ON INNOVATION, BREAKING RULES AND PUSHING UNTIL IT'S KAMIKAZE: How Copywriters, Art Directors, Account Folks and even non-Adlanders can Think Different (in homage to you know who - you don't? Look it up and learn even more!)

I'm starting a class in Copywriting at the Creative Circus next week and have been concepting where to start.  I've not worked with these students before.  I know they've taken courses in writing, web writing, a few others and have been taking teams concept courses, but the spread of the students' school terms and lack of personal knowledge had me flummoxed.  I remembered my promise to talk here about Innovation and - unless I need to spend all the time on things more basic, I hope I've also found my core subject for the term.  


By now, you've all read, contemplated, practiced working with both the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan and the Objective Based Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, right? You've spent time with the Key Fact discussions and how to manipulate various KCWP sections to change your ways of thinking (if not, go back and do it now - this post might not make sense if you haven't).  That puts us here, with the assumption you have a project - advertising copy, art direction, personal, marketing, product development or whatever - you want more innovative.   While this will be dealing more specifically with Copy, you can apply and manipulate the KCWP principles to just about anything.  


First, let me dispel some myths about Prospects and Copy. The Prospect rules all creative endeavors. Innovation - no matter how far out you go and the farther out, the more true - lives in Prospectland, too.  Professional Creatives - whether they're ad creatives, engineering creatives, product development creatives, whatever - innovate for our Prospect, not for ourselves, our books, bosses, yadda yadda.  This puts a slightly different twist on things, shifts the paradigm from the creator/innovator to their Objective: creating the desired response in the Prospect. The kind of Innovation we do isn't creative for creative's sake.  If you can't get your head around that, lots of Fine Art schools will show you how to follow your personal muse.  Forget about Advertising.


There's another truth about Innovation you must consider: Innovation means different things to different people. Something may be old hat to you - but your grandparents may find it revolutionary.  If your grandparents are your Prospect, it is - to them.  If you're your Prospect, you're going to have to dig deeper.  One exception I'd like you to consider:  if you preface anything you present to your CD or in a portfolio show with "This was considered pretty radical for insert your category/market/the times here," it's nothing you want to show if you're going for innovative.  Instead of being a smart thinker, you'll come across as unoriginal or old.  


Knowing this, how do we innovate with Copy?  Assuming you have a fresh, unexpected Concept, we have to look at that Concept through the Prospect Mind.  Figure out how they take in the information/motivation, what's important to them and their process, how it relates to your job at hand.


So what makes Copy Innovating? Style?  Content? Vocabulary?  The lack of?  Think back to the entry on What it takes.  That thing about Problem Solving?  That's where copy innovation starts.  How will you solve the problem?  What approach will you take?  Find an innovative approach to solving the overall problem.  You've taken the first step toward innovative Copy.  It's the verbal or nonverbal but still communicative/informational expression of that solution.  


Which brings us to another truth about Innovation.  It breaks rules.  Turns things upside down even in ways the Prospect may not notice, but will still make them engage/think. Regardless what it is. 


Problem is, almost everything you can think of has been tried. Comic books, stories, sign.  Poetry, true confessions, no copy at all.  Go back to the way you solve the problem. Work from there.  Follow where it takes you.  Sometimes what makes copy innovative is the way the problem is solved; how it's presented.  The juxtaposition of the information/solution can lead to expression in ways you'd never expect.  


Make the copy not just an extension/explanation of your innovative solution.  Make it part of - and therefore inseparable from - the solution.  That's where you'll find the thread where innovative copy starts.


The thing is to implant your copy into your solution.  Let the unexpected give birth to compatible, extended unexpected, rather than try to explain.  This is a bit easier in Objective Based projects, as you get to determine - even invent - the medium as well as the concept.  In the more traditional advertising mediums (and I consider much of web work part of traditional ad mediums - WTH, it's been twenty+ years!), where Copy is usually Copy. Concept Innovation needs to be extended to whatever it is you need to say.  


You can do this stylistically, in the way you frame the solution of the Prospect Problem you're solving, with the way the Copy is fed to the Prospect, with no Copy at all - just about anything you can come up with.  The key is to take the risks, grow your Copy as the Innovative Language of Innovative Concept.  Whatever language that may be, however that Language can be delivered/received.


Take a look around.  If you can, find something you consider Innovative.  Then do a kind of Reverse Engineering, to figure out why it's Innovative, how it's Innovative and ultimately - if it's Innovative.  Figure out who/what it's Innovative for.  You don't want what you do to mirror what's already done - you just want to learn to intuit the process.  Most importantly, how the process differs from the way Copy is usually done.  When you realize that difference, it may be a clue to creating Innovative yourself.  


