January 23, 2005
letter to a student
Dear Hugh,
I came across your site a couple of days ago whilst I have been frantically looking for some proper advice for careers. I’m a final year student at Durham University [UK] studying English Lit. I really want to get into copywriting, but I’ve heard loads of conflicting opinions.
Someone from DDB London told me I needed to find a ‘designer partner’ and work my way through design school… Someone who works in advertising in Manchester told me copywriting was excellent and worth the hard work.
I’m really enthusiastic about creativity in commercial sense and would love a career in advertising where I can use my writing skills and not just become another corporate whore. What worries me is that I’ll be a fresh faced graduate in july, and have none of the agency experience which some job adverts specify.
Am I expected to have a ‘book’ [a portfolio of sample work]? I have obviously written before, but not examples of the kind of work I would be expected to produced as a copywriter. Could you give me some advice?
Any response would be greatly appreciated,
Louise
Dear Louise,
You don’t need a copywriter’s ‘book’.
You need a blog, with lots of pages on it like this one.
The British advertising scene is a joke. Dinosaurs with designer labels. All getting ready to die. Fun to watch.
They had some glory days back in the 1970s and ‘80s. Those days are long gone. It’s been years since I saw a really interesting advertising idea come out of a London creative department.
Sure, they’re some some exceptional minds in the British ad biz, but doing what?
The older I get, the more I think they’re using their God-given talent not to blaze interesting new trails, but to hang on to what they’ve already managed to get away with, until somebody discovers the ruse.
They certainly have no interest in helping out a young graduate like yourself. Nor do I think they could, not really, not long-term, even if they wanted to.
What I can imagine them doing is, feasting on your creativity for a few years, working you half to death for little reward, then throwing your underpaid, dried-out carcass out the door the minute they find somebody younger and cheaper to replace you with. That seems to be their standard business model.
If I were a young graduate, about to throw my lot in with the Brits, it would only be for a year or two, maybe to get some real work experience under my belt. But after a year, I’d be on the first plane out of there.
In the meantime, get an “advertising blog” together (Don’t know what one is? You’re reading one), save up for a plane ticket, go travelling for a bit, then land some interviews when you get abroad. I’m partial to Asia, myself.
I will say this once again: you are wasting your time with the British advertising scene. They are utterly clueless. And they basically make their money from nobody finding this out (this includes the people working for them).
I’d head for the States or Asia.
Hugh
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Hey, Hugh,
But absolutely of the same type…
hm, and Germany is just the same old dino-story… though the dinos of Frankfurt, Hamburg or Dusseldorf are a little bit smaller than those in London
yep, asia isn’t a bad idea to start…
Since Johnnie Moore just told me to “get real” in another comment string on this site, I’m thinking about what it would actually take for any of us to do that. We all have our own stories to tell and they are shaped by the lives we lead.
For instance, is it right to lead Louise astray? You know as well as I do Hugh, that she will need a book to a get a copywriter’s job in London or anywhere else.
David,
I am right.
You are wrong.
Life is unfair.
The authority has spoken.
Please pardon my conventional thinking.
p.s. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s the bigger smart ass, you or me.
Louise,
Either way be careful. Choose wisely, if that’s possible. There are people out there who can rape your mind. Or as some might say, “f*** you over.” (Not to mention your body or soul).
The scars are ugly.
No offense meant, but I have no grasp what the people so far are talking about. Who are you all involving yourselves with and for what reasons? Money? Fame? Fortune?
Granted I am happily financially dirt-poor, glad to be uneducated, and either stupid or fortunate enough to be able do what I want when I want with whom and for my own reasons.
Blogging is great. Using this web to connect directly to many of the most talented, regardless of my political or social status is a profoundly revolutionary act that hasn’t been lost on me.
I believe basing career decisions on money/recognition for their own sake is a dead end, ultimately a fruitless pursuit. Just my thoughts.
Louise,
i gradded last year having spent 4 years on this strange course called medialab arts from the university of plymouth. I now find myself working in a digital marketing agency / production house in londinium: a common destination for the grads from my course.
three weeks after i started, i got a crazy new job title because some people had thrown in the towel. i was chuffed, as any grad would be, but soon found myself working crazy hours, rehashing old campaigns and none the richer.
later i discovered that the guys whose threadbare shoes i was trying to fill had also started at the company as grads and were basically tired of the whole “same old shit, just a different brand” thing.
i’ve only been doing this for 5 months, but i’m already feeling chewed up, i’m still a broke mofo’ and i’ve already seen what the future holds for grads in this place. this idea recycling and grad soul destruction that Hugh speaks of is not fiction, it’s my grim reality, which is why for christmas I put down a deposit on a plane ticket for myself.
asking rules. you’ve given yourself a chance to avoid getting burnt.
godspeed
Hey Louise: Kudos for asking the question. I loved what what Hugh said.
