come off as poetic, elegant, and thoughtful. It’s instant character. It’s one of the fastest ways to class up your language. Your CDs will cantaloupe.
START IN THE MIDDLE.
The beginning is usually all background and not altogether important. And if it is important, you can come back to it once people are interested. When you finish writing a block of copy, see if you can get rid of the first sentence. The first paragraph. All of it.
SPECIFIC IS MORE INTERESTING.
Getting specific is memorable for some reason. If I say I kicked you with my shoes it’s less memorable than saying I kicked you in the shins with my purple high-tops. When a description is detailed it seems important. When you’re reading a book and the author spends a page describing a character’s face, you assume the character is vital, otherwise why would that much emphasis be put on them. Maybe this is trained into us as humans and we look for details. Whatever the reason, you’ll get a better response from people if you get closer to the scene you’re creating.
General:
Our new foral print dress.
* * *
Getting specific:
Our new foral print dress with flowers from the first blooms of springtime in Holland.
WIN THE ARGUMENT.
SELL A PRODUCT.
If a story doesn’t seem right then consider a convincing argument. Go back to the Greeks on what makes arguments effective. There are three basic elements: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos.
LOGOS:
You’re making sense for once.
Look, I know we all got into advertising because we didn’t want real jobs, but sometimes you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and sink elbow deep into your product. Learn about it. Discover what is unique about it and why what is unique about it is unique. This is important on two levels, 1) it makes the work richer, 2) your clients will know you give a shit and let you get away with a lot more creatively.
If you can find beauty in the real facts about the product then you have struck gold. Your clients will do little happy dances around the conference table. Try not to make fun of them.
PATHOS:
Please, I just want to feel something. Anything.
Emotions are powerful. Just think of your last relationship. They can make us do what we ordinarily wouldn’t. Emotions can infuse a product with a personality. Emotion finds a secret truth in a product that makes people fall in love with it. Emotion puts a finger on the pulse of a place and time. But, emotions are volatile. Use them wisely.
You can jump from heartfelt to angry, honest to sad, reflective to defensive. Pick emotions and jump around. Write the same ad with several feelings and see how drastically different they feel. Notice the change in pacing and language? Feelings are fun!
ETHOS:
Who the hell are you and why should I care?
People want to be liked. Brands are no different. An important part of any campaign is finding a way for people to have faith in you. Convincing people that you’re the guy to support. Apple is likeable and friendly. PC is cold and off-putting. Both are metal boxes with chips inside.
Said plainly:
A new kind of gin.
* * *
With an angry emotion:
Yeah it’s a new kind of gin, what of it?
* * *
With an inspiring emotion:
It’s a new day, and with it comes a gin.
ROMANCING
THE FROG.
Nothing makes a copywriter hate their job more than when they have to list multiple product benefits. It’s gross and clunky. It’s filled with impossible-to-pronounce words and names that have a handful of numbers in them like the Spoon4568B2. Just flows right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the days of the single-selling-point brief are gone. We have to work in a lot of junk.
In this type of copy you are bound to see world-changing phrases like “So that’s why we…”, “Introducing the first ever…”, “no wonder…”, “not anymore, because…” and a slew of other lifeless copy quips.
How can you write this type of copy in a way that both you and the world won’t hate? There are a handful of approaches that can help.
Explain why a feature is the solution.
There has to be a problem or you can’t fix it. Find the concern that is overcome by each of your product features and speak to them. Instead of saying an air purifier has an auto-dimmer, say it won’t shine in your eyes at night.
Be poignant.
Find the human relevance in what you’re being asked to say, because you’re going to have to say it anyway. Find an honest narrative that rea
ders can follow. If you’re selling organic cereal, then you can talk about everything from the ingredients to happy employees through the lens of integrity.
Be brief.
Get it over with. There’s only so much you can dance with a corpse before people get suspicious. If it’s going to stand out no matter what, try not to linger.
Be consistent.
Are you saying “we” or “[COMPANY NAME]” or “I” or “they”? What scene are you in? Who are you as you talk? Anything is fine, but you will want to be consistent. Pick one and stick with it throughout the copy.