(If several paragraphs post strangely, I don't know why.  Mercury is heading Retrograde, however (7/14-8/8), so it's beyond my control.  Don't you love it!  It's not my fault - Mercury's Retrograde!)

DON’T BLAME THE DOG.  Just had some shoulder work done – would love to tell you it was the time I took second on the Lake George Competitive Trail Ride (300+ horse/riders hell bent to be First over the top of a very tall, rocky, trail-free mountain), working with world women's boxing champions or that never-to-be-named/titled coworker that time in_____, but it was just stupid me and the carport roof.  

I am taking notes (left handed) and hope to be back soon with a segment on Innovation – how not to stop the flow, set-up, inspiration, collaboration, trust in what’s too weird to trust.  As part of the Copy Course, as part of the Creative Process, as part of my message to Innovators of all ilks that Innovation doesn’t belong to the creative (commercial or otherwise) – it belongs to all of us.

Meanwhile, comments, questions, etc., will be greatly appreciated – and responded to as soon as possible.  Toodles.  D.

BUILD A BETTER COPY PLATFORM: What Kamikaze Copywriters need to know about how a prospect thinks before they start writing.

I’ve been reading an interesting book, suggested by a former student.  Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Brafman and Brafman.  Basically, it’s one of those “why we do what we do even when it’s not in our best interests to do it” books.  Full of examples, warts-and-all real life, (easy to read/understand) scientific studies. 

Sway’s a book every Kamikaze Copywriter (Kamikaze AD, GD, AE, etc.) should buy – not just read.  Keep it on the shelf next to your Archives and CA.  Not because we don’t understand the forces at work here – some (rarely all) we do, albeit usually on a more gut/grokking level.  We should keep it handy because Sway holds many clues to how to motivate, concept and write your way around that most interesting phenom, Perceived Differences.  If you have real differences, the book will help you decide when to use them, when to fagettaboudit.

I touched on this in February, 2011 (Perception vs. Reality), but that was in broader, strategic and conceptual terms.  This is about writing copy.  Copy that may not have anything concretely better-than-the-competitors to say about a product, but that’s stronger, more motivating and persuasive none-the-less. 

Before you start writing, you need to know (or intuit) where you want your copy to go.  What argument/carrot/stick/incentive your concept can ride to victory.  You’ll also need to know how to sell whatever you come up with.  Being Kamikaze, the concept/argument should be pushing someone in the approval cycle’s limits.  Sway gives great ammo to relegate lack of approval to the merely subjective. 

Some, but far from all, the great stuff this book can help you see/sell/use:

The Rush Limbaugh School of Meaningless Copy.  The man spouts the most outrageous, untrue, ill-considered things he can come up with – people BELIEVE.  Why?  First off, he’s preaching to the choir.  His followers don’t care about truth; all they care about is what Rush said.  Problematic in mainstream (or any other) advertising, there are legal ramifications to doing what Rush does.  You can, however, pretend.  You’ve seen those headlines, MAN EATS DOG, RABID DOG LOVERS ON HUNGER STRIKE, yadda yadda.  Turns out they’re talking Nathans, Ball Park, Hebrew National.  As blind as it is, why does it work?  The authors call what many of us have always known Diagnosis Bias.  Read the book.

The Publishers Clearing House School of Meaningless Copy.  You offer a fabulous prize 99.9% of respondents know they won’t win.  Yet gazillions enter every year (don't you?).  Why?  I couldn’t say beyond “dreams and greed” until Sway explained it scientifically.  According to the Las Vegas School of brain response, the anticipation of a big win has more sway than the reality of winning (or not). 

The Do-It-You’ll-Feel-Good vs. Cold Hard Cash Copy Argument.  Think about all those green products extorting us to assuage our conscience, do what’s best for Mother Earth.  How motivating is asking us to wash clothes without phosphates for the good of the planet and generations to come?  Pit altruism against “cheaper to buy/cheaper to use/proudly still polluting.”  Which copy platform sells more product?  Not only does Sway tell you which, it tells you why.  Armed with that knowledge, you may find the perfect concept to overcome altruism and science.  (If BP gets hold of this, we're all in big trouble!)

