By: mamagiggle

mamagiggle — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 04:26:33 +0000

Tikkety talking
All these tiny little empires, where to next Mr. Conductor?

By: graham

graham — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:50:52 +0000

Hey Hugh, hey Louise…
I read your letter and the various responses from all these marketing gurus and thought;what can I add to benefit Louise?
The result is; if you were my daughter I would suggest you visited http://www.wizardofads.com.
Then if you are still interested I suggest you read one or more of Roy H Williams’ books. After that, you may wish to look at the possibility of attending his course at the ‘Wizard Academy’.
I am not in advertising,in fact I’m not ‘in’ anything any longer as I am too old.And, I don’t wish to bore you with all my history, mistakes and successes.
I have read Roy’s books and feel that they talk a great deal of sense. I have not been on his course but I feel with that much enthusiasm for his work he has to be a good teacher. For a couple of days of your life and a few dollars what have you got to lose?
The rest is up to you.
regards
Graham

By: giorgia

giorgia — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:46:41 +0000

Hello,
I’ve just read all of the above and below and left/right/centre, and I’m not sure if anybody’s interested, but all of this perfectly applies to becoming an architect (hello, that’s me!), too, including the switching firms every six months or so bit. Thinking of that, I suppose it applies to all even only slightly creative jobs, you just need to switch work environments quite often at the beginning (and not only so that your salary increases, I guess it’a a matter of not being stuck into the first thing that came along after you sent out your cv.).
Alright, I’m not adding much to the conversation, here, but that’s all I wanted to say.
I’ll tell you what — I’ll go back to lurking mode.
Ciao!

By: Roy Blumenthal

Roy Blumenthal — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 06:25:53 +0000

Hey Hugh, hey Louise…
I used to be a copywriter, and I’m very glad I was one. I also used to teach copywriting, around the time I started wanting to stop being a copywriter.
Teaching it contributed to my wanting to stop.
The reason I stopped had to do with my adding value to the world. In advertising, no matter what brilliance I created (and as a freelancer for a good eight years, my balls were on the line everytime I accepted a brief), I found that it was transient. The work didn’t have any lasting effects in the real world, and was simply more bumph. Blah. I wanna make art. And that’s what I’m doing. Adding value in my way.
When I was teaching fresh-faced, hyper-intelligent young things, I taught them this:
(1) Make sure that you have your own ethical system in place before you get into an ad agency. You WILL be called upon to fuck with your ethics. Know in advance what lines you’ll be prepared to cross, and be prepared to LEAVE an ad agency if they try to make your cross your uncrossables.
(2) In your first two years of working, make absolutely vehemently violently incontrovertibly certain that you DO NOT STAY FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS at a particular agency. No matter WHAT incentives they offer you to stay. Always offer this in parting: “I’m really still learning, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this agency. When I’m done learning, I’m going to want to come back here, and I want to keep my doors open. But when I come back here I’m going to be brilliant! And I’m going to win tons of awards for you and your agency and your clients and myself!” They’ll love you, and forget you as soon as you close the front door.
(3) Whenever you move agencies, ensure that the work you’ve done — be it formal work assigned to you by the agency, or extramural work done by you on your own initiative for clients of that agency — is so fucking amazingly awesome, that your salary doubles from agency to agency. Yes. DOUBLES. You have to put in the 150% to ensure that you’re NOT just some silly body shifting from desk to desk in the world that is advertising. If you’re not prepared to be brilliant, and you’re not prepared to double your salary, it means you’re a crap copywriter, and noone wants you except for the crappest ad agencies. And you DO NOT WANT TO WORK for a crap agency. Trust me. I’ve done it. Bloodstains on my pillow.
Something that I’ll advise you, Louise, is this… seriously fix up your written English. I read your letter to Hugh, and it’s riddled with errors. There are a good five or so that I can recall without delving into the missive. You’re NOT making a good start in copywriting if you can’t write.
The place to start in fixing your writing is to read lots. And a variety of things. Fiction, poetry, business books, self-help, biography, are good places to start. I’m NOT KIDDING!!!
Also, be sure to live a little. Try silly odd job type things. Get experience in living. You cannot succeed in advertising if you know nothing about the way business works. (Yes, you CAN be a bushy tailed creative who comes up with good ideas, but that’s not necessarily effective advertising.)
Learn how to sell.
In my career as a copywriter, I have a proud record of only 9 client rejections. This is not by accident.
Firstly, I ensured that I did my homework, sometimes pissing off client service people to the point of tears and resignations because I forced them to do their jobs… liaising with clients to give me ALL the information.
Secondly, I NEVER EVER stopped at the first right idea. My mission was to cover my wall with one hundred ideas, and choose twenty that might have some merit. I’d develop five of those, and mash them around, and create a total of three finished concepts. Always.
Thirdly, I presented my own work. And because I was a salesperson at one point, and because I’m a gifted listener, and because I understand things, and because I’d researched my client’s business, and because I understood what they were trying to achieve, and because I dissected and modified and fixed the brief way before I ever started on the creative stuff, I was in a very good position to crack the right ad, and then to sell it with integrity.
Okay. Too much stuff for you to take in.
And right now, it’s 1:23am by my clock, and I’m producing a tv program starting tomorrow, so I’ll say cheers for now. And good luck. And read Alistair Crompton’s THE CRAFT OF COPYWRITING.
Blue skies
love
Roy

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