A peek inside the Kamikaze Creative Freelance Manifesto: Doreen gets a question. Let’s talk business.

Got an email from a former student.  Graduated, got a good job with a great Mentor/CD. Have an opportunity to freelance.  I don’t know how.

Here then a few gems from Doreen’s Kamikaze Freelance Manifesto.  These have to do with the business of freelancing, money, billing.  It’s often a difficult thing for beginning freelancers to be firm and upfront with rates and terms.  Hopefully, what I’ve learned will help.

1.  If you freelance while working full time, do not do it at work, discuss it with coworkers or use your employer’s equipment.  Many employers’ frown on employees freelancing.  Others don’t care.  Still not good to have it show up in any form at work.  Especially if it’s for another agency.
2. Never, ever, freelance for one of your agency’s clients.  Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised.
3. Talk money before you accept an assignment.  Tell them your hourly rate, how you bill, when you bill.  Ask what their budget is.  What the job is (get a detailed description). What role do they want you to take?  Concept, Design, Production?  Editing corporate speak or copy/language of concept?  Content?  Content Design/Strategy?  Ongoing blogging or single contribution?  Work from self-research or client input?  
4.  Depending upon the job it’s either one or more parts, or the whole.  How fast do you need it?  Do you need an AD/Designer/CW/backend/production person, too?
5. Each impacts the amount of time you’ll need to do the job.  Can get in/out quickly or will it carry for weeks months years?

4. Work from a signed Estimate.  Outline what your responsibilities are, what you will do, what the estimate includes, doesn’t. 

Give your time estimate, your hourly rate, any fees or materials included.  Have the client sign, keep that copy.  Ask for a Purchase Order.  Some jobs don’t require one, if it does include the PO# in Estimate if possible, always  in Retainer,  all other billing (Progressive/Final/You name it)

.

5. A word about Estimates.  If you’ve never worked with a client before, pad the hours you think it will take.  Not too much – allow for a few more meetings, revisions, phone calls.  Unless they’re a professional client (ask around, make sure they haven’t been burning every writer in town) who’s done similar projects with other freelancers, getting information, approvals, existing photos/illustrations, meetings, etc., may take longer than you think.  If they don’t, you can always even things up on the final bill.
6. Unless it’s a straight fee, I personally bill to hours spent.  No matter how much more I could charge by estimate.  If I go over an hour or two on a small job, several hours on a big one, I usually eat the time, but make sure the client knows I don’t have to.  If I can keep the relationship upfront and honest, there’ll be no problems when time-sucker jobs really go over.
7. If a job goes over because of my error – I didn’t follow directions, am off the approved strategy, had problems of my own making, I eat the time.  As long as the client isn’t asking for changes due to pure subjectivity, I own the problem.  Make this clear on all estimates/invoices.
8. If a job goes over estimate due to client error, incorrect/incomplete input, changes in previously approved strategy, bringing me in for meetings that don’t happen, blind subjectivity, avoidable corrections and rewrites, the client pays.  Make this clear on all estimates/invoices.
9. When you start talking money, but before you write the Estimate, let the client know you get a 50% of Estimate Retainer before you start work on a project.  You may decide to eliminate it later for a steady, well-paying client, but the Retainer is one of the best indications of a client’s respect for your time and Invoice.  If they pay the Retainer, they pay the Final Bill.
10. The Retainer will also pay the rent until you finish – and then typically wait another 30 days+ - to be paid for it.  If you’re a very busy fulltime freelancer, your cash flow may not make living off your Retainer necessary.  But it’s still good business (lawyers do it), helps qualify clients.
11. Decide what other terms you want.  Will you get the Retainer and wait until the end of the job – no matter how long it takes – to bill them the balance?  Or will you Progressive Bill long lasting jobs?  How many days will you give them to pay?  Ten?  Thirty?
12. I offer tiered discounts for those who pay any bill (but the Estimate) early.  The Estimate is due on receipt, although I usually allow a few days to turn the check around.  I also charge escalating interest for those who pay late.
13. Spell out all terms on your invoice.  I also put in a clause using the Retainer as a Kill Fee if the job is killed after I start, but before I’ve used all the Retainer time.  I am my only inventory.  If I set time aside for a certain job, it may mean turning down something else.  It may also mean I can’t get that job back or start another job right away.
14. If it’s not in writing, you cannot trust things to go according to agreement.  You have no recourse (short of harassment) if someone doesn’t pay your bill.  If the job’s killed, you want to get paid for reasonable time, effort, lost opportunity. 
15. Talking about freelance terms is different from salary negotiations.  You may want to give someone a deal because you want to build a relationship.  If so, be sure they know it’s this once.  Subsequent work will be negotiated at your normal rate.
16. Often we’re asked to do a job for a flat fee.  This can be a bonus or a time sucker.  If I think I can do a low fee job and not feel like I gave it away, I might take it to build a relationship, because I’m otherwise unoccupied, because it’s a job I really want to do (fun, new category, new medium, great art director/designer, whatever).
17.  If the fee’s high, karma is paying you back for the last one that ate your lunch.  I always try to find out if they have a budget before I start taking hourly rates.  If it’s something I don’t want to do, if the fee is too low, I explain what it would cost to have me do it and offer to ask around for a less expensive writer to refer.  I give them a little free advice on what to look for, what things could cost at meatiest – and barest –bone.  Entrepreneurs, single proprietorships, friends of relatives have no idea what we do and how much things cost.  A frank discussion + a little (free) good advice often mean a real client when they have budget to spend.
18.  If you’re freelancing for a living (no job), never let one client become more than 40% of your total time available to work.  If a client wants you on long term Retainer/Contract, that’s something else.  But a real freelancer will work for many different clients.  Individuals, entrepreneurs, start-ups, small businesses, the Forbes 100, ad agencies, digital shops, non-profits.  B2B, B2C, Social Media.  Stuff and people you never dreamed existed.    Let one client take all (or even most of) your time, where will you be left when they go in-house?  Hire an agency that doesn’t want project work going anywhere else?
19. This also means you should always be working new business in some way, no matter how busy you are.  If we learned anything from the last recession, it has to be diversity is safer ground.  New business efforts get you remembered later, hired sooner, with less dependence upon a single client/industry.
20. One more point about freelancing with a fulltime job.  Your job must be priority one, no matter how much fun, much money, much future the freelance may represent.  Your agency – no matter how you feel about it – is paying your taxes, health insurance and other benefits.  Unless you’re ready to take all that on yourself – and freelancers do pay higher taxes than corporate employees – your first loyalty is to the steady job.  Let your freelance client know that.  If he’s a good client, he’ll respect you for it.

