DID I MENTION

For those playing along with the class, the first assignment was to do the Meet the Prospect Exercise at the end of Talking Heads & Creative Strategy, posted 7/12, then write a KCWP for the resulting product/prospect.

This week's assignment, revise their KCWP as per our skype class (sorry), then come up with at least three Kamikaze Key Facts + 50 headlines (minimum) for each KKF.  Body copy is optional.

Upper Q students, we discussed assignments individually. 


I've been having some problems with formatting, especially going from Word to the blogspot Compose/Preview/Post section.  All those extra bullets, weird spacing, etc. are often beyond my control (or cognitive abilities).  

This post, as well as the previous post (4/24/13) and all others,
(c) 2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative.  

Holy Kamikaze, Doreen! What if someone actually offers me a job? Wherein Doreen shares with all CWs, ADs, GDs, WDs, AEs, CDs yadda yadda A FEW MORE THINGS NO ONE ELSE WILL TELL YOU (This time about getting your first/last job):

• That cute agency recruiter is not your BFF.  She’s a cheerleader and usually, a genuinely nice, caring person.  She/he wants you to say Yes or at least be interested enough so you won’t be acting disappointed if they don’t offer. 
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• But that middle school Facebook thing?  Your fiancé’s medical bills?  How much you want?  None of her/his business.  If she/he asks?  Ask back – is that how much the job pays?  Is she/he making you an offer?  Ask informed questions about the agency, which superstars are still there?  Are they still working on that mind-blowing-award-winning account? 
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• If cornered, you’re looking for the right first job.  This job/agency/creative group/timing/whatever is exciting and all.  When the job – and the offer – are right – we’ll all know.  Don’t ramble, don’t lie.  Be confident, comfortable with silence, ask them questions, ask if they have any.  Which, of course, you get to decide how to answer.

• What’s the most important thing in a new job?  In my mind at least one – if not two three forty – smart, creative, generous, award-winning folks in and around your specialty.  People who can see what you have and help you develop it from your personal creative point of view.  Not theirs.Not the agency’s.   People you want to emulate, impress.   No mentors, you won’t grow as fast, as far.  That one special mentor?  What if they quit?  Make sure you have options to learn as well as do.

• Make sure those people have the time aptitude caring to mentor.  Meet as many seniors and juniors (not just CDs, ACDs, ECDs, GCDs, the fabled, famous, etc.) as you can.  In as many departments as you can.  Ask if you can call them sometime for advice.  Call those you respect if you get an offer, before you accept, listen to what they say.  Keep your own counsel.  Then do what your gut says.  Keep their phone number, read their blog.  Build the network. 
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• Don’t let a day pass without a thank you note.   NOTE.  As in hand-written on personal letterhead or in a truly smart/funny card (especially if it’s of your own concept, content, production).  Keep it simple.  Thanks for talking with me yesterday.  You said some things  I’ll definitely think about.  No matter who you talked to, recruiter, a junior, ACD, ECD, AE.  Everyone gets one, each individualized and hand-written. (Nothing wrong with printing out some sort of postcard you can use to brand yourself and say thank you in a smart way.  Even if you print them with potatoes.  Especially if you print them with potatoes.  If you want to send an email too (as in ALSO), keep it light, make it immediate.  The one they get in the snail mail is the one they’ll remember.
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• Don’t work for the only (good or otherwise) shop in town.  Especially not starting out.  Not only does it leave you zip for local options (ok, freelance, start your own shop, get an MBA), it puts you in a very weak position looking for the next gig.  If you quit/get fired, will you be able to support yourself beyond fast food until you find another ad job?  Will their name and accounts make your book/resume more desirable?  Go where the best mentors, offer – and options – are.
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• Big shop/little shop?   Depends.  If it’s your only offer, problem solved.  Before you sign on, think about these:   The smaller the shop, they will tell you, the greater the attention.  Maybe.  But from whom?  You’ll work on everything in the shop?  Which parts?  And what is everything?  One other writer is hardly a wide exposure to many different talents.  If they only have one really great writer, what are you doing to do if he/she quits?  If you’re the only writer, you have to ask yourself: I may put lots of stuff in my book, but will it be smart enough challenged enough hot enough to prove growth, get me from here to there?  How fast can I grow if I don’t have someone mentoring me?
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• Big shop?  How big?  How much day-to-day will you get with the marquee names winning the marquee awards?  What part of what accounts will you work on?  Who will your partner, ACD, GCD, CD be?  Will you present your own work?  How many other teams will you be competing against to get ideas produced?  Will you get your own assignments on your own accounts?  Which accounts?  Which media? 
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• This next little exercise proves nothing, but it will make you think about what is – and isn’t – important.  What’s important but easily jettisoned.  What you’ll settle for if all else fails.

