Today has been going pretty well…at least it was going pretty well. I was sort of puttering about the office, trying to write up some options for a TV spot for a pet care product, when The Pretty AE came in from a client meeting.
So of course I had to drop everything and head over to her desk to chat.
On the way to certain plans for tonight, I was stopped by a junior AE on another one of my accounts. And that junior AE, who can’t understand why, when he can’t even do his job right, nobody gives him leeway to do other fun things, said something that no account exec has ever said to me before.
He asked me if I would consider using some copy options that he wrote up for a print campaign that we are doing.
Look dude, I’ve been the account exec who really wished he was a creative and knew, KNEW that he could do it better. That’s why I went to ad school and (before I finished) put my book together and got a job that let me do creative work. You sort of have to pay your dues.
Because you just can’t walk up to a creative and show them some of your thoughts (especially when those thoughts are not particularly creative and anyway are off the limp brief for the project).
I don’t pretend that I am the second coming of Jamie Barrett, though I may have surpassed him as “worst account guy in the history of Fallon,” but I worked hard for my chance to write ads (I know, I know…why?). And it is hard work, though it may seem easy.
To insult me by blitzing me with ideas in the middle of the office…I am actually going to tear his femur out of his leg and beat him to death with it.
If you want to take a crack and some copy and see if you can do it, that’s fine. If you want to show some of your ideas to me and we can talk about them, that’s very cool. I got my start by doing the same thing.
But don’t come up to me in your trendy ironic t-shirt and untied shoes with a notebook page of lame ideas because you think that my job is just so easy that you can spend 15 minutes on it and come up with great work. You insult me, you insult the process, you insult the work and you make yourself look like a muppet.
It’s worse than the freelance job I did this one time where the “client” somehow ran across Copyblogger and told me that perhaps we could consider more “direct headlines” like those found in the How to Write Headlines section.
After cleaning the puke off of my phone, I politely suggested that we just use a huge product shot and “Buy Me” as the headline and call it a day.
Maybe this sort of thing only happens to me and I’m not all the good at this copywriting thing so I deserve it…but even if that is the case, and I am not yet quite convinced that it is, I am still going to put itching powder on the junior AEs keyboard.
After all, he’s worth it.
8 responses so far ↓
Brian Clark // December 4, 2007 at 1:02 pm |
It would be interesting to see some of your headlines and the conversion rates they produce. Or do you “creative” types measure that kind of silly stuff?
mikelite // December 4, 2007 at 1:35 pm |
I wonder if this same jr. AE would tell his surgeon some of his suggestions on how to approach his work. Everyone on the planet thinks they can work in the creative department.
dailybiz // December 4, 2007 at 1:51 pm |
Good advertising is not something that a formula will spit out.
I have a formula that I follow when writing ads to make sure that I have done my best to cover every angle and to try to drive myself to think outside the box, but there is no formula for creating good advertising.
Your blog has some examples of the type of work that is out there, but makes no mention of the creativity behind making a direct or questioning or whatever headline effectively hit the human truth that moves consumer action while building the brand. It makes no mention of how or why a certain headline should be used to be most effective, of how or why a certain style may be more effective with one consumer segment vs another or in hitting one objective vs another. There are just too many variables in each specific project for a blog post to cover.
I don’t have a problem with your blog – far from it, I had to have read it to quote it
– I just think that the tips and guide sections are a simplified look at advertising.
And therefore dangerous in the hands a non-marketing professional who thinks that “Buy Me” and a product shot isn’t a bad idea.
Brian Clark // December 4, 2007 at 2:06 pm |
>>I just think that the tips and guide sections are a simplified look at advertising.
Yes, because it’s a blog. But some might find even simple advice more useful than the normal self-absorbed ranting that clutters the blogosphere. For example…
dailybiz // December 4, 2007 at 2:29 pm |
Hahaha. Well said.
Of course, I did credit you with the fact that “there are just too many variables in each specific project for a blog post to cover” and was only really saying that your advice is so simple that it is dangerous in the hands of a non-marketing professional like the one that I encountered.
Not that it is wrong or not useful (I actually really liked your posts about improving your blogging…).
You have your audience of the non-marketers who think that advertising is easy if they just find the right formula, as if it were a math problem.
I have my audience that has worked hard to get where they are and, now that they are here, are frustrated that anyone would dare to think that it takes anything less than unalloyed brilliance to create ads…more seriously, they know what they are doing and know that you are not going to get good advertising from some play-skool “sure-fire headline templates.”
advertising isn’t formulaic: two steps to good work « the daily (ad) biz // December 4, 2007 at 9:29 pm |
[...] vague over-simplified to be anything but dangerous in the wrong hands.The wrong hands being this one client I did some freelance work for. It ended predictably badly.Allowing for the fact that his audience is non-professionals and that [...]
Brian Clark // December 4, 2007 at 9:40 pm |
I hear you. In all fairness, I repeatedly implore people to study and learn from successful headline structures, not just “plug and play.” Most people don’t. But the few that do, I feel really good about.
thank you for a great year « the daily (ad) biz // January 2, 2008 at 6:12 pm |
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