ONE TO GROW ON

21. What happens when someone doesn’t pay?  It’s up to you.  Here are some of the techniques I’ve used to collect from deadbeats:
1. Sicced a lawyer on an out of state client.  High fee but the b**@ards paid the bill.
2. Harassment.  Sometimes feels good for your soul, but the truth is the person who’s telling you she can’t issue your check probably can’t.  I’m sure she’d rather pay on time, but clients – especially agencies – hold up payment for many reasons.  They want to get paid before they pay you.  Cash flow problems.  Corporate process.  The only person who can sign the check is in Argentina.
3. Creativity.  After several months of lies (check in mail/on Friday/yaddayaddayadda), one very hot, very humid August day I dressed in my dirtiest barn clothes, neglected to put on deodorant and mucked 24 horse stalls.  I then positioned myself in front of the agency receptionist and politely waited for my check.  To go in or out of the main door you had to pass within nose range.  Amazing how little time it took.  I ran to their bank, cashed it immediately.  Never worked for them again.  Warned everyone I knew to keep away

LAST ONE, I PROMISE

22.  Build your network.  Swap books with other freelancers, no matter what they do.  Keep in touch w/friends and classmates working at agencies fulltime.  Use your college/university alumnae list, instructors.  Follow up with favored AEs, Clients, Project Managers, Production people.  Be respectful of all – you never know where your next freelance job is coming from.

Once again, Blogger is messing w/my word outline.  Hope it's not to difficult to follow without the proper spacing, etc.  If any of you have a fix for this, please let me know.

As all posts in this blog ©2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative ©

Category vs. Brand: In which Doreen expresses surprise at the apparent ignorance thereof

Sorry about the title but couldn’t stop myself.  

As I gear up for Thursday’s drive to Atlanta and the first class of the Circus’ summer term, I’ve been thinking back to last quarter’s panels.  For those of you who aren’t Creative Circus students, each quarter ends with a review of every student’s work from all his classes that term.

 

I met many of this term’s students in last term’s panel.  Took notes about trends I saw in two days reviewing copy students’ work.  Since I only saw writers, I thought it’d offer guidance for what they’d need this term.

Most did not know the difference between writing for one distinct prospect and writing for one entirely different prospect.  Work which should have been targeted to other groups was all concepted/written for their own age group.  This one’s quite scary to me, but why I offer the Come One Come All Creative Strategy workshop at the beginning of each term.  If they haven’t attended one yet, whose fault is that? (You don’t have to be a Circus Student to attend.  PC, GA State, GA Tech, Emory, Arts Center and all other students interested in advertising are welcome.  It’s this Friday, 7/12, 9:30 a.m. in the Carol Vick Bynum Theater.  Tell the security guard you’re my guest.  If you can’t make it, read my blog entries from 9/28/10, Love Poem to our Prospect, 5/8/12, Sway – it’s also discussed in relation to other subjects in many other posts.)

I also saw a decided lack of creative risk taking.  Lots of good, safe work.  Very little that snapped my head around in envy, made me think Now he/she’s gonna be a star.  It’s about time students stopped worrying about being good and took the kind of risks that create lots of bad work – until it turns genius.  My husband’s boss repeats “Good is the enemy of Great,” usually coupled with other inspirational clichés.  This time he’s right.  (For this one, read any blog post that discusses the Kamikaze Key Fact.)

