Left-Brain Creative

As copywriting dies, it's taking your business down with it

Let's hand it to art directors. With powerful image editing tools and brilliant imaginations, we're seeing more and more "visual solutions" to advertising. Good news? Yes.

But we have a problem.

The volume of visual solutions is making some of us think that words are just so, so yesterday.

We're hearing "people don't read anymore" declared as if it's etched in the U.S. Constitution (which, if written today, would be a series of images, all white men wearing powdered white wigs). Solve it visually, everyone says, and it's time to punch the clock and go home happy.

I love good visual ideas. They make me feel all tingly inside. If one comes my way, it's on the fast track to the client's desk. But our growing appreciation of visual ideas has a nasty side effect: the demotion of copy to an ugly stepchild.

Compelling headlines and sexy storytelling are dwindling to nothing. Pick up a newspaper or magazine today and you'll be lucky to find even one ad with superb copy. That's a serious issue in the marketing business.

Good writing works. Always has, always will. Talented writers capture attention and make the reader want to read more. More about your product, your service or your ideas. The more they read, the more they are engaged, and the more likely your ad is going to stick.

If you produce an ad with a brilliant visual idea and no copy, you've missed an opportunity. If you produce an ad with a mediocre visual idea and no copy, you're professionally negligent.

My wife picked up the recent issue of People magazine with "The Twins," meaning the new offspring of Brad and Angelina (no last names required). Of the 60 or so ads in the issue, maybe three have decent copy. (There are at least five strong visual ideas, and the rest are just mediocre through and through.) Three of 60.

Let's flip that around: 57 of 60 ads had NO STRONG COPY.

Copywriting is a fundamental tool of the advertising business. Can you imagine 57 of 60 carpenters showing up to work with dull blades on their circular saws? Or 57 of 60 dentists buying dental drills at the dollar store?

The ad pictured here (click to enlarge) is one of the few that used decent copy to build the brand and sell the product. The idea is that a soyjoy bar is so damn good that's it going to make you a happier person. You'll hear "pleasant music playing in your head," you'll have "abnormally rosy vision" and "difficulty sulking."

The graphic design is simple, some will say elementary to a fault, but the illustration is cool, and the copy makes me feel good about the brand. I felt better just reading the ad. (Which, after all, is the point.)

The weird thing is that marketers don't seem to realize that poor copywriting can only mean one thing: you're not doing your best to market your product. You can blame the buy, blame the timing, blame the budget or blame R&D. But if your copywriting isn't catchy, you have to include yourself among the guilty.

The bottom line is this: If you're not convinced that copywriting can have a dramatic impact on your marketing program, you haven't worked with good copywriters. Find a few, and let them open your eyes to the influential power of words.

One simple trick to pack a sentence with punch.

It's simple, and it will pack more power and punch into your sentences than any other trick of the trade. Write this down: Save the best for last.

Photo by Jim Bender. Click to enlarge.

In graphic design and photography, there's a concept called the leading line. You use some type of visual line to lead the viewer to the main subject of the photo. In the photo to the left, the leading line is a line of children eating a picnic meal at a birthday party. The eye naturally lands on the last child, who is having a good belly-laugh and showing a mouthful of chewed cheese sandwich.

In photography the entire leading line can be in crisp focus, but in this example, the effect is exaggerated by manipulating the line to move from out-of-focus (the child at left) to crisp focus, the last child and the subject of the photo.

The photographic leading line is a useful metaphor to remember the syntactic leading line. When writing a sentence, the idea that you want to stress should land at the end of the sentence. Always save the best for last. Let's look at a simple example of the traditional way to write the sentence and the new and improved way.

The traditional way:
A chef chopping garlic lacerated his finger with a knife.

Now, the sentence certainly gets the point across, but it has three problems. First, it stresses the knife, which in this situation is obvious. Second, it ends with a prepositional phrase. In most cases, ending with a prepositional phrase deflates the power of the sentence. (Check out the headline of this post for an exception.) And third, it leads the reader to believe that the next sentence will describe the knife, which I don't want to do. Now let's rewrite the sentence, take the focus away from the knife, ditch the deflating prepositional phrase and put the emphasis on the dramatic, which is the cut finger.

The new way:
A chef chopping garlic with a knife lacerated his finger.

See? It's simple, it stresses the dramatic, it doesn't violate the sensibilities of any closet English teacher on the review team, and better yet, it leads the reader to believe he's going to learn more about the lacerated finger in the next sentence. Was it just the tip? Was it above the knuckle? Could it be reattached? And most importantly, did any fingertip flesh make it into the entree?