The copywriter sculpts images from words with tools such as the dictionary and thesaurus, although many words are not to be found in either. The copywriter combines words and symbols in a way that will convey meaning and evoke a desired response. The copy may appear in print or in script, each very different in format and composition, but both seek to meet the marketing goals defined by the client.
A copywriter's involvement usually begins during a meeting between the creative team (copywriter and art director) and the account executive. The client's opinions and the account executive's evaluations and ideas are discussed ("You mean, they want thirteen full-grown panda bears in tuxedos?"). Usually at this stage no concrete design or framework is completed, rather a few ideas are generated here and there, maybe a potential headline or hook, maybe a couple of key words. More importantly, this meeting must generate an understanding of the objectives of the advertisement.
Following the initial meeting, and before sitting down to write the copywriter does some homework on the product and the company. Knowledge of past advertisements and their successes or failures, the target market of the product, the image of the client, facts and figure about the product are all important in creating good copy. Copywriter often sample a product to compare it with the competition in order to form their own opinions and provide additional background. The majority of the information is gathered from agency files or directly from the client. Armed with all the available information, the copywriter meet with the art director to establish a theme for the advertisement, to make sure both are working toward the same end. (Perhaps "meeting" is an understatement. If a meeting is two people stashed away in some come of the building, staring at a typewriter and blank paper, waste basket overflowing with shattered ideas, both trying to exorcise ideas out o each other for as long as it takes to create an advertisement-then it's a meeting. Actually it leans more toward a religious experience.)
After the "research" phase is completed, the copywriter drop; into creative gear and tries to develop copy that fits the tone, mood, and image of the overall strategy. Sometimes the words just fall into place and it's time to take a long lunch break. And sometimes it might be easier to write a sonnet in an ancient Celtic tongue. It's very unpredictable, and that can generate a lot of stress, which in turn can grind the creative process to a nonproductive halt, which can generate more stress which can. . . .
"OKAY, NOW HERE'S WHAT ITS REALLY LIKE."
Q - How did you get into copywriting?
A - I couldn't find a job in journalism or advertising, so I took a job as a fund-raising consultant. There I researched and wrote proposals for grants for colleges and prep schools. I was writing, and I wanted to keep that focus, but I missed the public contact. I missed working with people. I worked as a waitress for a while, hit the street again, and knocked on doors. Finally I got this job, but I had to start as a secretary. I hated for that to happen, but that's the way it was. I told them I wanted to write, and if I didn't get to write I would leave. I told them I'd be the secretary, but to let me do something with my abilities. Within three months they were letting me write. A year later they hired a new secretary, and two years later our senior copywriter left, and I became senior copywriter.
My degree is in journalism. I began looking for jobs with newspapers, and what I found was that daily papers don't hire students directly out of college as a rule, and weekly papers don't pay enough to live on. So I took a job driving a cab. There was a brand-new agency coming up in the town I was working in, and I ran across an advertisement with someone to write some copy and run some errands for them. I thought I'd try it out until something better came along.
I've always written, and I knew that the chances of my making it as strictly a literary person were not good. I looked around and decided that, since I had this talent, I needed to find a way to commercialize it, and writing for advertising seemed to be the most logical way to go. I graduated with a degree in English literature.
I worked in a bank for three years, which I would not advise anyone to do. It was very boring. I decided that I would dig ditches before I worked in a bank again. My number-one preference was to get into advertising. I decided I would take anything just to get my foot in the door. I accepted a job as a media buyer with an agency and started writing copy for that agency on a free-lance basis. When the copy department got backed up, they would give me assignments that I would do on my own time. It was a super way to learn the agency business, because I earned it from the business end out. The first thing I learned about advertising was the dollar-and-cents end of it.
I'd gone to college with the hope of being a newspaper writer. Then I was exposed to an advertising course and decided I liked that type of writing more. I got what is a traditional starting place for copywriters-working on a store catalog. That was my first job out of school. I did that for a year.