The other big problem was the one I’ll talk about today.  Category vs. Brand.  Sounds simple and it should be.  Like just about everything else, the answer to the problem can be found in a smart KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan – what I’ll be teaching Friday morning)

  

Before we get into the solution, let’s talk problem.  When asked, many students genuinely did not know the difference between Category and Brand.  As they were mostly lower Qs, I suppose I should cut them some slack.  Still, Category vs. Brand is a basic tenet of advertising creative.

Category is the general type of goods/products/services your client offers.  Banking and finance, fast food, fashion, retail, travel, breakfast foods, baby toys, furniture, copiers, printers, computers, software, beer, wine and spirits, automotive - all are Categories.  The list is endless.  Most have sub-categories as well.  In the travel category, sub-categories include trekking (on foot and on horse), cruising, resorting, camping, road trips, RVing, guided tours, etc.

Brand is one particular company, bank, brokerage, fast food joint, fashion line, retail store, travel destination or operator, toy, furniture line, named computer (Apple, Lenovo, HP, etc.), software (Microsoft, In Design, whatever), beer label, named resort, individual designer, etc.  A printer is something you need to produce hard copies of what you write with your computer.  A Hewlett Packard printer is a particular brand of printer, with many different models you usually discuss one at a time, or as one series of products/printers with similar attributes you promote as a group, at one time.

In other words, a category is a group of similar products/services, with many different Brands represented.  A brand is one particular make of the product/service, usually with many different models.  If we’re talking cereal and you sell category, you’re selling the need for/benefits of eating a good breakfast.  When you sell the Kellogg Brand, you’re selling the name Kellogg and all it represents (taste, USA, product variety, quality ingredients, history/heritage, brand within brand (Special K, Rice Crispies, etc.) on the parent brand’s merits.  When you sell Special K, you’re selling something even more specific – a specific product – on its own merits, under the brand umbrella.

Category = Breakfast foods

Brand = Kellogg’s

Product = Special K

Capice?

There are valid reasons to sell category – usually when it’s one you’ve invented (smart phones, for example).  People have to learn what the category is, does and why they should pay attention to it.  The problem, even if you try to position your brand within the category, or sell category over your brand’s name, the consumer isn’t motivated to any particular brand/model smart phone.  Just gets the idea it’s a product category that bears watching.

 

Most of the work I saw sold category, even when the problem should have been one of brand.  But you’re rarely hired to sell just any old banana.  You’re hired to sell Chiquita bananas, Dole bananas, Mom’s Organic bananas, etc.

If your category is bananas, your brand could be Chiquita.  But unless you give your prospect a reason to prefer Chiquita, they’ll buy any old banana they find in the supermarket.

This harks back to the KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan).  The Kamikaze Promise and Reasons Why.  What promise/claim of benefit can Chiquita make over its competitors?  How about the Chiquita brand IS bananas.  Any other brands of bananas don’t take the care, have the growers, the varieties, health awareness, food handling safety, etc., your family deserves. 

Why can Chiquita make that claim?  It’s the oldest US banana brand (I made that up, but it may be true).  They’ve been buying and selling bananas for x years, so they know what works, what doesn’t, what varieties taste best, last longest, how to get them to market faster.   Those are your KCWP’s Reasons Why.

 

What I saw in the student work was, for conversation’s sake, an ad for Chiquita that gave me no reason to seek out Chiquita branded bananas.  Lots of reasons to eat any old banana, with no mention of brand other than the logo.  Maybe mentioning it once in body copy.  This can also be solved in the KCWP’s Kamikaze Competition section.  There, you should not only give the various competing brands (Dole is the only one that comes to mind, I’m sure there are others.)  The competitive info should always be a direct comparison to your client’s product (Chiquita Bananas):

Dole – widely distributed, depending upon where purchased can be lower priced than Chiquita but the brand is not as well known for fresh bananas as Chiquita.  Dole is usually sold in discount stores and supermarkets (Wal-Mart, Food Lion, convenience stores, etc.) vs. the more upscale markets (Harris Teeter (in Charlotte, the deluxe supermarket) and specialty food stores, which usually trade on the Chiquita brand.  Perceived as quality canned goods, Dole fresh foods have yet to attain the cachet of Chiquita.

Know that + the perceived value of the Chiquita brand, its history (I’m Chiquita banana and I’ve come to say…) and perceived quality difference over other banana brands = a compelling concept/campaign/individual marketing piece that motivates people to seek and buy Chiquita, no matter where they shop.

Granted, this is all pretty elementary and far from a treatise on branding (a huge subject in itself).  It does, however, illustrate how to deal with Brand in product advertising.

 

Back in the dark ages, McCann hired Bill Cosby to sell PCs.  It was the advent of the PC revolution, long before Apple and IBM owned the category.  Cosby had to sell category – back then, people didn’t know what a PC (Personal Computer) was for, techno fear was rampant.  He did it under the Texas Instruments brand, but because the market had to be educated as to why they needed a PC before telling them why the TI machine would be better for them, he talked personal computing, not why TI made a better product.

Those kinds of opportunities are rare in this business.  Sure there are new tech products and brands coming out all the time.  But the PC and computing are now engrained into our collective consciousness.  No need to sell people on the idea of a home computer at all.  But they would like to know which brand computer is best for their needs.  Today, we can talk brand.  Back then, even if you were IBM (known for mainframes), brand was a second thought. 

