Party Like a Copywriter fact: Writers always love to talk about writing. Or write about writing.
The great Lee Clow’s Beard Twitter stream aside, Advice to Writers on Twitter has been a great source of writing advice. Some of the bits I’ve enjoyed:
Always carry around a notebook. If you don’t write it down, it’s gone. STEWART O’NAN #amwriting#writing#writetip
Good copywriting tells the facts, supports a brand, and speaks to an audience. Great copywriting becomes something bigger—part of our memories, part of an era.
William Bernbach, David Ogilvy, and Lee Clow are just three who have created campaigns that have become just that, cultural references. Take a look
Known for: The “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock” headline, tasting blood through direct advertising*
Once said: “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.”
Lee Clow
Known for: Apple’s 1984 commercial, the Energizer Bunny, Taco Bell Chihuahua.
Once said: “Great brands have a story, our job is to tell them.” (Lee Clow, or more specifically, @leeclowsbeard, has more to say about advertising, creativity, and ideas on Twitter.)
Known for: Pitching ideas and doing whatever he pleases as a partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce
Once said: “Just think about it deeply, then forget it…then an idea will jump in your face.”
Who else do you think has contributed to part of our culture through good copywriting? Tell us in the comments!
*Ogilvy took on a client who had $500 to spend on the promotion of his new hotel. Ogilvy bought as many postcards as $500 would purchase and mailed invites to people listed in the phone book. The hotel was packed at opening. “I had tasted blood,” he later said of the experience.
Birds will fly. Fish will swim. Writers will write. That’s how it goes.
There are lots of different kinds of writing. This includes copywriting. Copywriters craft and draft content for websites, products, billboards. Copywriters should like writing. So they write.
You should write, too.
Any form. Any medium. It doesn’t matter what. It doesn’t matter where. Writing something gives you a moment to yourself and saves your thoughts for later.
Here are three ways to get started:
Post on Twitter. Make your words short and sweet. Bonus points if they’re interesting and funny.
Put pen on paper. Paper is still a happening thing. Get a notebook. Grab your favorite writing implement. Go for it.
No, really. Unless you’re using a typewriter (which, although awesome, is arguably not terribly modern), there’s no need to insert an extra space after a sentence. At all.
It was standard to use two spaces after a sentence with a typewriter because typewriter fonts aren’t proportional. Because the letters are all the same width, using two spaces makes the document easier to read. With proportional fonts, using two spaces after a sentence makes a large, lonely gap—so documents are more difficult to read. Sentences are social and like to be near each other. Don’t separate.
Copywriters know this, as they have generally spent hours of their lives deleting extra spaces. And it’s tedious, soul-destroying work that wears down the copywriter’s faith in humanity and delete key alike. Please, stop superfluous spacing and spare your copywriter this agony!
Two spaces after a sentence: not a party.
One space after a sentence: raging party.