The It’s-More-Expensive-But-Worth-It way to color your copy.  Been around since before I knew how much fun hair color could be.  There are now many more expensive, designer hair products.  Still, L’Oreal’s I’m Worth It campaign sucks them in.  This one’s so powerful, it has the chops to completely distort and dismember objective and professional judgment.  Even more powerful teamed with what Sway calls Change Aversion, you’ll learn how – and why – it works.

Not every great method of copy logic is in the book – nor do the authors purport to be writing about how to write ad copy.  It’s still a great tool.  Combined with a killer Kamikaze Key Fact, supported by a smart Kamikaze Creative Work Plan, the things you can learn help you build your copy platform so it’s not only smart, creative and conceptual – it does what you want it to do. 

I’ve a great ad “gut” and am known for getting even the most difficult clients to understand – and agree to  – whatever heresy I advocate.  The guy who told me to read Sway is probably even better at it than I am.  Yet both of us found enough weapons of persuasion in its pages to make Sway a Kamikaze Creative’s secret weapon.

Don’t take my word for it.  Buy (or download) the book.

NOTE:  Going over this post, I had o laugh at how it reads like those direct mail missives extolling – but never revealing – the virtues of health magazines, invest in gold newsletters and stock advice.  WTH.  I learned why I should do it that way in Sway.  Be a better, smarter, Kamikaze Copywriter.  Buy the book!

QUICKIE: Guess who's coming to...

The Creative Circus?  I'll be teaching a copywriting class on Thursday nights, Summer Q + student one-on-ones Friday mornings.  Those of you who remember the taming of Vivian and Stella will understand.  Picked up Darla, new Jack Russell Terrorist pup, over the weekend.  There's no better way to teach her manners, to ignore crowds, etc., than a quarter spent teaching.  She's a lively little thing - if you find my class too hard, you'll at least love the dog.  See you there!  (That's her on your left, the tiny, innocent looking one!)

DO YOUR OWN INPUT! How’d I forget the first step in the Kamikaze Copywriting/Creative Process + Something New: Watch Doreen edit short! (**Details, end of Post.**)

This is strange and wonderful area, doing whatever we need to do to get everything else done.  Possibly, the most important step in the process. It’s Something I’ve always loved, even when I’ve had to go it alone. 

There are huge accounts and big agencies that pride themselves in giving you what you need to create.  I’ve had boxes of studies dumped in my office, perused hundreds of white papers, websites, hung out in grocery stores, sat through endless meetings, focus groups, and phone calls.  Read trade pubs, studied competitive work, taken so many plant tours I know the difference between a horizontal milling machine and a Swiss Turn lathe.  Eaten, driven, tried and tried-on; watched and helped do.  Signed non-disclosures that make your head spin. 

I’ve also sat across the table from small account sales folk, CEOs, marketing/ad people, even admin support.  Called on their customers or hung out where I could find them.  Read the consumer magazines prospects read, watched their favorite TV shows.  I’ve yet to attend an input funeral, but I’ve yet to work on that kind of account.  When I do, you’ll find me dressed appropriately, respectfully in the back row.

Input corresponds to the first stage of the creative process:  Define the problem.  This isn’t just the KCWP-type Prospect Centered problem.  It’s a bigger picture problem *that leads to *leading to Prospect Definition, Objectives (Objective Based KCS or KCWP), Kamikaze Creative Promises and their Reasons Why.  It also gets more less expected you closer to **the Kamikaze Key Facts.  If you don’t do your job, process and strategic considerations can't hold the smart, unexpected insights great creative demands. 

Defining the Creative Problem (Process again) requires you do so in the most broadly inclusive manner possible.  (How to move from room to room vs. How to build a door.)  Input does the same thing.  The longer you write on an account, the better you learn your client’s business ***and their competition’s.  ****You bBecome One with the minutiae of Prospect studies, focus groups, consumer culture, what’s happening in the trades.  If you’re lucky, all that knowledge won’t get you stuck on the same account/in the same category forever (unless you want that.  If you don’t, at some point you ‘ll have to change accounts or category,even if it means a new job for less money – something I’ve done.)  To do great work on any account, you need to know it cold – and not be afraid to challenge others on it.

There’s an old ad cliché, The better the input, the better the creative.  Good one to write on the chalkboard a hundred times.  It’s not enough for you to know what everyone else who works on the account knows.  To find that one bit that cracks an the whole account open, exposes Prospect insights and leads to Kamikaze Creative Strategies no one else has considered, **you have to delve deeply.  You need Find that nugget of irony, contradiction, fact, and mayhem no one else finds sees – too often because they dwon’t want to ****dig for it.  Not only does this approach inspire  breakthrough creative, it can also lead to new markets, new mediums and – most fun of all – new uses for old products.