There you have it.  No excuses, now. Time to sell brand, assuming the Prospect understands the category.  If your assignment is for a Toshiba laptop, you sell it on the merits of that particular product – not on the merits of having a laptop, period.  As in everything else, knowledge is power (4/6/12, Do your own input).  The more you know about your own product and its brand, the more you know about the competition in comparison to your product, the more specific to it you can be.    

A little historic perspective.  In the 60s, Alka Seltzer and Bromo Seltzer were neck and neck in the ad wars.  Both had some great spots – RA Blechman’s (sic) arguing stomach, prisoners in the dining room banging on tables after a meal, chanting “Bromo Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer, Bromo Seltzer” in time.  Problem was, even with great ads, no one remembered the brand.

Bromo Seltzer ads sold Alka Seltzer and vice versa.  Today, w/many parity products, communicating the brand name and proprietary message/positioning is more important than ever.  Do a smart KCWP.  Sell the heck out of the brand/product.  With so many imitators out there, so many products with no real difference, pushing brand over category is more important than ever.

FOR ALL YOUR KAMIKAZE CREATIVES WONDERING WHERE I AM: In which Doreen explains the concept of Spring Break.

Like you guys need to know about Spring Break.

Working on a new post.  Will be online asap, promise.  D.

FOR HEDDY’S GRAMMARIANS: Kamikaze Copy Sins vs. Proper English. It’s not a book report, it’s Ad Copy. Doreen explains why she often advocates bad grammar.

Many thanks to Heddy’s Miami Ad must-be-smart/maybe ex-English teachers who pointed out many of the Kamikaze Copy Sins aren’t cited as proper usage in the NY Times Style Book. 

I know.

Ad copy (web copy, brochures, yadda yadda), like much of the best modern literature, isn’t written in the language of Quirk’s Comprehensive English Grammar.  It starts there – but like everything else we do, good ad copy is targeted to the Prospect.  It’s a sad day for America, but the majority of people we write for read at fifth grade level.  They may have degrees, but I cannot tell you how many college graduates I’ve taught who needed a good remedial grammar class (not all of them from Mississippi or the Carolinas). 

These people (our Prospects) may have advanced degrees, write themselves, may know the rules.  At least enough to send a memo/email.  You’d think.  If you’re read commercial, business or personal emails lately, you know the majority of people don’t use spell check – let alone proper English.

Ad copy is many things.  Mostly, it’s conversational.  One of the reasons I spend so much time on the Prospect section of the KCWP* is the need to enter into a meaningful dialogue.  Not speak at them.  Concept, more than anything else, is how we draw them into the conversation.  Once they enter – once they start reading – it’s our job to keep them there.  To become so engaged, they remember what they read.

Unlike mystery, romance, fine lit, comic book and graphic novel fans, people don’t volunteer to read ad copy.  We have to trick them into it.  Keep them reading, almost against their own will.

 

Any excuse we give them – language elevated above the Prospect, technically correct but ad-excessive commas.  Long, complexly structured lines and paragraphs, run-on and compound sentences.  Excessive/poorly spaced implied subjects, repeating words too closely boring verbs too many descriptors - right down the Kamikaze Copy Sins list – is a direct invitation to stop reading.  (Good thing this isn’t an ad.)

Bank copy used to sound like lawyers wrote it.  Today’s most effective bank copy is casual, conversational.  Insurance companies, legal firms and investment come-ons are moving the same way.  Why?  It won’t work if the Prospect doesn’t read it, can’t understand it, doesn’t feel it.

Lest you think I’m a grammarphobe, I invite you join a Sunday morning newspaper read at Casa Doreen and Bruce.  My engineer hubby and I despair at the state of the English language, the stupidity media shows laying off proofreaders and editors.  Granted, we’re proudly word nerds.  Own several library dictionaries (my favorite, a Webster’s New International from the 30s).  It makes us – and a lot of other people – wonder how closely they check their facts (don’t get me started on Fox News, Dan Rather, even CNN).

More than once, I’ve threatened to leave North Carolina without him over the language we hear daily.  I seen it, thems policemans is ebbewar, no tense but the present, on and on – from day laborers and college grads (some with MBAs) alike.

You have to know the rules to break them.

Tellingly, most people don’t know when I’m using improper grammar.  I’ve written for markets, complex products as intellectually challenging as NYC, Chicago, Boston, banks, insurance, investment high tech luxury medical, dozens more – B2B** and B2C***.  Except for the occasional stickler who thinks they need complete sentences, even C level (CEO, CFO, COO, ECD, etc.) clients breeze through my consistently improper copy and compliment me on a job well done.

 

How do I get away with it?

Besides the fact sentence diagramming is rarely – if ever - taught (unless you count when I use it to give students a visual read on exactly how complex and clunky their lines are), the fact is I write targeted, motivational copy.  I spend so much time getting into the Prospect’s heads, hearts and lives, I use language tailored expressly for them.  Not for the client.  Not for my CD.  Not for my high school English teacher.

