The mysterious art of copywriting

Mysterious? You must be joking. Examples of copywriting are all around you, clamouring for your attention, demanding your approval, prising open your wallet, changing your mind and appealing to your basest instincts. The bombardment of commercial – and increasingly political – messages starts as soon as you open your eyes and ears in the morning, continues on billboards and bus sides as you wander down the street, and even unashamedly follows you into the loo. (Do remember to disinfect your phone on a regular basis.)

Yet members of this esteemed organization are often mystified as to what copywriting actually entails, let alone how to actually do it. (Preferably in exchange for more money than is generally available for translating or editing other people’s texts.) So here’s a quick overview of a vast and changing landscape.

What copywriting is

The term for text on an advertisement is ‘copy’, and the way it originates is by someone writing it. (Remove the silent ‘w’, and you’re in legal territory instead.) In general, copywriting simply involves coming up with words to persuade a target group to buy the goods or services of a particular client. It’s the advertising industry’s expression of the latest exhaustively determined marketing position. Unlike proper journalists, whose job is to tell a story objectively, copywriters are happy to present only one side of the argument while conveniently forgetting the rest. At one advertising agency I worked for, I was so utterly convinced by the studies presenting the superior benefits of medicated talc X versus cream Y for treating nappy rash that I wrote an entire consumer leaflet singing its praises. Imagine my surprise when, a few years and ad agencies later, I had to do the same thing again – only this time for cream Y, which came complete with equally compelling scientific reports drawing precisely the opposite conclusion.

Where you can find it

One reason for the confusion surrounding copywriting is its sheer variety and ubiquity. At the start of my glorious career 40 years ago, one would be briefed to write encouraging words for a finite group of media types: TV commercials (on a lucky day), radio spots, printed products (newspapers, magazines and direct mail) or posters. Since then, the number of possible channels has exploded, although the bread-and-butter work consists largely of websites, social media posts, emails, intranet updates, e-brochures and print-on-demand magazines. You can’t deny that many trees have breathed a sigh of relief.

The short and sweet of it

Yet one aspect hasn’t changed in the slightest: all of these diverse communications are expected to hold true to the key brand concept, which is usually summarized in what outsiders call a slogan (a term that makes insiders wince) or what we professionals knowingly refer to as a strapline, endline or tagline. The most successful of these tend to be short and sweet: ‘Beanz Meanz Heinz’ (remember that one?); ‘Reassuringly Expensive’ (Stella Artois); ‘Just Do It’ (Nike); or ‘Think different’ (Apple). You may also come across some hilariously optimistic ones, such as ‘Let’s make your home special’ (IKEA) or less innocent examples, such as ‘Take Back Control’.

Concepts and copy

Such deceptively simple phrases usually form part of the core advertising concept for which several ad agencies eagerly pitch every few years. Creative teams (each consisting of a copywriter and art director) battle it out to distil hundreds of pages of indigestible marketing bumph into a tasty little snack. Sometimes all these efforts boil down to a typical Holy Trinity consisting of headline + visual + strapline; sometimes the headline’s merely the product name; and sometimes the concept is further condensed into merely a picture of the product (or logo) with the genius new brand line.

From concept to campaign

Once that rather fun conceptual part is over, it’s time to craft the rest of the communication campaign. This can roughly be divided into B2B (business-to-business), B2C (business-to-consumer) and even C2C (consumer-to-consumer) items. Some of these, such as brochures and websites, will need long, descriptive explanatory copy that needs to be carefully structured. Others, such as Twitter (now X) posts and the more minimalist kind of press ads, will focus on conveying a key message or brand value in just a few words. But wherever you’re replacing grey lines (the ones drawn by the designer to indicate where you’re allowed to play) with actual text, you need to ensure that your words either complement, explain or add an extra dimension to the visuals that accompany them. This applies throughout the customer journey, which is the term used to describe all the interactions that a member of the target audience has with the product before, during and even after the purchase itself. No communication channel, no matter how small, should go to waste.

Welcome to your world

As a copywriter, your job will be to peek under the surface of an astounding array of different organizations in order to glean just enough knowledge to write about their business, products, services or aims without frying your brain. Once in a while, having found your niche, you may spend your time exploring a much-loved specialism in nerdy depth with a favourite client. You’ll learn a lot about social trends, innovations, economics and people along the way. Hopefully, you’ll also gain useful skills such as keeping a straight face upon being informed by market researchers that the persona epitomising the core user of Brand Fab is Julie, a mid-thirties career woman who lives in an untidy semi-detached house in a working-class area with a slightly incontinent, elderly Labradoodle called Muffin.

Write here. Write now.

If you’re interested in getting into this game, you need to be more than a wordsmith. You should also be able to create visual concepts, understand commercial goals, adapt your writing style to the agreed tone of voice, and ensure that everything you write is fit for purpose. Some clients may be impressed by a CV featuring a Bachelor of Arts from a famous alma mater, but what they’re really looking for is a portfolio of copywriting examples (which, in the beginning, will be private masterpieces that you would have written if anyone had been discerning enough to hire you). Meanwhile, look around you at the myriad of existing examples, study it all to work out how it’s done, and challenge yourself to learn how to do it better. For instance, you’ll probably notice that lots of long-copy items finish off with a Call To Action. So start today!