All your base are belong to us
Even a little knowledge of history, a sliver of attention paid to current collective consciousness, and a glimpse into the future, we might all be better off buying a plot of land and practicing sustainable, off-the-grid living. But, for those of us on the edge of our seats with the play button on full-blast, we aspire to live in the moment (with an occasional binge-worthy weekend). We are witnessing perpetual culminations happening in our civilization. We seem to be surprised by novel, if not sublime advancements and discoveries on a daily basis. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
I’m a copywriter, and I’m aware, claiming copywriting is central to everything moving forward as planned, is crazy. And, for the sake of perspective, I focus on copywriter in this article, but contributors like designers, artists, developers, and other aspects responsible for putting a creative team’s plan into action are included in this discussion. These are the laborers of the industry, and the ones who grind. This is not a divisive article, nor an attempt to persuade, but a look into one person’s approach to marketing, specifically as a copywriter.
Fragmentation as opportunity
In 1941 the first television commercial was aired in the US. It featured a static image of a map of the United States, on which a Bulova watch face was superimposed. By 1946 marketers had figured out how TV advertising worked:
“R.M. Gray, manager of advertising and sales promotion for the Standard Oil Company of New York, said the company was in TV for four reasons: “Technology experience…to gain knowledge of showmanship in this medium…(because of) an obligation we believe most advertisers feel toward any new medium…(and) to gain knowledge of the best program times to suit our individual problems” (adage.com).
Back then there was one and a half minutes of ad time to a ten minute show. I’ll spare you the time-lapsed montage and (spoiler alert) just let you know that now, there are 19 minutes of ad-time on a 30 minute-long TV show.
But this is ancient history in terms of marketing in our modern world. Our viewing habits are bifurcated, YouTube, live streaming, social media, cable, Netflix, satellite, torrents, podcasts, etc, and the organization that delivers extensive ratings data to all the major media groups, Nielsen, has this to say about modern advertising.
“Media fragmentation, oft-perceived as a hindrance, is emerging as one of the industry’s greatest opportunities. The ever-increasing range of media channels available for viewer consumption has allowed marketers to connect with consumers in new ways and opened the minds of intended audiences to embracing new mediums for receiving information about goods and services.” (Nielsen.com)
Look at the language of this, “connect with consumers in new ways and open the minds.” This suggests that advertising is a “mind-opening” experience. It’s a deliberate acculturation of hippie-speak and Enlightenment era thinking, that essentially makes advertising appear to be something that makes us better human beings. Nielsen tells us, quite naturally, that our minds need to be opened to “receiving” information across all media platforms about these goods and services.
Now, when you consider the web, the internet of things, clouds, drives, and CMS of every variety, then toss in social media, YouTubers, followers, subscribers, and throw in a little legal and pirated streaming sites for good measure, and we are dripping in advertising (insert allusion to Minority Report).
It can get scary, especially if you’ve read books like 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, or Brave New World. But then — sorry for this — paradigm shift! Stop viewing this in terms of fiction, and consume it, live it. As agents of advertising, we don’t need to apologize for our career choice, because advertising isn’t a hobby or some minor inconvenience, it’s our modern lifestyle. We are become one. All your base, are belong to us!
Cult of self-fanbassador
- On a sports talk debate show on cable TV, viewed in 10 minute clips on YouTube, a broadcaster lambasts Lebron James for using social media to change the media’s narrative, which paints a negative image of James, to one that favors his side, thereby securing his fan-base and future profitability of his brand. (These marketing terms were actually used by the broadcaster)See Video
2. Broadcasters referencing the Trump brand in nightly newscasts. (That audiences understand there’s a difference between Trump the brand and Trump the president indicates a market-lingo saturated society.)
3. Words like, Fanbassador (a fan of a brand, promotes said brand on social media), Paradigm Shift (just another way of saying, look at it from this perspective instead), Wearable Multitasking (watches, fitness bands, heart monitors) infiltrating everyday speak. These are just a few of the really obnoxious usages reported on Econsultancy.com.
4. YouTube earners, Social Media Gurus, Analytics, Metrics, Eye-test (methods of gauging modern value or relevancy)
5. Upon entering a playground in our home town, my son points up to the gate, which is peppered with local advertisements, and says, “look daddy, from the pool.” (The ad was for some tech company, which uses an impressionist-looking Golem as its mascot. Our local pool has the same ad on the wall. My son recognized the ad from two different locations and he is 3.5 years old.)
The above are anecdotal and I apologize for any bias that distracts from the point I’m making, which is that we have been fully encased in advertising, and it’s only going to increase. Marketing-speak has infiltrated the vernacular — not just as a buzzword — as something average users (we used to say consumers) comprehend, think, and speak. As copywriters we are part of this. We’re probably responsible for the word “narrative” that’s infiltrated society’s parlance. We’ve worn out the watchword “story,” and I can imagine some copywriter racking their brain to come up with a word that conveys the same connotative and denotative meaning as “story,” and striking on “narrative.” We’re probably responsible for words like “Next-gen” catching hold because we were searching for a way of describing “Industry-leading,” “Pioneering,” and “On the frontier.” I came up with my own recently, “Copywriters should avoid writing in the passive voice, always write in the CTActive voice.”
In our landscape, we understand our words are not read, they pop — precisely when the user needs them. We are hyper-sensitive to the value of words, syntax, and layout. If you think Shakespeare sweated over scripts, you should understand the process a copywriter undertakes. If you think EE Cummings put thought into punctuation and layout, or lack-thereof, then you know how a copywriter thinks.