A few short/sharp insights about the Input Process:

Get to know your client.  If you show an interest, your client should give you access to everything there is to know – including the wild hair personal insights and puzzlements pointing to the info/thought nugget you seek.

Take a test drive.  Some accounts have elaborate programs that put you inside their product “experience” so you can know it the same way their Prospect does.  Other accounts think a discussion with the AE who discusses it with you is enough.  Most fall somewhere in between.  Encourage your involvement.  If it’s not standard, do whatever you have to do to be the exception, even if you have to do it on your own time/your own dime.  It will always – always ­– pay off.  Creatively first, then financially.

Don’t trust everything your client tells you.  Big client sales personnel and small client CEOs are a great source of prospect and product knowledge/insight.  Problem is, most clients – and the marketing/advertising departments and agencies they work with –believe.  Unquestioning.  If they see contradictions, have doubts, they perceive it against their own best interests to share.  Stay out of that trap.  Verify everything (final stage of the Creative Process:  Verification.  Do it first, too.).  Leave no stone unturned, even if it means what’s usually a painfully obtuse discussion with the client’s Legal department.

Never, ever, leave it up to your partner, AE, planner, client or anyone else.  They’re all part of the process but as the writer, the weight of accuracy falls on you.  I love working on technical, information rich accounts – industrial, B2B (often considered the same), high tech, that kind of thing.  There’s so much information to work with, communicating it clearly and creatively, within Prospect vernacular/Language of Concept is a writing challenge that can get me high. 

I’m know for getting it right the first time, no matter what creative context I use.  I hate rewrites, charge higher rates for being the last writer on technical pieces others couldn’t grok.  The reason:  Deep, Personal Input + Genuine Interest.  (Granted, these kinds of accounts aren’t everyone’s cup of tea – in my youth, I sometimes “ghost-wrote” them for co-workers who either couldn’t – or wouldn’t – understand them.)  It’s a personal thing but – regardless – you have to do the work whether it’s consumer, B2B, in whatever medium assigned or imagined.

BONUS TIP ON WRITING SHORT:  Forget the articles.  Xing “the” “a” even “our”personal pronouns  and other word wasters may force you to challenge your structure, but your work will be better –read shorter, get read more – for it.

Something new I’m trying:  leaving in some edited areas, with their edits.  I have to say I t drives me crazy rereading copy like this, but I’llm going to start w/the easy stuff.  If it works, maybe we’ll get more advanced later. Not all long lines should be edited down, so don’t go crazy on your copy.  Let me know if it helps.  If you don’t, this may be the first/last time I try.

*We discussed “ing” ing in last post.

**Get rid of articles where you can.

***Copy Sin:  Redundancy.  The Competition is your client’s business.

****Active is/reads shorter

Other common edits, too confusing/disruptive to share:  

Copy Sins:  Repeating same word too closely in line/paragraph/piece, except where it works for emphasis/stylistic concerns.  Repeating same info disguised by several different approaches, within any particular line/paragraph/piece.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE, I want to thank Portfolio Center Copy Head Robyn Cohen for convincing me I've been out of the classroom too long, needed to come down and do a short program for the school.  In spite of a few snafus, the four hour drive and the bullet hole in the hotel window, I had a great time.  Hopefully, Reverend Rob and I converted a few more believers to the gospel of Prospect Centered Creative.  What did it teach me?  Students haven't changed that much since I last taught at the Circus.  They still want to know, still like to yell, still like to have their thinking challenged. Oh - and I miss teaching.  Could be why April got lucky, getting my usual six months' worth of posts.  Toodles!

TIPS, CLUES, EDITS, THOUGHTS: More on Headlines, but these work in Body Copy, too.

Ad copy (headlines are ad copy, as far as I’m concerned) is such a big subject.  I’m still learning new things.  Sometimes it’s because we must adapt/expand for new mediums, advertising styles/trends, stylebook and semantic changes, new dictionary entries, yadda yadda.  Other times because the more I do, the more I push, the more I try, the more I innovate. 

These tips have always worked for me.  Every tip might not apply to every job, but most are general and apply across the spectrum.  Some aren’t new.  My students have been carried most forward by teaching students of their own.  Some will be put in context as this course progresses.  Others may appear only here, this once.  At the end, I may share a few “assignments” I’ve given to my classes.  Consider them exercises in Kamikaze Thinking, Writing, Doing.  Do them/use them or not, up to you.  If you do, I’d love to hear how it works for you.