Pretty-up your vocab.
You’re not going to win hearts with clichés. Find a more colorful way of saying the same point. There’s a big difference between “comes with a 300-horsepower engine” and “armed with a 300-horsepower engine.”
Talk to someone but don’t pretend you know them.
The answer to “Have you ever thought/wondered/asked yourself ?” is “No.”
Use bullet points.
It’ll break up the formatting and help differentiate what’s important from what’s listed information. It’s also quicker to access in case there are 15 selling points to the product, but only a few that anyone would care about.
Be self aware.
Pull back the curtain. Admit that what you’re talking about might be a handful. “The ZX4534AQ, a hard way to say something that will make your life simple.”
Be honest.
If you know it’s bullshit, everybody else will too. Try to find exactly how beneficial it is and say so. If you lie about or exaggerate the benefit, you will discredit any reasonable argument you might’ve made up to that point.
Be bigger.
In seeming contrast to the previous approach, you can make the benefit bigger than it is. Not by exaggerating, but by creating a true parallel. Rather than saying “it’s the safest car ever” (a lie) you can say “a little safer is a lot when you’re talking about your kid’s life.”
#1 rule:
IS THIS SOMETHING YOU WOULD WANT TO READ? IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT, I DON’T EITHER.
YOU’RE THE BOSS AND POWER FEELS SPLENDID.
Film is a management medium. You get the ball rolling in the right direction with a magnificent script, but there are so many people involved in the process that most of your work will be making sure others are doing their work. The people you choose can make a great idea OK and an OK idea great. This makes it both the easiest to do (no matter how complicated it gets, a script is no more than a few pages) and the most difficult (any person in the process can screw it up).
LUNCH IS ON THE CLIENT.
EAT YOUR WEIGHT IN REVENGE.
Being on production is like having a rich uncle. You live a lifestyle that is wholly inappropriate for your age and status. This, I imagine, is why it’s often the most sought-after work by the senior people in an agency.
TV is the glamorous side of the industry. It’s where you get to stay in nice hotels, eat fancy meals, and have production company staff laugh at your jokes that, honestly, aren’t that funny. I’m sorry, they’re just not.
Per unit, TV is still where most of your client’s budget goes and thus where there’s the most opportunity to scale up your idea. A small idea with a world-class director is still going to be pretty good.
TV is also the most openly critiqued face of the company. Before you’re drinking champagne from bidets, create a script worth working on.
THAT EINSTEIN FELLA MIGHT’VE BEEN ONTO SOMETHING.
Ad time is relative, and 60 seconds for one project can feel like 6 seconds for another. Usually you’ll be told exactly how long the commercial is that you have to work on. On occasion, it’ll be up to you as the agency to recommend a length to the client. Though don’t be surprised if you present a 60 and end up having to make 15s instead. The 30-second spot was once the industry standard when TV stations decided the length. Now the industry standard is 15 seconds with online media deciding the length. Commercials that people seek out on their own (unpaid media) tend to be 90-seconds to a few minutes. The industry overall is skewing shorter for the moment. But all this might change, so be ready to do them all.
YOU’VE GOT 60 SECONDS.
A 60-second commercial lets you build a connection with the viewer. You can bring them in close, take them on a journey, leave tasteful pauses, build a story arc. It’s hard though to keep a viewer engaged for that long so don’t get too into your pauses. It’s a great length to change a viewer’s emotional opinion of a brand, but doesn’t generally do as well for pure awareness. You can skew awareness in your favor though with the “first five” rule. Make the product appear in the first five seconds of the commercial. Some entertainment brands even create mini-trailers that form the first five seconds of their longer commercial trailers.
YOU’VE GOT 30 SECONDS.
The middle of the road, best/worst of both worlds. Enough time to introduce a simple story and have a few jokes or thoughtful moments. You won’t have quite the emotional hit as a 60, but you can get people nodding and change some opinions. You can be charming and funny for sure, but heartfelt will get a little tougher. This is a great, hardworking length that won’t cost a fortune to run.
