Sep
22
2009

The evolution of the advertising copywriter

evolutionBack in the day, an aspiring ad copywriter (like myself) needed to show two things in his book: An ability to concept campaigns and an ability to write headlines.
A typical portfolio consisted of five or six print campaigns and maybe a storyboard or two.  That’s all I had in my book, and I got a job. Lots of them, in fact.

Today, as a creative director, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t hire myself.

“A bunch of print campaigns? That’s all you got, Mike? Next!”

With the explosion of new media venues, the writers in my agency (and many others, I imagine) have to provide a whole lot more than a few snappy headlines. Here are three key areas where skill sets have to evolve.

Writer as Journalist. With the emergence of blogs and other social media outlets, marketing firms, like ours, are expected to provide more and more content. For writers, this means they’ll have to act less like ad guys, and more like journalists. They’ll have to be more investigative, more objective, and they’ll have to write in a style that doesn’t sound like marketing.

Writer as Editorialist. In the social media world, opinions are flying at cyberspeed. And as marketers, we are finding ourselves relaying the points of view of our clients in new and different ways. We’re getting in on blogs. We’re posting on twitter. And we’re conveying the brand message in much more personal and relevant ways. It’s not canned advertising speak. It’s on-the-fly engagement.

Writer as Search Engine Optimizer. Let’s not kid ourselves, we’re not just writing to attract our customers, we’re writing to attract Google too. And Search Engine Optimization is the key to earning their love. Key words, as we all know, are a major component to jumping our competition. The more times we use the key words on a site, the better. The trick, however, is to make sure that the sprinkling of those words isn’t obvious, doesn’t sound redundant, and still maintains the brand personality. These are things we didn’t even have to consider a few short years ago.

In many larger agencies, I imagine, these writing duties would be split between the advertising and PR departments. But in smaller to midsize agencies, where those walls don’t exist, PR and advertising have to become one.

And it’s not just the writers who will be expected to know more and do more. Every single person in the agency will.

So what do you think?

The evolution of the advertising copywriter

  • http://thedoor.miamiadschool.com/portfolio/zachary_goren_slovin Zachary Slovin

    Much needed to aspiring copywriters like myself –

    We get different advice from all over the place – Luke Sullivan told me not to abandon print, to keep it in your book, maybe still have 5 or 6 campaigns of it, but they want them in integrated 360 ideas. Taking all you wrote here and bundling it into one campaign.

    Crispin Porter + Bogusky doesn’t even write creative briefs anymore. They hand out press releases and tell the creatives to do or make something, then the campaign comes from that.

    There’s change all over the place, I’m just trying to be a part of it.

  • http://tbrunelle.extendr.com Tim Brunelle

    Mike– Very well said! I teach the Copywriting course at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, succeeding Tom McElligott. Your advice will be incorporated into this week’s class.

    I advocate that, regardless of medium, it’s “ideas first.” Or as an old partner used to put it, the job of a copywriter (or art director) is, “80% conceptual thinking and 20% finish carpentry.” Maybe with SEO it’s more 50/50?

    I really appreciate how you’ve articulated three approaches to writing. They all provide sound “ways in” to a problem.

    Thanks for the great post.

    Tim

  • http://www.YesTruebloodIsMyRealName.com Mark Trueblood

    All very true, Mike! Since early 2008 I’ve been consistently working on projects that require writing beyond ads, banners, and collateral. For example, I did a HUGE seo/reputation management program earlier this summer. Last year I wrote a book that was published. And I have quite a voracious Twitter habit.

    But…I may sound really old-school, but I still believe portfolios separate the wheat from the chaff, because they demonstrate so quickly strategic, conceptual, and copywriting mojo. I can’t pick up on all that in a few minutes if i have to scour blogs, twitter, copy-heavy websites, e-books, etc. to find proof of brilliance.

    Definately, writers need to be able to “do it all.” But the fundamentals are still paramount, no matter what tactic we’re using.

  • Conrad Randall

    Please explain search engine optimization and the role a copywriter is expected to play.

  • Nat

    Mike what is your last name, I would like to reference you for my uni assignment