List ten things you want on your first (or any) job.  Order them, #1 the highest, #10 the lowest.  Some things you may want to consider:

Location

Money

Getting hired as a Team w/your school AD/CW/GD/WD/Whatever

Agency

Creative Director

Partner

Awards

Percentage of Business done for biggest account?  (Too much, big layoffs if they scoot – doesn’t matter if you work on that account or not.)

Time off for Wedding/Honeymoon/Birth of child (this comes in at the end of all negotiations.  Legally, they can’t ask you about these.  (If you can’t budge the salary, offer time off w/pay in lieu of meeting salary demands.  This costs the agency less $ because everything else (taxes, insurance, 401K, sometimes even title) is based upon salary.  Here, we’re talking relatively inexpensive bonus.

Before considering this as an important job option, re-read my first point and do not mention it to anyone – not recruiter, not interviewing CD, not cool junior AD you might get to work with.  There’s a time and place to discuss this – and/or anything.)

 

If you don’t care about getting paid, just getting the time and have no negotiable issues left, now is the time (upon a bona fide offer/acceptance) to discuss it.  People hire people they like.  They made their decision, it’s you.  Most will work with you on a friendly basis - unless you’re using getting paid time off as salary currency.  Then it’s friendly, but still business/salary negotiations.

Accounts

Mentors

Dog friendly

Remote work possible/arranged

%Advertising/%Web/%Promotions/%Brochures, Collateral you’ll work on

Size of Agency/Creative Department (People)

Caliber of Agency/Creative Department (People)

Lots of others.  What’s important to you. 

At every step, notice if things change on their own - or in relation to others.  Really think about each of the qualities you list.

After you have your list, remove the top three qualities as if they don’t exist.  Put the remaining seven qualities in 1-7 rankings.  Notice if any change position, why.

Once again, remove the top three qualities as if they don’t exist.  Put the remaining four qualities in 1-4 rankings.  Notice if any change position, why.

For the last time, remove the top three qualities.  What’s left?  Did it start out #10 on your original list?  If not, why is it there now?

One more time.  Without looking at your original list/order, put the ten qualities in order of importance.  When you’re done, compare lists.  How do you feel now?  How much has changed?  Why? 

You may want to do the exercise with a few friends, discuss what’s important, where why when.  Look at all the possibilities.  From every angle.  Make sure that first job’s will help you  get to your second.  Third.  Final.  Never forget the joy is in the doing.  Hopefully, changing the way you look at getting your first second twenty-whatever job will make the process easier.

Listen to everyone when it comes to job hunting/interviewing/workingonstaffwithbenefits.  Then always always, listen to yourself.  No one knows what’s best for you but you – all we can share is what would be best for us in your situation.  Remember that.  Make your best decision.  Be as happy as you can.  Else why do it? 

KAMIKAZE CREATIVE BASICS: WHAT ALL KAMIKAZE COPYWRITERS, ART DIRECTORS, GDs, WDs AND PROBABLY EVERYONE ELSE IN THE AGENCY SHOULD ALREADY KNOW ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Why?

The more you know about how anything works, the better you'll be able to work it.  

I know I've mentioned it before, especially in reference to how the Kamikaze Creative Work Plan (KCWP) so closely parallels its basic structure.  

Most of us don't think about the process itself.  We're more concerned with the results this mystical, magical, mysterious creative act gets.  Knowing the steps, working them, gives us a structure to anchor our creative juices.  It also gives us ideas about how to deal with when it doesn't.  The dreaded Creative Blocks and dead ends we all hope never happens to us.

There are five steps to the Creative Process.  

Step 1:  Define the Problem.  

Just as Creative Directors look at Copywriters as problem solvers, the CP (Creative Process) is viewed by our brains as solving a problem.  How many solutions we come up is directly related to how we define the problem.