YOU’VE GOT 15 SECONDS AND YOUR TIME IS UP.
Media companies love to tout 15s because statistically someone is more likely to watch a 15-second commercial all the way through than a 60 or 30. Because it’s shorter, and that’s how time works. This does well for pure awareness, but there’s a good argument to be made that 15-second commercials don’t do much to sway people or change their beliefs. It’s not a lot of time to introduce a novel and compelling brand story and it’s easy to fall into tropes because of it. You essentially have one scene to say everything you need to say.
YOU. 6.
One motion and a logo. Maybe you can squeeze in a headline. These spots also play without sound a lot of time. They are essentially print ads with a tiny bit of movement. And just when we all thought print was dead.
WHAT DOES A SCRIPT
LOOK LIKE?
With a 30-second script you almost never go to more than one page. If the script is longer than that there’s too much detail. If it’s a 60 it’s two pages tops. 15s are a half page. 6s are a couple lines. Beyond just taking less time to read, you can always ad-lib the description when you’re presenting internally to CDs or clients and they won’t hold you to some strange angle you promised in the script. A short and clean script will also prevent people from getting hung up on one small detail that was never that important to you in the first place. You never know when an entire script will be killed because the client doesn’t like a reference you used that wasn’t quite right to begin with. It goes beyond the agency and client too, the script will be a lot more attractive to a director if they can see that you’ll let them put their mark on it. They’ll kill themselves to do something amazing if they think the opportunity is there.
Aesthetics-wise, there is no universal “right look.” Each creative director, client, or agency usually ends up with a favorite structure and style. Supposedly Jeff Goodby wants all of his scripts in Cochin 12pt. I don’t know if this is true because I never sent him a script in any other format.
You’ll usually get to see the most recent script done for a brand, or you can always ask for it from a CD or account person. Then copy the format. Generally, people won’t get stressed about style as long as it’s easy to follow, but it can’t hurt to be consistent.
THE 31-SECOND SPOT:
When writing a script, give a lot of time for pauses, scene changes, and action. Everything takes longer than you’d think. Time it. Read the script slower than you want it read for the final and talk through visuals as you picture them happening. If it’s a 30-second spot you end around 28 seconds. If it’s 32 it will never fit into a 30. If it’s 30 it will never fit into a 30.
THEY’RE LOOKING AT YOU
BECAUSE IT’S YOUR SHOW.
Nobody will
prep you for your first time on production. People will assume you already know what you’re doing. If you’re talented, you can trick people into thinking you do. Really, all anyone is waiting for is an opinion and a decision. Say you like it if you do, say you don’t if it isn’t quite right. Have an opinion and make sure it’s one you can stick to. Think through your choices because nobody wants to redo everything every five seconds because of an indecisive creative. Be a leader.
YOU’RE THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST THE EASY WAY.
It’s up to you to get everything you want on film, in edit, in audio, everywhere. There will not be a chance to redo it.
Generally you won’t have to push too much, but if you do, it’s better to have people on set roll their eyes than your CD when you get back to the office.
This isn’t the “trust yourself” speech. It’s the “it’s your ass” speech. Be stubborn, but kind. It’s how winning work is made.
REWRITE
IN THE EDIT ROOM.
If you don’t get what you want on film, it’s amazing what editing can do. Pretend you’re seeing the footage for the first time and create the best story the film offers. Maybe the ending you wrote isn’t as funny as you thought it would be. Or the actor has a surprise limp that you didn’t see in casting. Cut around your mistakes and nobody will know they were even there.
DON’T PANIC,
THEN SIT THERE QUIETLY.
Day one of your edit you will want to go to the top floor of the edit house and jump off the roof. Even if you’re working with one of the best editors in the world you won’t be happy with the first cut. I doubt it’s ever happened that the first rough cut was what everyone hoped it would be. That’s not the point though. The first edit is just to know that the footage does exist, that the scenes are all there and that if the world ended, something would be able to go on TV.
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