We write in multiple voices and styles delivering messages steeped in mood, tone, and ambiance, paying close mind to diction, syntax, and over-all message. We’re tailoring our content to demographics with labels like Babyboomers, Generation X, Y, and Z, Millennials, Centennials and iGen. We write messages aimed at regions and market shares that vary from almost nil to over 60%.
Tasting the fruit
I recently transitioned from teaching. I’ve been a part-time/on-again-off-again/full-time copywriter for five years. I was in teaching for 10 years, prior to that I had my own business, prior to that I worked in finance during the dotcom bubble in Orange County California, and before that I was a laborer going all the way back to my youth.
I’ve been writing seriously for 33 years. I consider myself a critic of texts. Anyone will tell you reading and writing are essential to doing either well. Five years ago, my friend asked me if I wanted to help on a small task for their upcoming Halloween campaign, and that was my first taste of copywriting. I got the brief and my friend had simplified it for me, removing any marketing lingo that my feeble academic mind wouldn’t understand, and I devoured it. I read it over and over, making sure I understood the task. Wrote a little outline, wrote down all the questions I had, searched the net for answers, and then started writing.
My friend gave me only one tip — write a story.
I studied the task, studied the lorem ipsum, and studied my notes, all the time trying to connect the word “story” with an ad campaign. I thought of every instance I’d heard the word story used in the media, and I remembered the Obama Campaign and how they used “story” as the backbone of their multi-media campaign strategy. Then I remembered McCain, and Clinton copied the Obama strategy; I remembered all the “stories” in sport (Kobe and Shaq, Lebron, and Justice), and natural disasters (Katrina, Fukushima, and Haiti), and that’s when I recognized that stories are everywhere, short, long, and in-between. But, now I realize that “story” is part of everything, and Everything is a brand.
When I realized this, I would just write a bunch of stuff, then go back and make sure all the requirements from the brief were covered, and then find the story that was already there. Like Michelangelo said, he never sculpted anything, he just uncovered what was already hidden in the medium (or something like that).
And I was hooked!
Synergisticism
Everyone knows copywriting can be a grind. Writing anything is a grind. Every writer I’ve ever heard speak about their process all say the same thing, writing is a grind. There are a few moments of “writer’s glee,” and then you go through and remove 90% of those gleeful moments by the time you publish.
The majority of my tasks are same-old-same-old, try to find a kernel of something interesting to glam onto that helps you slog through on your way to the next slog. Writing in this voice is like getting stuck in a terrible office party conversation.
A few “unusual” tasks trickle down through the pipeline, an article about something which you know nothing, and you get to research and read, even better if the topic’s of personal interest. You put on a playlist and get to work. Something else drops in from an intermittent client and suddenly you’re working on three tasks in three different voices, targeting three different demographics in two different languages, and it feels like you are writing. Writers get hung up on the idea that it’s always someone else’s agenda, and I say isn’t all writing this? When I write, whatever I write, I move into an alternate space to do it. Even for my own agenda-driven writing, I seek to inhabit the space of the story. When I’m writing, I’m never me…and, at the same time, I’m always me.
It was during one of these “in-the-zone” moments, when I was working on several tasks, that I got a request from a former colleague to guest-blog for BusinessHacks, hosted by MyQ (where he is CMO). This former colleague, also happens to be the same friend who gave me my first experience as a copywriter, Jason Mashak.
As a freelancer, I hesitated. I have never been the house copywriter or the main copywriter, my copy usually originates the copy stream, meaning I generate organic drafts so the house can have something to work with, then shape them into what the team has conceived. Or, I localize something, or I write a script that later gets sculpted to meet the needs of the project. I am detached from the team atmosphere and, not being privy to the nuances of “being there,” I’m often utilized as a kind of first round for copy.
I’m fine with that, I have other clients with whom I have more involvement, but it’s also why I hesitated to write the guest blog. I didn’t feel like my experience was deep enough. But, this is also why I decided to write one. I honestly believe that if more copywriters viewed themselves as our era’s authors, we would not get discouraged so easily in the midst of the grind that can be copywriting.
Adapting to late-stage capital
When you go back and see how advertising has changed, and how the goal has not, “embracing new mediums for receiving information about goods and services,” the left/liberal/marxist side, can get depressed. “I’ve become a commodity,” we commiserate. The right/conservative/capitalist reminds us to live in the moment, if not at least in your relevant time. Branding, AI, Security, Currencies, etc., these are our living conditions — we live here.
When I was younger, I was an idealist (stop me if you’ve heard this one). I got into teaching and I loved it, still do, still think I will go back to it when retirement approaches, but nothing relevant is being taught in schools. I had kids, 8th, 9th, and 10th grade kids who didn’t know how to open a Word document. I tried to implement a completely paperless classroom at one of the schools I taught, and the admin said it needed to printed and handed out in class. Much like progress cannot be stopped, the education system cannot be changed…at least in the four countries I’ve taught.
But the truth is, it didn’t take fatherhood or teaching or anything high-minded to replace the idealist with the realist, I’d done it long ago, when I worked for a startup during the dotcom boon in California in the late 90’s. I was actually homeless, living out of my Buick Regal in Orange county when I got hired. I did everything there, and that’s not hyperbole, and walked away with enough to put me through two years of community college. Everything that happened after that was measured by my time moving around from department to department at Ditech.com. I learned to think relevantly there.
But that’s the beauty of our time. If you stop, drill down into any relationship you have. Maybe it’s a colleague you laugh with at the coffee machine every morning, maybe it’s the HR guy you see once a quarter, but have a good rapport with — talk to them one day. Invite them to coffee or a beer, and talk to them. These people around us, they have struggled, all of us, and when we take a moment to find out about each other, the world actually can be warm and fuzzy.