Specific, close-ended problems restrict the number of possible solutions.  Open-ended, more  broadly posed tasks do just the opposite.  The more general the problem, the more ways you can solve it.  Define the problem as How do I build a door? your only option is to build a door.  Glass door, screen door, storm door, wooden door, double Dutch door.  Barn door, sliding door trap door.  No matter what it's called - still a door.  One possible solution, executed a gazillion different ways.  All doors, nonetheless.  

Expanding the problem allows infinite possibilities limited only by imagination and the root problem itself. Root problem?  Isn't building a door enough?  As everything in Kamikazeland, it must be drilled down, simplified, reduced to its lowest common denominator.  Ironically, this expands creative possibilities, doesn't limit them.  OK, so you want to build a door.  But why?  To pass from outdoors, in.  From inside, out. To go from room to room.  

The bigger, simpler, drilled down problem isn't which style door to build.  The bigger problem is How do I go inside from out?  How do I pass from room to room?  All of a sudden, you've created almost infinite promise.  Which works best is, of course, the business of your KCWP (Kamikaze Creative Work Plan).  For now, we want the biggest pool of possibilities. 

Passing from one place to another may not take a door at all.  You can take down a wall, use the window.  Tunnel.  Crash through the roof.   Build a chute.  Tent flaps. Astral project.  You get the idea.  Possibilities become more creative.  The more creative they become, the more infinite the options.  

Infinite options are a large part of what Kamikaze is all about.

Step 2:  The better the Input, the better the Creative

This is the fact finding phase.  Gather all the information you can about moving from one place to another. About doors, chutes, tent flaps, out-of-body-experiences.  More information than you think you could ever need.  When you think you've enough, dig up some more.  No matter how crazy it may seem (sometimes, the crazier the better), if it relates, write it down.  

Like how you define the problem, the depth of information you dig up increases options.  Options are what we're after.

It's as important here as in how you define the problem.  Hunt your input in a broad sweep, touching upon every aspect, no matter how far fetched the information may seem.  (Great ideas hide in far fetched information - come across something juicy, if irrelevant, save it for another time, another problem.)

Step 3:  Incubation

Our brains work in many unconscious ways.  How many times have you pushed, worried, rushed your way through a problem only to find the solution getting farther and farther away?  Felt blocked stalled out of ideas?  It's because you haven't gotten far enough away from the problem to allow the brain to do its thing, play with all your great information, without conscious awareness.  

Incubation is why great ideas happen in the shower, while we're driving, in our sleep, in the middle of a great party.  You cannot create without it.  Unfortunately, ours is a deadline business.  What if you don't have time to incubate?  There are techniques you can use to compress the incubation period/process.  There is no way you can solve the problem without it. 

Mediation/self-hypnosis, taking a walk, taking a nap, playing with the dog the cat the kid.  A good movie, making a great meal, animated discussion -  anything that fully engages the senses and precludes applying direct thought to the problem.  The point is to relax.  To engage in anything BUT what you "should" be doing.  

Without Incubation there can be no Step 4, no solution.  It's a physical fact of life.  Incubation is why I've held classes in bowling alleys, pool halls, parks and at Jonathan Richmond gigs.  Get too focused, too stressed - everything takes twice the time.  If at all.  With none of the fun.  None of the brilliance in the final concept.  

One former student told me (years after she had graduated to a successful, award-winning copywriting career) how, as a student, she had originally resented my taking her class bowling instead of holding the usual class, going over the work yet another time.  I saw a class of frustrated, frayed students with heads ready to explode not with ideas, but with stress.  I'd been pushing hard.  They'd been working harder.  Yet none of them was working to their usual level.

She saw a lost opportunity to go over the same work one more time, or to get in an extra night's tips at work.  

Then, she told me, after a wild night (!) wearing someone else's shoes, the ideas started pouring out of each of them. Eureka!

One more thing about incubation.  We're all adults, we're all aware (may have even done so ourselves) drugs, alcohol, etc., are often used to juice the creative process.  I am far from judgemental on the subject, but over the years have observed this:  if you depend upon external substances, acts, people to juice the incubation/creative process, you can lose the confidence you need in your own abilities.  Personally, I don't care if you do or don't.  What I do care about is that confidence in your own abilities.  Nothing will kill the process faster than losing your belief in it.  And in yourself. 

Recreate or not, creativity comes from inside.  Externals can feed it. Kill it. Or  handicap its ability to create on your own.  