I know “…just lies there” is correct.  Why do I consistently use “…lays there?”  It’s what my Prospect – and just about everyone else – uses.  I guarantee using the proper form of the verb will confuse annoy alienate the reader to point they’ll stop reading.

Eliminating Kamikaze Copy Sins, as improper as many fixes may be, is how to keep your Prospect reading.  How to move them along through whatever length copy to your carefully drawn conclusion.  I’ve had MBA+ CEOs approve copy with no commas between lists of items, before ands (which I usually take out anyway, replaced by another comma - never a foreign-looking semi-colon), between modifiers.  Most don’t even notice.

Why?  Read Burr by Gore Vidal.

 

Vidal (who died earlier this Century) was an Ivy League word (and every other kind of) snob (his memoirs are titled Palimpsest – Bruce and I had to look it up – you should do the same).  His feuds – often about language and style (not to mention politics, economics, life) with Norman Mailer (Armies of the Night, The Naked and the Dead, The Executioner’s Song – read him, too) are literary legend.  Yet Vidal's the guy who gave me the courage to try the no comma trick.

 

I noticed how quickly I’d breeze through some of his lists, modifiers, etc.  How I’d pause, think, consider my way through others.  The reason?  The fast lists had no commas between items/descriptors.

 

His writing is so seemingly correct (in some cases it is - obsessively so), the historical fiction so accurate, no one I know who reads him for pleasure notices anything but how well written his work is.  (Mailer has his incorrect grammar tricks, too.  Try to find them.  So did On the Road’s Jack Kerouac, but his are far from seamless.)

The best writers are readers.  Read enough, study how it’s written, you don’t need a degree in English.  I always take my lead from authors, poets – not Grammarians or other Copywriters.  Authors and poets push the language envelope, live in the language of their characters, don’t think puns or clichés are worth writing down.

Thank you, Heddy’s budding Copywriters but I already knew.  I wish I could take credit for all the unseemly grammar I advocate.  Alas, I cannot.  More to the point, to find my improper grammar, you had to read it.

 

The Kamikaze Copy Sins aren’t about correct/incorrect.  They’re about things that slow your Prospect down, make them stop – or keep – reading.  About communicating in a Language of Concept**** that gets into their gut, says you’re one of them.  Even the most radical errors and omissions won’t be noticed as long as you know the rules, break them accordingly.  

Memorize the Kamikaze Copy Sins, kiddies.  Keep a list of your own.  When you're a Creative Director, maybe one day you'll pass them on like Heddy.

*KCWP:  Kamikaze Creative Work Plan

**B2B:  Business to Business

***B2C:  Business to Consumer

****Language of Concept:  tone, vocabulary, style chosen to carry the Concept to the Prospect.

As with all my posts, ©2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative

Writing to Visual: In which Doreen asks all Kamikaze Copywriters, ADs, GDs, WDs and AEs to consider - Design Writer’s Trick or Ad Writer’s Secret Weapon?

What is Writing to Visual?  When the writer comes in after the fact.  The Visual exists before copy.  Can be a visual ad concept (picture tells all – who needs copy?), graphic/web design already laid out, even random pictures you’re handed, told Make it work.  Copy as afterthought.

 

Fortunately for Kamikaze Copywriters, without the afterthought, the visual can't work.

We still must write Prospect Centered copy supporting the Objective and Promise.  Copy taking its tone, even content – from the visual.  Instead of taking the lead or working as part of a Copy/Visual concept/team, we must follow the lead of graphics, colors, shapes, sizes.  Match visual/graphic feel, attitude, subject, reality, flow. 

These jobs aren't all that unusual.  Another writer had too many problems (personal, technical, style, whatever) to complete an assignment.  A graphic or web designer had to submit design (usually for estimating) before the client would consider copy.  Impossible deadlines.  Someone decided to do a self-promo, poster, holiday card, party invitation, whatever, based upon a visual/design they love.  The AD came up with a visual concept, write copy for it.  Your partner (AD, GD, WD, etc.) and you disagree – they want to present their visual idea with copy.  You want to present another idea with visual.

My method is always the same.  First, the KCWP**, especially Prospect Definition, Objective.  Promise.  Product understanding.  The intellectual aspects of the job sifting through my creative process.

I’ve talked about “going through and coming out the other side” before.  Usually in the context of Translating the Thought behind a headline.  Writing to visual, I use the same technique.  Staring into it, trying to come out the other side.  It’s more voodoo, gut, getting inside the visual vibe than anything else.

I stare.  Feel more than see colors, textures, expression.  If it’s a photograph of a person, who is he/she, what are they thinking?  Trying to tell me?  Can I wrap it around a Kamikaze Key Fact?

Is the image blind?  What emotional sense am I getting?  Does it have a seasonal, human influence?  A sense of humor? Sadness?  Terror?

Graphic and web designs are a little trickier.  Is the design harder edge, angular?  Is it curvy?  Does it flow?  How?  Why?  At what speed? (Think Picasso portraits - why do some women have five full rounded breasts, others one stingy pointy thing nobody wants to hold - that kind of thing works writing to design layout, too.)  What do the colors tell me?  Is negative space  blank – or peaceful?  What must it motivate (Objective)?  Digesting information?  Stopping prospects walking by a rack or table of other offerings?  Any corporate graphics/copy standards?  Concept or Illustration?

