CHAPTER 1
The basics
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What exactly is copywriting?
It’s an obvious question, but like many obvious questions the
answer isn’t exactly straightforward. One copywriter might be
working on a script for a corporate presentation, the next per-
fecting pack copy for posh sausages, while a third is crafting aTV
campaign for a charity. So one legitimate answer to the question
‘What exactly is copywriting?’ is ‘Marvellously varied’.
Another, slightly more obliging, answer to the above question is
that copywriting is the job of using the right words, to say the
right thing, to the right people, to get
the right response. Those ‘right
words’ can appear in any number of
places, including adverts, annual
reports, articles, brochures, case
studies, company and product
names, datasheets, direct mailers,
flyers, leaflets, letters, newsletters, packaging, posters, presen-
tations, straplines, websites and plenty more besides.
Another answer – touched on in the anecdote about John E.
Kennedy in the Preface – is that copywriting is the business of
selling with content. I use ‘sell’ in the loosest sense because
copywriting is above all about persuasion. Copywriters aim to
convince their readers of the merits of a particular product,
service, argument or whatever, and then get them to act
copywriting is the job of
using the right words, to
say the right thing, to
the right people, to get
the right response
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accordingly. Sometimes that means an overt, ‘buy me’-type sell;
at other times it’s about getting them to buy into your way of
thinking and see things from a particular point of view. This
emphasis on persuasion doesn’t mean copywriting is intrinsi-
cally less satisfying than other forms of writing. On the contrary,
focusing your thoughts into an intense beam that ignites your
reader’s imagination and causes them to act in some way is every
bit as challenging as writing fiction, and the chances are you’ll
be in work a lot more and paid rather better.
Put all this together and for me a copywriter is a professional
persuader responsible for creating a specific message for a
specific audience for a specific purpose. Copywriters need
imagination to create interesting ideas, and craft skill to capture
those ideas in a form of words that appeals to their readers. It’s
the copywriter’s job to answer the unspoken ‘So what?’ in their
readers’ minds. If you can make your case in a way that gets
through your audience’s mental defences then you’ve a chance
of making the sale I talked about earlier.
Some copywriters hold staff positions while others are freelance,
a way of working that many copywriters try at some point in
their career. It seems to suit the misanthropic streak in our col-
lective character and often offers more variety (and indeed more
cold, hard cash) than a staff position. On the other hand, free-
lancers tend to take whatever work comes their way regardless of
its quality, and job security is the stuff of dreams (and occasion-
ally nightmares).
Despite claims of rampant individualism many copywriters
exhibit common character traits. These include obsessive
curiosity about all manner of odd subjects, a magpie-like tend-
ency to steal shiny words and phrases for use another day, a
sense of humour, the ability to buckle down and work hard
when the occasion demands, and the happy knack of thinking
visually.
6 brilliant copywriting
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This last one is especially important within the context of
advertising and design –aquick flip through any D&AD
Annual reveals that many of the most effective and successful
entries feature very little writing, yet they communicate with
the utmost efficacy. It’s a cliché to say that ‘sometimes the
best copy is no copy at all’ but that doesn’t make it any less
true. The copywriter who can think visually will always be able
to get the message across, regardless of their particular
medium.
In a nutshell:
G Copywriting is about selling with content.
G It’s about using the right words, to say the right thing, to
the right people, to get the right response.
G A copywriter is a professional persuader responsible for
creating a specific message for a specific audience for a
specific purpose.
What copywriters do all day
Clearly there’s a certain amount of staring into space to be done.
Likewise tea-making and chatting. But in the end most copy-
writers spend most of their day behind a computer either
writing, researching or thinking.
If you work for an agency you’ll also attend meetings (both
internal and external), some of which will actually be useful. If
you’re a freelancer you’ll attend fewer meetings but more spec-
ulative interviews where you show your portfolio or book to
those transcendent individuals (typically creative directors) who
commission freelance copywriting. But mainly the copywriter’s
day is composed of reading, writing and thinking. And staring
into space.
Now for a few more observations on the copywriter’s lot.
The basics 7
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