Step 4:  Illumination/The Big Idea/The Eureka! Moment

Once it starts, it's our job not to stop it.  Let it flow, get it all down.  Whatever you do, don't closely consider, reject or flesh out anything.  Don't self-edit.  Self-correct.  All those things stop the flow.  Follow each idea where it takes you, then move on to the next one.  Don't presuppose any are THE idea.  Don't play favorites.  

Generate as many concepts as possible.  Drill down every one of them, following each as far as it leads you.  Follow each new idea - and each variation on existing ideas - without judgement, reservation or worry.  This is the fun part - the part that gets those endorphins pumping out more ideas.

An important part of this is understanding the power of the word "No!"  I worked with a GD once who was so focused on budget, instead of considering the idea, then how it could be produced, one of her favorite remarks was "we can't afford to do that."  Drove me crazy.  There is no "No!" in the Creative Process.  It's not just an idea killer, it's a team killer.  

Worry about what things cost, how it can be executed, whether or not it's exactly on strategy during Step 5.  Never in Step 4.

Step 5:  Verification

This is where the KCWP saves your kiester.  Time to go through all those ideas, comparing the best - the most original, unexpected, Kamikaze - against  your Creative Strategy.  Starting with your Prospect and working your way through it, you'll know right away which will - and won't - work.  Which can be tweaked to work.  What to save for another day.  Which offer hope of brilliance.  

It's also another way to verify the strategy itself.  Many people - especially clients - don't understand a strategy - creative, advertising, marketing, whatever - until they've seen work against it.  This is another of those big reasons great ideas get killed.  Not your fault, but the Advertising/Marketing Strategy you're writing your KCWP to help fulfill may be flawed.  This is your chance to make sure it isn't.  

I can't tell you how many times verifying concepts against the KCWP has sent the entire team - client, AE, creatives, media included - back to Square One because for the first time, everyone can see exactly what it is they've agreed to.  I've seen it even with experienced, trained and highly conceptual clients, AEs and fellow creatives.  Everyone agreed before you started.  Problem is, no one agreed to the same thing. 

Even statements of hard fact - dates, names, key ingredients - can be interpreted dozens of different ways by dozens of different people.  I hate to say it, clients hate to pay for it, but sometimes you're the guy building his house upon the sand.  No one notices until something happens to bring it tumbling down.  

That "something" is Verification - the final step of your creative process.  What the entire creative process stands on.  It not only validates what you've done, it's your best friend at Presentation time.  If your creative strategy is right, the solution will be.  Follow the process, you'll have an easier - and more fun - time working it.

CALLING ALL KAMIKAZE CREATIVES - COPYWRITERS, ADS, WDS, CDS, SOMETHING NEW TO TRY: ADVERTISING POETRY: The Last of Doreen’s 1stQ 2013 Style Assignments

Where has Advertising Haiku taken us?

The point of advertising Haiku is to force you into writing short/grokking every single word, every single syllable, to use a twist to prepare the reveal, then a takeaway strategically important to the carefully chosen prospect/customer.  Haiku force you to develop the twist, bringing the product home in most unexpected ways.

 

The point of advertising Poetry is to use copy/content in unexpected ways, unexpected words, unexpected structure and – if you do it right – to unexpected results. All within a highly calculated emotional/non-emotional structure carrying your message to the heart of the Prospect, not just the head.   I’m not talking about quoting Cummings, Blake or Emerson in an ad.  I’m talking about writing ad copy in the Style of Poetry.  Original Poetry¸ written just for advertising.

Real Poetry takes pride its consumption and acclaim is limited to a few journals, minor publishers and prizes.  In truth, even Dad’s old Vietnam/WWII Mom Sonnets and the tortured diaries of teenage girls have much larger markets.

One of the most important things to remember when discussing Ad Poetry vs. Pure Poetry: Ad Poetry does not spring from the heart.  It has no freedom of word, format, application.  Ad Poetry may seem like a tough one.  In truth, it's many, many times easier to write than Real Poetry.  You still have to write it, but your KCWP gives you all you need.  No deep, personal retrospection or Loved One required.

Like every other writing style, there are hundreds of different approaches you can take to writing Ad Poetry.  You can do fun, limericky sassy stuff so catchy, people repeat it to each other, giving it bigger, more sociological import.  Kinda like jingles, Got Milk?, Where’s the Beef?, Taste the Rainbow and other iconic ad lines used to. 