Tip #1:  Write Short.  This applies to headlines, subheads, body copy.  Even when you write long copy, even when a long headline is appropriate, it must read short.  Here are a few things to help you turn too long lines into something more actionable.

·      Read it out loud.  Develop your ear, you’ll soon start to “hear” the edits

·      Change word order.  Play with it many different ways.  Should point to the easy edits

·      Get rid of prepositions.  Xing out all the “ofs” “tos” “bys” etc. will show you how it can be made shorter.  Sometimes it’s an easy fix, sometimes you have to operate on your structure.  Either way, axing prepositions point the way to short/shorter

·      Get rid of modifiers.  Find one word/word picture (think writing visually) for the whole lot of them.  Easier than you think

·      Ing-ing.  Using ing on your verbs is an easy way to get rid of passive voice, prepositions and a host of other Copy Sins.  It can also help you clarify structure

·      Keep it active.  Active voice is the most word-thrifty you can use.  It’s also the most compelling.  Unless you’re talking about something that happened in the past, keep it active.  Even if you are talking about results that happened in the past – play with it until you find a way to make that active, too

·      Write advertising Haiku.  Not limericks – they’re too easy.  Haiku are not only short, they’re visual and active, even without verbs.  Next job, try putting it in Haiku.  You may not keep it there, but you’ll be amazed where it takes you

Tip #2:  Think punctuation.  Don’t let your AD/GD/CD/whomever stick a period at the end of your headline because it’s the end of your headline.  Periods are stops (one of the few things David Ogilvy and I agree on).  If you want to make a strong statement, end the thought at the end of your headline, use one.  Period.  If you want the line to lead into your visual/body copy/et. al., want its idea to linger in the prospect's mind, don’t.   Don’t be afraid of question marks (or questions) in headlines.  Just don’t get in the habit.  Don’t think every question takes a ?  Some - rhetorical or not - are beter with periods.  Honest. 

Commas are stops (pauses, really), too.  Try using structure to eliminate them.  If you can’t, use headline line breaks in your headline to fake them  (see how eliminating that preposition shortened that line/sped it up?  Just to keep you thinking).

Tip #3:  Line breaks have to do with meaning and flow, never graphics.  Never let your AD/GD break up a longer headline for you.  He/she may think it looks better, but it can change/confuse the meaning of your headline.  EX:

1) The small brown dog leapt over the hairy red fox.

2) The small

     brown dog leapt

     over the hairy

     red fox.  (Not only did those breaks confuse things, that kind of over-stacked headline cuts down readability/readership.)

3)  The small brown

     dog leapt over the

     red hairy dog.  (Not much better, is it.)

4) The small brown dog leapt

     over the hairy red fox.  (The best so far.)

5) The small dog leapt over

      the hairy red fox.  (Best of the bunch, although I could go either way in a pinch)

Tip #4:  Write short paragraphs.  Even if they add up to more space, people read them as shorter overall.  Long paragraphs also look more confusing – read that way, too.  That sold block of type is so uninviting, most readers become exhausted just looking at them.  Don’t read that paragraph – or any after.  EX:  Same number of words.  Same number of sentences.  Which do you want to read?

A:

Yadda yadda yadda yadda.  Yadda

yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda yadda yadda.  Yadda

 yadda.  Yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda.  Yadda yadda yadda yadda

 yadda. Yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.  Yadda

 yadda.  Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.

B:

Yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda. 

Yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda.  Yadda yadda

yadda yadda yadda. Yadda yadda

 yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda

yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.

Yadda yadda.  Yadda yadda

 yadda yadda yadda yadda. 

Yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda.

 

Tip #5:  KISS.  A cliché, but Keep It Simple Stupid.  The more simple the line.  The more simple the way it’s treated graphically.  The easier it is to remember, the more it’ll get read.

Tip #6:  Innovate.  All rules are made to be broken, even mine.  The trick: you have to be an expert at using the rules to intuit what you can get away with without losing your reader.  The CD, client, AE, etc. are another story (how you present, how well you broke the rules come into big play here, along with politics, who’s wife was an English major, agency creative perspective, brand voice/stylebook, etc.).  Since we’re doing Prospect Centered work, really, the prospect is the only one who matters.  Do it right, do it in the right language of concept, with the right message – the prospect, at least, probably won’t even notice.

Hope these help.  Wow.  Two posts in two days.  What am I gonna do for an encore?