 

A true visual ad concept doesn’t need explaining.  If you have to explain it, it’s an illustration.  A true visual concept needs support, copy to carry the prospect from  visual thought to copy/product, objective.  The copy must complete the visual thought, continue its attitude, carry it to the Prospect’s motivational center.

An illustration can rarely - if ever - say it all without words. Because it’s not conceptual in the true sense, it needs words to explain, relate the visual to prospect/product.  At the same time, they must mirror visual texture, tone, tenure.  How can I translate the message into a true language of concept, matching illustrative style.  Art, photography, multi-media?

 

Example:  I was handed an illustration of a French Horn.  Impressionistic, with flowing disconnected lines, purple and gold against black.  An image made as much of negative space as colors, lines drawn.  Make a Christmas card.

 

I stared at the illustration, felt the flow of its curves, the strength and movement of the gold and purple, the night of the black.  Went through the horn and looked at it from behind, squinting my eyes until I came out the other side of those wispy suggestions of buttons, baffles, pipes.  This came out:

Now is the time for a chorus of angels,

A brass band of children

Sings trumpets of peace.

Now is the season of joy everlasting,

A horn full of magic

Makes peaceful my sleep.

Wishing you the beauty of Christmas for all your New Years

Sometimes poetry.  Sometimes not.  As long as it matches the look and feel of the visual, communicates, grabs the Prospect’s attention/interest, somehow reflects the product/client -  doesn’t matter.  This company had a spiritual bent, but wanted to avoid religion.  Christmas as warm and fuzzy national holiday.  

Sometimes I get a single strange line, which I may break up dramatically to increase affect/continue tone.  Not poetry, just copy.  Gazing through the eyes of a portrait photographer’s subject for a gallery invite.  Feeling the natural light flooding the subject.  “A picture as interview/Leaves naught but to listen/Words held loudly in light/Faces, bodies do the telling.”  Sold out show, lots of critics attending, happy client.  Some people thought “poems” would come with all the photos.  Kismet?  No. Writing to Visual.

I had to write three versions of the same copy for presentation.  Working with two ADs and a GD, the GD wanted to present strong graphic images, close-ups of body parts using the client logo in less expected ways (a hearing aid, a gold tooth, an eye’s Iris, bald head tattoo).  Visually, it was similar to something the client had seen, admired.  The GD found a way to differentiate it from something the client thought he wanted to steal.  Taking my lead from her visual and design (very little unusually displayed copy, lots of white space) my job was to do the same.

That big ear with client logo hearing aid, a huge red mouth with lapping tongue, logo gold-tooth – the images were strong, but kind of obtuse to me.  The more I stared, I got such a sense of WTF, my lines took the same approach and attitude.  The trick was not just to come up with the lines themselves, but to somehow relate copy and visuals to Prospect/Product Benefits.

Because the visuals were a twisted version of ones already in the marketplace, I felt the lines should be somewhat twisted versions of familiar/cliched thoughts too.

The hearing aid/ear?  Cleverly integrated communication for geeks:

               Why the sound of one hand clapping?

The gold tooth/tongue thrust mouth?  Many different and/or custom offerings:

               Yeah, like everyone wants plain Vanilla.

Nasty head tattoo?  Intellectual depth, original customer solutions:

               Close enough to read writing not on the wall.

Steely eyed Iris?  A history of industry-leading technology:

               Wait to see the future, it’s past.

No real concept.  Just visuals and lines I wrote to them. 

I’m not proposing these are the best lines you’ll ever read/the best I’ve ever written.  Or even close.  My using them isn’t about ego or exploiting an opportunity to sell my services.  It’s about taking you through that visual looking glass.  Trying to show you how my process  came out the other side.

There must be other techniques.  This works for me.  See where it takes you.  Do what I do, what someone else does or something completely your own – doesn’t matter.  The trick is to take your verbal lead from all the visual is – not just what you see.

 

Maybe not an ideal way to work, but in reality a necessary skill to master.  You’ll use it more than you expect.

FOR MY CIRCUS STUDENTS AND THOSE FOLLOWING ALONG W/THE CLASS:  a Writing To Visual assignment.

I intended to find copyright free images/visuals I could post for you to use, but after three+ hours with nothing I wanted to write to, I decided to give you an original thought option, too.  Instead of using my prospect/product/visual:

1.  Find a visual image – photo, graphic, illustration, whatever – that speaks to you.  Doesn’t matter what the subject is.  One you feel as well as see. 
2. Decide what kind of Prospect would be moved, motivated, piqued, identify with your visual.  Be daring – find a prospect you’ve not tried to reach before.
3. Decide upon a product/service your prospect uses/needs.  One you feel you can connect to the prospect/visual.
4. Do an ad.  Make sure you include/integrate product benefits/features in the body copy.  Be sure they’re part of the story, not a laundry list stuck in the middle paragraph.
5. Submit the visual and your copy, as per class format, by deadline.
6. Have fun!
7. HINT:  It'll be easier if you do a KCWP.**

As the image is one you feel a connection to (instead of one I chose by default), you should have more of a creative/personal stake in your results. 