You can use free-form ad poetry to express a Prospect point of view and avoid punctuation/paragraphing.  Break your lines so the reader is pushed to the next one visually as well as verbally.  Make short copy look longer, longer copy, shorter.

Ad poetry can create an image, a feeling, a perception regular ad copy can’t.  It can set aside lines to remember.  A good enough rhyme + snappy message can keep ad copy playing in the Prospect’s head for weeks – even years (I still hear jingles and ad lines from childhood, don’t you?  They’re GRRREAT!)

You can do couplets, sonnets, lines that rhyme, structure that flows.  Make it too pretty, too pastoral, too girlie – the entire piece may fail.  While men respond well to ad poetry, waxing too poetic over sausage or deodorant will get it ignored.  Make it fun, funny, clever, unable to ignore, you’ve got “I need Calais before I see Alice.”

When do you use ad poetry?  Like everything else we do, that’s up to the Prospect and how you want him/her to respond.   What products will carry it?  Done right, for the right prospect, just about anything.  The trick is to match the level of poetic sophistication to Prospect, Objective, Product, Promise.

 

Ad Poetry isn’t for every writer any more than it’s for every prospect.  In all my years writing ad copy, I’ve used it exactly once (if you don’t count the rhymes I used to help Exxon mechanics and Arby’s kitchen workers remember their Safety Rules).  My CW friend who won The Nation’s poetry prize never used it in copy at all.  Use it or not, it’s all about how you solve the problem.

Strangely, this is a great era for Ad Poetry.  Poetry Slam is almost a national sport – or at least a large minority pastime.  The US Poet Laureate reads at all the Presidential (and many state) Inaugurations.  The brevity of web, e-communications and availability of guerrilla/ambient media in unprecedented amounts and ways leads right up to Ad Poetry’s economy of words.  One of the most popular unsolicited magazine submissions, The New Yorker to Reader’s Digest, is poetry.  So why don’t we see more of it in advertising?

Simply put, ad creatives aren’t thinking of it.  It’s another way you can use Style – the kind of ad styles we’ve been exploring – over formula to break through the clutter.  Still, too many creatives stick to the tried, true and SEO-mongered.

 

Here it is, end of the term – and here’s Doreen, asking you to take your biggest creative risk thus far.   If Ad Poetry is so great, what’s the catch?  If an ad poem of any kind is only 95% on, the entire piece fails.  Why?

People expect more from poetry than text.

When you take a creative risk (and a risk is merely doing something you haven’t done before), they’ll find any excuse, any little thing to kill it.  Absent advertising strategy, Ad Poetry turns into Bad Poetry.  Who needs – or wants - to wade through that?  Too long, too emotional, too silly, it won’t be read.  Too sophisticated, too complex, too intellectual, the same thing happens.

It’s Advertising – not Real Poetry. There’s less tolerance for length, flowery language, love hearts flowers.  Like Real Poetry, Ad Poetry is visual, thrifty and can say things in ways you’d never get away with using another style.  You can get deeper, more personal using Ad Poetry.  More reflective.

You can also be bawdy, mystical, over-intellectual (as long as the Prospect’s right for it), less formulaic.

 

Can you tell it’s something I wish more of us would try – and make work?

Here are examples from poet/consumer advertising advocate Ilya Vedrashko, whose blog, "MIT Advertising Lab," was named "Best Blog of the Year" by Fast Company magazine in 2005:

http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_21_media_examples.html

This one’s a Brit site, but good stuff.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2009/dec/02/rise-poetry-in-advertising

"Two prominent adverts, both of which lean heavily on the emotional appeal of poetry, are currently airing on our {Brit} screens – a David Morrissey-narrated ad for McDonald's ("the Gothy types and scoffy types and like-their-coffee-frothy types were just passing by"), and a Pete Postlethwaite-narrated ad for Cathedral City cheddar cheese ("On the A47 it's cheese with cucumber / It's lunchtime for her as the rest of us slumber"). In recent years we've also seen poems used to advertise the AA, Waitrose, Center Parcs and the Prudential. But what do poets feel about this unsteady dance with commercialism?

"Nick Toczek has also written a poem for an advert (the Prudential again: Our kids, who've grown and flown the nest, / Now only phone us to request / More cash on loan, their tone depressed"). He welcomes the exposure that advertising offers poetry.

