152 brilliant copywriting
mainly because no one would believe you. Despite being well into his
seventh decade he’s a true sartorial wonder (recently described as looking
like ‘Austin Powers’ grandad’ thanks to his penchant for purple), a serious
thinker and a tireless ambassador for advertising. You’ll notice that Robin’s
interview doesn’t quite follow the format of the others; instead it veers
wonderfully off into brain science, memes and irrationality.
Let me start by asking how you got started as a copywriter . . .
I sold toothbrushes door-to-door in Liverpool: toothbrushes, pads,
scourers and clothes pegs. They told me, ‘If you can sell toothbrushes to
people who don’t clean their teeth, then you can be a copywriter, my son.’
A really important part of copywriting is curiosity. I have this phrase,
‘Interrogate the product until it confesses to its strengths’; this is my battle
cry. So digging into things and using the power of words as a salesman is
what attracted me to copywriting. What I’ve learnt, forty years on, is that a
lot of our decisions are made totally irrationally. We have a rational coding
mechanism – words – for something that is quite irrational – our decisions.
Advertising requires some form of logical argument, but often that
argument is used as a rationalisation after the buying decision has been
made, and copy often just reinforces the belief that you’ve made the right
decision. The biggest readers of car ads are people who’ve just bought that
car. If you understand that we are rationalising machines, not rational
machines, then the role of traditional copywriting comes after the sale, not
before. I think that’s an important shift that people haven’t really taken on
board.
How can a copywriter create that irrational, emotional appeal?
At the early stage it’s about having an idea that you often express
through words, but the notion that someone’s brain is divided up into
pictures and words is wrong. I think the writing part of copywriting is pretty
secondary. When I wrote a piece for Campaign about whether the
copywriter is dead, I had this headline ‘Would David Abbott get a job in
advertising today?’ And of course he would because he was a brilliant
strategic thinker and ideas person – those beautifully caressed words were
easier to read than not to read. I think the role of the copywriter today is
much more about coming up with the idea, which could even be wordless.
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So does it make sense to talk about copywriting any more, or are we
in the ideas business?
People’s brains have a mixture of capabilities, and what the copywriter
ideally brings to the ideas partnership is a brain that is systemised and
analytical. Part of the copywriting job is to undertake strategic analysis. In
fact what I call the ‘strategic planning brain’ I think of as part of the
copywriting function. Today the actual craft of copywriting is often the
smallest part of the job. In television commercials, for example, dialogue is
pretty unusual. I do think some of those craft skills are less present than
they should be. Too often we rush to the visual solution.
Which presumably is why long copy isn’t popular in advertising . . .
Yes, you can read a lot of words about a Nike shoe but if you take a
photo of that shoe, the visceral image on your brain will make more impact
than a logical argument. The right place for copy about that shoe might be
in the box. It consolidates your sense of ownership and gives you little
soundbites to tell your friends and fuel word-of-mouth. It makes you an
ambassador for the brand and gives you raw material for conversation. So
the challenge becomes ‘How can we create little globules of words that
people can spread in a memetic way?’ One of the things we’re learning
from brain science is the power of memes, memory devices that spread
words from brain to brain. As copywriters we want to infect people’s brains
with our brands, and things that have got some memetic quality are more
easily caught by the brain than things that just flip through.
How can a writer do that?
You have to believe that your product has something good about it. You
might find something that illuminates the whole brand. One thing that we
found out recently for BUPA, one of our clients, is that when you go to a
BUPA care home they ask you ‘What are your dreams?’ Which is brilliant –
why shouldn’t an eighty-year old woman have dreams? When you hear that
story, it changes your view of BUPA. Which leads to my next point about
copywriting – the power of storytelling. Our brains aren’t wired up to
receive information as logical arguments; our brains are wired up to hear
information as stories. So Kennedy’s ‘salesmanship in print’ is one definition
L
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154 brilliant copywriting
of copywriting, but being able to tell the story of the brand is a more
engaging one. ‘The future’s bright; the future’s orange’ became a narrative
about being future-facing for an entire company. It’s a broader approach to
copywriting than just salesmanship in print.
Any big influences on your writing/thinking?
I’ve become interested in genetics, and therefore I read about memes in
Dawkins’ book and heard him talk about memes. As copywriters or
whatever we’re basically meme men. And when I presented this idea to the
agency nobody was terribly interested. Then when we got the 118 118
account I was able to apply meme theory to a particular campaign and it’s
become incredibly successful. Brain science doesn’t make you more creative,
but it teaches you how processing occurs and it reminds you how clever the
brain is. The brain doesn’t want to spend any attention: it’s a cognitive
miser. That is why long copy is seldom read unless it is very engaging; the
brain doesn’t have time to process it, it’s too busy thinking about love or
lunch.
Finally, any advice for someone trying to become a copywriter?
Selling things door to door develops your understanding of how people
respond. When I was selling door to door it was to help the blind and I had
this idea – people said ‘You can’t do it, it’s too sick’ – of getting sunglasses
and a white stick because I thought my sales would increase. What I’m
saying is that you need to think ‘How can I get people to engage with this
issue and how can I bring it to life?’ The other thing I’d say is every day
spend 20 minutes investigating something randomly: go to a dictionary,
look up a word and find something interesting to say about it. Also make
yourself an expert on how the brain works so you know more about the
process of communication than the person trying to hire you – without
being a smart Alec! Plus your book is all-important, so find people who can
help you make your book better: ask them, ‘Tell me three things in my book
which are good and tell me the things that are bad’. So seek criticism. That
way you’ll improve.
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In a nutshell:
G ‘Interrogate the product until it confesses to its strengths.’
G Copy is often used to rationalise a decision we’ve already
made.
G Memes are memory devices that help spread words from
brain to brain.
G Our brains aren’t wired up to receive information as logical
arguments; instead they’re wired up to accept information
as stories.
G ‘As copywriters we’re basically meme men.’
G Be brief; the brain is a cognitive miser. It’s too busy
thinking about love or lunch.
G Sharpen your act by selling stuff door to door.
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