 

That said, if you’re absolutely sure you can’t think of anything, here are a few images/product/prospect suggestions but I warn you – none of them got me excited.  Your work may be smarter, the assignment easier, if you find your own.

 Kid w/wig:  YCO* Children's Hospitals, Frozen meals or Minivans, product of your choosing.  Prospects:  Parents of young children, grandparents, philanthropic crowd, prospect of your choosing.

Hand on Window:  YCO* antidepressants, online colleges/universities, ambulance-chasing legal firms.  Prospects:  depressed adults, non-degreed/non-professional working adults, people/families of people injured in any kind of accident. prospect/product of your choosing. 

Future Einstein:  YCO* Science museums, pre-schools, Baby Einstein-type programs.  Prospects:  Elementary/PreSchool teachers, new parents (of infants), family tourists.  Product/prospect of your choosing.

Hot babe in cafe:  YCO* airlines/cruise lines/travel sites, health insurance, Alzheimer's Care Facilities.  Prospects:  overworked executives, middle aged children of elderly parents, family doctors/Nurse Practitioners.  Prospect/product of your choosing.

Ain't I cool:  You tell me. Maybe e-Harmony.com?  Just looks like someone I might have dated once.

Doggie loves banana: YCO* of ASPCA, Neutricks (or other) supplement for doggie dementia, low cost spay/neuter clinic.  Prospects:  high school students, owners of older dogs, new puppy owners/owners of unspayed/unneutered pets.  Product/prospect of your choosing.

*YCO - Your choice of

**KCWP - Kamikaze Creative Work Plan

As always, this blog post (c) 2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative.  

All photos copyright and attribution free uploaded from http://pixabay.com/

P.S.  Sorry I've been absent.  Getting older is Hell.

P.P.S.  Sorry this is so long, but as it serves as a lecture to my CC students, I needed to pack in as much How To as possible.  D.

APOLOGIES TO ALL READERS, KAMIKAZE CREATIVES OR NOT

In preparation for class today/tomorrow, I just read over my last two posts.  Found innumerable errors, typos, word variations spell check didn't but I should have.  Mea culpa.  

As I explained to my students, I was writing/publishing under fire and short deadlines.  Didn't have time to sleep on anything.  Didn't spend my usual five edits + at least one overnight away from it.  Consider it a lesson to us all.  Even the most pontificating professionals can become that old cliche Haste makes waste.

I'm not saying I'm always perfect, messed up just this once.  Far from it.  I am saying even writers as anal as I will make a mistake if we don't make time to take the time.  My apologies.  I'm human but embarrassed.  Will do my best not to repeat.  

Perhaps I should run every post past my Engineer hubby before I publish.  He takes great joy with every published error he finds (newspapers, online, at work, in conversation, doesn't matter where - his engineer attention to detail finds/snickers at them all).  On second thought, I do have to live with the guy.  Maybe I should just hire a good proofreader instead.

A thought on advertising, grammar and errors in general:  Ad copy needs to read like the Prospect thinks/hears/talks.  We must be careful not to be willfully blatant about it, but sometimes we err on the side of the Prospect being human.  Example:  It just lays there vs. It just lies there.  The latter may be the correct phrase, but lays there is the expression.  For the majority of Prospects, I'll stick with the expression.

Ad copy also breaks rules in the name of writing short, reading fast, moving the Prospect along.  I know many of you have noted I frequently eliminate commas, even between words in lists/series written in prose.  Blame Gore Vidal.  Reading his books, I noticed how he could move me through at a blistering pace.  The reason:  those missing - but technically correct - commas.  Commas are pauses.  In advertising copy, pauses become stops.

For the most part, people don't "volunteer" to read ad copy.  We have to trick them into it.  Stealing Vidal's technique is one of the many ways we can do this.  Do it right, no one (except other writers, editors, proofreaders, people like my husband) will notice.  They'll move right along, shoot through the sequence, move on to the next.

The errors I'm apologizing aren't those kind.  Unfortunately, they were just mistakes made in haste, posted in haste.  Apologized for in sincere retrospection.  

THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN: Wherein Doreen evokes the ultimate Mid Century Modern Chick Flick to answer the age old Kamikaze Copywriter question: Why three paragraphs?

Sinatra sings the theme song, cast of respected veterans treading relevancy + charming new faces – Rome, glamorous Rome.  If you haven’t seen Three Coins in the Fountain, it’s worth a rainy afternoon and a few hankies.  What’s it got to do with writing Copy?  Thorough information presented artfully enough to encourage participation by its Prospect, no matter the idealized plot (concept) and product (romance).

As is usual when I teach body copy, I’ve given the class the option (this week, at least) of writing some copy.  Three paragraphs, in keeping with Prospect, product, Objective.  Regardless the lesson, I often evoke the Three Paragraph rule.  Why ask for that much (I admit I chuckle when three paragraphs are referred to as “long copy” – if they only knew) from beginners, especially on a first (if optional) assignment? 

