Interviews 137
What do you call yourself?
I’m Head of Creative at Innocent Drinks. I’ve worked here since it
started in 1999. In that time I’ve helped take Innocent from something
people knew nothing about to something that more people know about,
and a lot of that’s hopefully been to do with stuff we’ve written. I have
other creative duties to do with design, but writing is the thing I’m
proudest of and I think I’m best at.
How much writing do you do these days?
Less than I used to. I have a team that includes a dedicated writer
called Ceri, so a lot of what I do is rewriting, editing and coaching. I tend
to still write bigger stuff like adverts. Plus at the moment we’re writing a
book on Innocent and I’m doing that. Every week I probably spend a few
hours rather than a few days creating nice new words for labels, but then
it’s the time around the writing that’s most productive.
How did you get into the business?
I went to university with the three chaps who founded Innocent. I was
employee number four. I wasn’t writing copy then, more driving vans and
delivering smoothies. Gradually I started to write the blurb on the side of
the bottles, so I stumbled into it. Before Innocent, I was bumming around
Asia as an English teacher. I’ve always liked writing and thought I was
good at it but I didn’t know how to make a career out of it. Ending up here
and earning my corn as a professional writer was a happy accident.
Innocent is famous for its tone of voice. Did that voice arrive fully
formed?
Some people think it was a careful marketing decision – it wasn’t, it
was pretty much unplanned. It grew out of the way we spoke to each other.
If it made us laugh then I knew something was halfway to being right.
‘Does it make my friends laugh?’ was as technical as our market research
got.
What was the first thing you wrote at Innocent?
It was a label. I came in about a month after the launch and Richard
had already written the first eight labels, so I had a go at the next batch.
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138 brilliant copywriting
I think it was one about mangoes – I’d learned something about the
particular mangoes we were using, so I did something cliché about being
exotic. We can dig it out if you like but I’m sure we’d be underwhelmed.
How did it feel to see that early writing on the shelf?
Brilliant. I remember one piece I did about my grandad – of whom I’m
very fond – for the back of a tetrapak. I don’t think he’d eaten a piece of
fruit in his life and we got him drinking smoothies by stealth, so suddenly
at the age of 70 he was enjoying fruit. I wrote something about him seeing
off the Germans, travelling the world and now getting into fruit. My
grandparents stood in the chiller area of their local shop for hours pointing
it out to anyone who passed.
Is there a copywriter personality type?
I think you need to be a bit of a journalist within our business. There’s
lots of good stuff happening but it might be buried in a file or a brain
somewhere. We have guys travelling the world buying five years’ worth of
mangoes from India and the like. They’ve all got great tales to tell but the
last thing they want to do when they get back is come over and tell me all
about it. So you have to be proactive and put yourself about a bit.
Is there anything fundamentally different about copywriting
compared to other forms of writing?
Writing here takes a mix of different skills. You’ve got to go and find
the story, so you’re a journalist. You’ve got to make it come alive in people’s
minds, so you’re a poet. So to answer your question, I’m not sure there is.
You’re still using basic writing skills, but perhaps in a different combination.
Do you ever hanker after doing something – how can I put it –
weightier?
Well, I’m not a frustrated novelist as some copywriters undoubtedly are.
I’ve met plenty of copywriters and there are always a few budding novelists
amongst them. I’ve got friends who’ve written novels, and friends who’ve
tried and failed, but I’m less interested in fiction as I get older, I’m more
into science and nature.
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Interviews 139
Do you read much?
I’m married to a woman who reads a lot, so she shames me into
reading. I have two young kids so I don’t have as much time as I once did.
Reading is a luxury now, so I have to know it’s going to be good before I
start. I mainly read books about the world that will hopefully turn out to be
grist to the mill. I’m into space and the cosmos. I have a brilliant Oxford
A–Z of food. There are a million things in there I can use in my day job.
Any there golden rules for writing at Innocent?
It’s got to be interesting. That’s all I do, tell people about interesting
stuff. More specifically, here’s something I stole about starting to write: you
have your first idea – great, but don’t use it. Ninety per cent of people will
have thought of that, so it’ll be boring. Have another idea – great, don’t
use that either. Eight per cent of people will have thought of that. Go for
the third idea – that’s what hardly anyone will have got to, that’s the one
people will say, ‘Ah, what an interesting approach’. Plus there’s an uber-rule
at Innocent to write naturally. It has to sound like a real person speaking.
What about your writing routines and rituals? For example, what
hours do you work?
I write at the beginning or the end of the day. I get up early, go for a
quick run and get to my desk by 7. Then I can write well until the office
gets busy at 9. In the evening after the kids have gone to bed I can do a
bit more. I prefer to work in bursts of about an hour. Music is a distraction
for me – ideally I need quiet. I’m also a deadline fiend – I need the
deadline to be about 3 minutes away before I start, although curiously if it
gets too close I go weirdly catatonic.
Any writing that you really love or indeed hate?
I don’t massively enjoy writing shelf barkers or anything that veers
towards the more commercial. It’s got to be done, mind, and some of the
best things I’ve ever written ended up in unglamorous places like the edge
of a shelf in Morrisons and sold far more smoothies than some of the
wanky ad or digital stuff I’ve done.
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How do you plan and prepare?
We have a wiki here where everyone who learns anything about
anything dumps their knowledge. So if I’m writing about blueberries the
first thing I do is check the wiki to see, ‘Oh, Simon’s been in America
recently checking the blueberry harvest’. Then I’ll go and have a cuppa with
Simon and ask him all sorts of stuff. It might turn out he stayed at a weird
hotel called the Blueberry Lodge which was shaped like a giant blueberry.
That’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. There’s no point telling people ‘we
only use the finest blueberries’. They either know that or they don’t care. Or
both.
How long to write a label?
We get a big bunch of briefs and four weeks later we hand over our
stuff, usually a batch of 30 at a time. I can write one in about 15 minutes,
and then come back to it a few days later for a bit of spit and polish. I’ll
usually sit down for an hour and do three or four and give them to Ceri
who’ll check them and sort them into piles of good and bad, along with
the stuff she’s written.
Do you ever get stuck, and if so how do you break out?
One thing I do is start from a random word or sentence. So if I’ve got a
brief to write about health and cranberries I might start with a line like
‘The thing about squirrels is . . .’. Then you know that however you get back
to health and cranberries will be either interesting and funny or completely
shit. So it’s good to have a few opening lines like that to play with and
wake you up.
And finally, any words of wisdom for aspiring copywriters?
Write lots of stuff. Keep writing. Write snappy lines and short stories.
Stick your words on a blog. Try writing a bit of everything. But most
importantly, just write. It’s amazing the number of people who applied for
the job of copywriter at Innocent about a year ago who couldn’t show me
any stuff of note. Also, steal ideas from anywhere – the best CVs that I see
are like the start of a good conversation, rather than a list of achievements
and medals won for being clever.
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Interviews 141
In a nutshell:
G A good copywriter is part journalist and part poet.
G Don’t use the first thing you think of – everyone else will
have thought of it too. Don’t even use the second thing you
think of. Try using the third instead.
G Be polite – say hello, write to the person you’re speaking to,
get their attention quickly and leave them with something to
think about at the end.
G Don’t bother telling people the obvious stuff.
G If you’re stuck, set yourself the challenge of getting from a
random word back to where you need to be.
G Respect your readers’ intelligence.
brilliant
questions and answers
Jim Davies
‘Brilliant copywriting gives the reader a reason to read. It’s got to be easy to
read and entertaining in a way that effortlessly encourages them to stick
with you to the end.’
The taxi driver who picked me up at Leamington Spa station generously
provided a running commentary on sites of local interest, including what
he proudly claimed was the first polo field to be built in the UK. After I met
Jim at his historic pile (complete with priest hole, which I mistook for an
airing cupboard) he told me the polo stuff was nonsense and that it had all
been built after he arrived in the area a decade ago. Oh well. After lunch
Jim ushered me into his office where I couldn’t help noticing his D&AD
black pencil, recently awarded for work with The Partners on the National
Gallery’s ‘Grand Tour’ project. His wife and business partner Deborah
brought up tea and we got going.
How would you describe yourself?
I’m a copywriter. I’ve made a conscious decision to call myself that to
differentiate what I do now from my previous job as a journalist. Plus, I’m
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