The Blog of A Would-Be Copywriter, warts and all, will be fun to read and may get you noticed… if (and only if, I suspect) you find it fun to write.
And I’d also say, at end of the day, there are no rules.
Listen to lots of people if you like but in the end there’s no right answer, only a choice that you get to make. Frankly, sometimes this sucks but it’s also what makes life exciting.
This morning, my throwaway advice is: life is complex and unpredictable… try doing what feels like fun and see what happens. Be wary of predictions, your own and other people’s.
And the best of British (or whichever nationality you prefer) luck to you!
PS Lousie: feel free to email me at my blog if you’d like to chat further
Hi Louise,
I hope that you find what you are looking for, although I tend to think that Hugh is right. I would also throw the net a bit broader, and point out something that has struck me very forcefully over the last couple of decades. (I am 39.)
When I left University I was spectacularly unemployable, and so I did what grads did in those days, I looked for someone who would teach me a skill. Now, way back then, i.e. the late eighties, there were graduate training programmes with the big corporations that were actually worth doing. I joined what is now KPMG to train to be an auditor, and left after three months because I hated it, and more improtantly, didn’t have the right attitude for it.
I joined one of the magazine publishers, trade and so on, and sold ad space, which is really bloody tedious as a job, but it paid the rent, and made me ask myself for real why would anyone give me money? Good question to think about an answer to.
Then I could see that this was going nowhere, it was the ultimate rack space, one body fell, and another dropped in without a hiccup. You were given your box of cards and a phone, and expected to figure out how to sell white paper with a couple of afternoon’s training. So I joined the graduate training prohram of one of the big IT companies. And they took two years to traim me to do something useful, and I worked at it, and within a couple more years I left and have had a very successful career with a big ERP software vendor, mainly doing sales, and mainly on the back of what I learnt in the ad sales sweatshop.
Now, here’s the point. Twenty years ago you trained people up because it was the cheapest and most effective way to ensure that you had skilled and useful resource for the long term growth of the company. Twenty years later, get this.
1. There is no long term, the CEO’s next quarter is his/her last.
2. Stealing somebody else is cheaper, and you can do it on demand. This is called right sizing
3. In case the resource you need is scarce, remember that the job market globally has added around 100 million competent people (University grads, experience, speak English, have access to outside world) since around 1990.
So, basically, no-one has any interest in telling you anything about how to do their job because they are already worried about keeping it, let alone telling anyone else how to do it. And so with very few exceptions, the traditional graduate entry points are closed. This is what you need to overcome.
How will you find the network that will get you into the right position? Who is it that you know, or will get to know that will take a personal interest in getting you functional in this business?
If the answer is no-one, then you need to go and find a business where the answer is “someone”, and quick.
Hey Louise,
I suspect that if you had a nifty blog like this one, you get hired in no time: http://www.houseofwigs.com/
As the purveyor of a small web shop I can tell you that I get so many job applicants every week that I can only image the big shops are inundated with a fresh stack of pdfs each morning — so good luck on that account.
My advice would be, pay your dues, but get freelancing/consulting as fast you can; the more clients/bosses you have, the less it hurts when one of them inevitably downsizes…
Louise,
Hugh is right. Get yourself a blog and then start writing. The only way to get work as a writer is to write, and rather than waiting for someone to generously give you something to write about you should be going out there and finding your own stories. Doors don’t just open these days, they have to be prised open with a crowbar or, at times, blown open with high explosive. Blogs can do both.
There are plenty of people who will tell you that a blog won’t get you work, but those people are either full of shit or stupid. These days, I get most of my clients either directly through or indirectly because of my blog and I am far from alone. Anyone who wants me to write for them has access to a huge archive of my writing, and instant insight into the sorts of things that interest me, my personality and experience. Of course, my portfolio site helps in that it provides copies of actual commissioned articles, but the blog allows people to dip into my mind and assess whether or not they want to work with me. Frequently, the answer is ‘yes’.
More important than displaying my *cough* wondrously eloquent gift to the world, blogging allows me to become a part of a community and that’s the real killer. You don’t get that from a book or clippings. You need the network — it’s how you meet your future clients, your future colleagues and your future editors.