Three paragraphs show me a lot about how you think, where your strengths/weaknesses are.  Forces you to consider structure.  Gives room for product information/prospect benefit.  Forces segues, meaningful/memorable closes.  Encourages immediate immersion with little room for long explanations of headline, concept and/or introductory copy.

Writing three paragraphs, well crafted, is the door to the same message conveyed brilliantly in a mere three lines.  It forces you to consider where things go, what information’s important, how to tie into the line/headline without repeating it.  Teaches you the close can’t be a URL and how to keep the whole thing active, energized, motivational and memorable.

First, a warning:  it’s 2013, not the 70s/80s.  Back then, the “formula” for body copy was three paragraphs.  First paragraph, repeat/explain the headline, introduce the next paragraph.  Second paragraph, a discussion of product, including the inevitable laundry list of features/benefits like the real list of features/benefits.  Third paragraph, conclusion, call to action containing a repeat/summation of headline disguised as some sort of call to action.

This “formula” went out with cutting edge Creatives in the 70s, with the 80s for those slower to catch on but still pushing for quality.  Yet you still see it today.  Why?  It’s a logical way to organize.  Like all formulae, its roots are in logic.  Like all creative formulae, it’s boring, predictable and screams been there/done that.

Today, we don't write body copy.  We just write.  Don't talk about the product, just talk product.  We don’t have enough room/Prospect interest/good will to do it that way anymore.  Even when writing really long copy which can spread across multiple web pages, brochures, white papers and traditional media advertising.  

Repeating anything, let alone something as visible/hopefully memorable as the headline, makes today’s Prospect think been there/done that and stop reading.  If you have to explain the headline, it’s not working.  So what goes in the first paragraph?

I don’t care, as long as you don’t waste it.  Find a way to jump right into the motivational sell the headline set you up for.  Often, beginning writers will fill a first paragraph with empty b.s. that gets them to what should really be there, which they put in the second.  I always eliminate those (empty b.s. paragraphs).  When I do, it’s easy to tell it’s not needed.  Something beginners are uncomfortable with doing themselves.

What I look for is an easy flow from first to second.  Segues from paragraph to paragraph.  Language that involves me (the Prospect) right away, from word one.

The second paragraph flows out of the first.  It continues in tone, motivational sell and product information/benefits.  Streams from line to line, “forcing” the reader/Prospect from one line/one thought to the next smoothly.  Giving them no excuse to stop.  Then flowing/creating a logical, smooth segue to the next paragraph/thought.

Third paragraph flows from second.  Continues tone, motivational sell, product info/benefits.  Forces the reader to the close, which is the memorable, motivating, active and uplifting in energy and thought.  A call to action, sure.  It’s part of the last paragraph, but is only the last line when/if it makes sense and doesn’t drag down the energy of the line/paragraph/ad.

All three paragraphs must be free of Copy Sins (especially Next, Then and other words trying to disguise a lack of flow/segue), be active, visual,  conceptual and delivered in a tone/language which speaks directly and motivationally to the Prospect, bringing them to the same conclusion as you (that strong, active, high energy final line).

At this point it’s not about style as much as it’s about maintaining tone, flow, logic of argument, interest, energy.  Keeping your structure simple, logical, interesting.  Your product benefits/information the same.  Follow the Creative Process as it plays out in your KCWP.  Let your Prospect do the same.

Three paragraphs forces two paragraph-to-paragraph segues.  Gives you enough room to play.  To address product.  To engage the Prospect in a conversation within the context of concept, headline, KKF.

Three Coins.  Three paragraphs.  Presented artfully enough to encourage participation/romance your Prospect, no matter the idealized plot and creative strategy.

 

How to nail it:  don’t sweat it.  Don’t worry it.  Watch for creatively hidden redundancies.  Keep  your structure simple.  Remember three paragraphs doesn’t give you room for wasted words, boring the Prospect, b.s.ing what the product’s all about.

 

Blog Posts:  If you’ve already read these, go back and read them again.  Lots of info about writing headlines, writing body copy, editing, Copy Sins, etc.  All the stuff you need to think about when doing the Three Paragraphs assignment.  PLEASE NOTE:  Those 3^rd Q CWs attempting to write/edit on your own:  don’t worry, you’ll get lots of help, feedback.  That’s what the :45 minute skype sessions and live class touch-bases (next scheduled for week of 5/19) are for!

8/27/12:  Features, Benefits and Language of Concept (don’t worry too much about Language of Concept at this point – Features and Benefits are what we’re after)

9/11/12:  The Joy is in the Edit (what you want to do before sending me your copy)

11/24/12:  Kamikaze Copy Sins:  Assignment & Results (do the assignment for fun, but study the results)

2/6/13:  Doreen’s Top Twenty All Time Copy Remarks (read the remarks, see where they apply to what you write.  If/when they do, you know you have some editing to do)

4/14/12:  Kamikaze Copy Writing Course Lesson #1: Headlines (should help w/your line choices/edits)

4/16/12:  Tips, Clues, Edits

This post, like everything you read at kamikazecreative.blogger.com, is (c) 2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative