Copywriters’ greatest assets are their quick wits and adaptability. However, in times of market uncertainty (like with the coronavirus), our workflows are often disrupted – be it due to work-from-home policies, a reduced amount of client projects, a slowed global economy, etc. With an inconsistent flow of jobs, it’s up to ourselves to keep our wits sharp. Here are three simple exercises to give your copywriting muscles a good workout at home.
Are you tired of annoying ads with uninspired copy? If so, consider why they are so unattractive and how to make them more effective!
Collecting and retooling ads
The Internet provides us with a great way to escape the monotonies of home, but regardless where we go, almost every website is littered with ads. We’ve conditioned ourselves to ignore ads or to look for the little X button as quickly as possible, but for this task, we want you to actually examine these disturbances.
Looking beyond the bright layouts and only at the copy or dialogue, create two new folders and start screen-capping and collecting ads (both static ads and videos work) – one folder for the ads that you like and the other for the bad ads. Once you’ve collected a few in each folder, we can get started!
For ads with good copy
· What about it attracts you? (i.e. does it promise something or pique your interest?)
· Is there a clear call-to-action for viewers to follow-up? Or does it not need it? Why not?
· Is the ad’s writing perfect? If not, what can be further improved?
Amazon’s latest ad featured during Super Bowl 2020. It provides an interesting narrative to describe people’s struggles before Amazon Alexa.
The advert above features celebrity Ellen DeGeneres and extremely high production values, but how does the writing and dialogue hold up? From the medieval era to 1970s, the writers managed to convert Alexa’s functions into various roles played out by regular folk – i.e. a maid to turn down the temperature, a court jester for jokes, a paper boy for the news etc. We especially liked the paper boy claiming all news was “fake” anyway – a timely jest considering how much fake news is circulated nowadays!
Surprisingly, Amazon’s ad does not feature a call-to-action during the ending shots – however, call-to-actions aren’t always necessary. In this case, the point of the ad was to highlight how your life would be improved by Alexa – they didn’t need to blatantly say it, but instead made it clear that having an Alexa can be rather convenient.
Can the ad be improved from a writing standpoint? It’s pretty hard to top the President’s secretary refusing to remind him to “delete the tapes” (a reference to the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration), but perhaps they could’ve included a segment covering the alarm function as well – it’s one of Alexa’s core features after all – perhaps a weary traveler being assaulted by a couple roosters at 5am because he requested a morning wakeup call at the inn!
For ads with poor copy
· What’s wrong with it? Is it too wordy, flows poorly or are details unclear?
· If you were to rewrite it, how would it go?
An infamous American television ad from 2006, the advert not only neglects to tell viewers what the product does, it’s also annoying to sit through.
How could anyone approve an advert that doesn’t explain what the product does? Perhaps the marketing team thought their product was too well-known to need explaining… but that’s generally not a smart play unless your product already has a strong international brand presence. A quick search tells us HeadOn is a topical ointment for headache relief – something the ad’s writer could’ve mentioned instead of repeating the tagline three times in 15 seconds! If the client insists on repeating the tagline, a line to explain the product’s function would still be a drastic improvement.
“Are headaches keeping you down? Head On – apply directly to the forehead!”
Or if we wanted to keep the meme-worthy machine gun delivery:
“Get a break from headaches. Head On – apply directly to the forehead! Head On – apply directly to the forehead!”
Busy buzzwords and over-repetition
Every writer has a set of words that they love to use – sometimes overly so. It’s not immediately apparent if we looked at each piece individually, but if we were to look at a batch of a person’s writing, there’s usually a couple of words that show up frequently – for example, terms like disruption or quintessential are especially popular amongst tech-related articles. While it’s understandable for industry terminology to be used within industry specific work, it’s a bad habit to use them too consistently.
As copywriters, we often have to jump across industries for various clients, but it’s not a good idea to bring these buzzwords along for the ride – imagine how strange it would be to see disruption in an article about gardening techniques! Such writing habits can extend beyond industry lingo and apply to general words as well – for example, grandiloquent writing is normal for high fashion or luxury brands, but less so for more affordable brands. If you were to change gears and write for more everyday brands, a good rule of thumb is to write with conciseness – opt for simpler words and sentence structures whenever possible. You can’t go wrong.
Aside from busy buzzwords, be mindful of how you start/end a sentence or paragraph. For example, I tend to start my sentences using “with” because it’s an easy way to provide context: “With social distancing from the coronavirus keeping us at home, we …” or “With the President’s latest unfiltered tweet, it has caused…” Easy writing tricks like so are convenient, but they get repetitive quickly! Instead, trying out different ways to start a sentence adds greater variety to our list of opening templates: i.e. “As social distancing from the coronavirus keeps us home, we must…” or “The President’s latest unfiltered tweet has sparked…” Be wary of changing a sentence’s intent or message as you do this though!
Headline revamps
Headlines are the greatest hooks of an article – so it’s essential that your headline game is on point. We’ve previously explained how to write strong headlines (here and here), so be sure to check those out! For this exercise, you’ll be giving some of your older headlines a facelift to modernise them. Try re-writing them in three different variations: i. short and concise; ii. long and detailed, and; iii. clickbait.
Let’s use one of Wordsmith’s articles from 2018 as an example – “Prepping yourself to write right”. In this article we discuss how a well-constructed brief and the proper motivational tools could enhance your writing process, but because we opted for a shorter headline, neither points are immediately apparent just from reading the headline.
If we wanted a clear headline while also keeping the rhyme, we could have:
“Write right with a good brief and mindset”.
For a longer option, we could show the benefits of reading the article:
“A clear brief and mindset are the only motivations you need to write”.
Lastly, if we wanted to convert our title into clickbait, we should lure readers in with some kind of promise – but without revealing everything right away:
“Write right every time with these two incredibly simple tricks!”
Even the greatest athletes need a constant regiment of exercises to stay in shape – and writing is no different. By picking apart bad ads, identifying avoidable writing habits and being able to adapt your headlines, you’ll become a more versatile writer who can work with clients across all industries!