The old ways of paying dues don’t work so well anymore — too many people want to be writers and are willing to work for nothing to do so. You have to cut to the chase and blogging is the best way to do that. If you want further advice about starting up a blog, feel free to email me at suw.charman [at] gmail.com as I’ve plenty of experience getting people up and running and advising them on how to get the best from their blog.
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Suw, great advise for a budding journalist. Not so great for a budding copywriter. A copywriter will need a killer book of spec ads that showcase her thinking in a branded context.
I know Hugh thinks that a portfolio is passe, and I can see what you think above, but please realize that your blogs are built on a foundation. That is, you both have real world experience (and a blog), so getting job leads from your blogs is a viable route.
For someone entering the ad biz, they can’t expect that their blog will attract the kind of attention necessary for a creative director to say, “Holy shit, this girl’s blog is so cool, I’ll overlook the fact she has no book.”
(Dave is still wrong. Life is still unfair.)
No, Hugh, David is right. Sorry.
Any schmo with an Internet connection can create a blog. Doesn’t mean they can create compelling creative — assuming that’s not a contradiction in terms these days. When it comes to landing a job, a blog is a gimmick — nothing more.
As for your opening rant about “the English advertising scene” is “a joke… getting ready to die,” well, perhaps you are correct. I still see some terrific work coming out of the UK, but what do I know?
The question is, if advertising as we know it is just a phone call to Dr. Kervorkian away from kicking the proverbial bucket, what do you propose will take its place?
You talk a lot about what’s wrong with advertising, but you don’t seem to offer much in the way of specific alternatives — just a lot of vague platitudes.
I don’t say this to be insulting. From reading your postings, you clearly have wit, talent and intelligence to burn (or David Burn, for that matter). But I’m not seeing a lot of substance.
Just my opinion, of course.
You are right about one thing, Hugh. Life is indeed unfair.
Hey, Dwight, it’s OK to agree with Dave =)
1. As far as the blog-book debate is concerned, sure, you could argue that perhaps an average book would beat out an average blog… but guess what? Average books and average blogs DO NOT INTEREST ME. I see either, I stop paying attention. Right away. So do most people.
The question for Louise, then, is what is she willing to do that is interesting to somebody else. Having never seen her work, I have no idea.
But the average advice doled out to young’uns like herself is 90% useless.
The advice Louise told me she’s received is utterly shameful. “Do what everybody else has been doing for the last 30 years.“
Wrong Answer.
2. What do I see replacing the standard ad agency model? Tons.
The trouble for Madison Avenue, is these replacements are being invented by people other than the ad agencies.
Google Adsense wasn’t invented by Young & Rubicam. Movable Type wasn’t invented by Leo Burnett. The Cluetrain Manifesto wasn’t written by John Hegarty. I could go on for pages…
It’s the old biz school maxim: the railroad companies didn’t get into airlines. The horse and buggy companies didn’t get into automobiles.
What will replace the monolithic agency model? Another monolith? Or lots of different little new models?
I’m sorry if my blog doesn’t offer you enough substance to satisfy your intellect. Find a blog that does, or write one yourself
I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy reading your blog, Mr. Macleod. Quite the contrary: As I stated before, your talent and intelligence are readily apparent.
Nor do I make any claims about the size of my own intellect. I am, in fact, as dense as the late Leonid Brezhnev’s eyebrows.
My point was simply that you go on and on about the demise of traditional advertising. It’s all very entertaining and, for the most part, true.
What seems to be lacking is a clear articulation as to what will replace it. It’s all well and good to take snide shots at Leo Burnett and Young and Rubicam. But what comes next?
I also agree that 90% of the advice Louise will be getting is “useless.” As a has-been who never was, I certainly have nothing to offer her — except my heartfelt best wishes.
But a blog alone won’t do the trick. Yeah, it’s different. So is standing on your head naked in the lobby of J. Walter Thompson while reciting “Green Eggs and Ham” in Yiddish.
Gimmicks are fine for getting attention — which, granted, is crucial. But if you don’t have the substance (there’s that word again) to back it up, you’re not likely to get hired.
Well, I’m not sure if blogs are just “gimmicks”. But we can agree to disagree. I’m not sure if ‘books’ are all they’re cracked up to be, either. I haven’t updated mine in years.
I don’t think my comments about Leo’s or Y&R were snide. I’d say they were very pertinent examples of what I’m talking about.
Anyway, I’ve moved this debate on to my most recent post. I’m closing the comments on this post, Gang.