“My Prudential poem is still the most recognised of all my poems. It took me 20 minutes to write, was broadcast 5,000 times and earned me £5,500."

"Jim Bolton, the creative director at Leo Burnett, the ad agency that produced the McDonald's advert, says that many viewers probably don't even think they're hearing poetry. "The McDonald's Favourite ad is not a tricky poem. But there is a certain cheekiness of McDonald's using poetry. It is not something people might expect."

This is W&K Levis TV, with a poem VO and a response:

http://adland.tv/commercials/levis-go-forth-pretentious-poetry-capital-p

Read more at http://adland.tv/commercials/levis-go-forth-pretentious-poetry-capital-p#T8Q7dc4WXOijjGkt.99 

The current Bulmer's Cider ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7fKmx0Fhfk

http://www.readthismagazine.co.uk/onenightstanzas/?tag=poetry-in-advertising

There are broadcast pieces above, but you can also think print, web, radio, direct, promotions wherever you can write copy, you can write Ad Poetry – as long as it works for your Prospect with your KCWP.

Doreen’s Top Twenty All Time Copy Remarks: For all Kamikaze Copywriters, taking my course or not. If I don’t write these on your copy homework, learn where to write them on your own!

I want you to understand something.  Just because I write something on your paper that appears below doesn’t mean I’m singling you out.  More than likely, I wrote the exact same thing on twenty papers the same week I wrote it on yours.

 

Now about what appears below.  Writing copy – like writing anything else – is an exacting dance between saying what you (client/product) need to say and how the Prospect (reader) will best take in the information.  Optimally, how the Prospect will take it in so it is impossible for him/her to forget.

 

It doesn’t matter what I put here, the b.s. meter seems to have run out no matter what medium you use – “New” media (now 20+ years old, w/apps gone mainstream and I had a student point out to me she wasn’t even born when whatever reference I was trying to give her not even mobile’s very “new” anymore) or Traditional.  People do not volunteer to read ads.  Fell flatter than insert cliché! Here.  Even if it’s for a product they have or see an upcoming need for.

  

The current fashion is student writers as problem solvers skilled in concepting and producing web, video, social, even print, radio, TV, collateral, direct, promotions, product sheets.  They seem to forget Copywriter ends in “writer.”  At least during the hiring process.  They don’t look for student writers who can – dare I dream it – actually write.  They’ll let you learn on the job – maybe with a mentor, maybe not.  But that’s an entirely different blog entry. 

This one is to tell you the only way to learn to write is to write.  The only way to learn to edit is to edit.  The only way to be proud of your work is to become adept at both.  The time to do it is now.  Before you’re lost on the job.  Before your boss catches on you didn’t do all the edits you needed.  Before someone says “great idea, too bad do all the edits you needed.  Before someone says “great idea, too bad you can’t write.”

Here’s where all this style stuff I’ve been torturing you over comes in.  If you cannot analyze and dissect recurring patterns in language, pick up its syncopation, slang, fashion and position in the hearts and minds of your current client’s current prospect, at best you’ll be like those Will Farrell beer commercials.  Funny.  Wildly smart funny.  But ultimately done for himself, not for the prospect he mostly makes fun of.  Doesn’t sell beer, but Will’s having lots of fun practicing the art of Creative Masturbation.

Style is also an old reliable trick to dress up a less than Kamikaze concept. 

Style can also turn a really great ad into something living long after its original intent.

Learning to write in styles will help you learn what you do and don’t want in your more personally conceptual work.   Allow you to experiment.  Fill your book with campaigns so diverse, you’d never guess the same writer wrote them all.  Except for one thing:  they will all have a certain personal creative point of view, a certain way of playing with punctuation, a penchant for getting to the heart of a prospect with a very few well-chosen words.   Something from you they can’t get from anyone else.

So listen up, see (James Cagney – or was it Edward G. Robinson?  Film Noir).  Here are some highlights gleaned from student body copy homework.  Very few of these things deal with style.  All of them deal with writing better, representing  the types of errors, omissions  confusions and misconceptions we writers very often never see in our own work (even if we’re comparing them word-for-word against the Kamikaze Copy Sins.)   They’re in no particular order.  Read them over, then read over your own copy.  Consider them your own Doreen-in-a-list of things to ask yourself before I even see the copy.

These read a bit thin – you try to make your joke, mention [the product] & be done – but there’s a disconnect, believe they may need a transitional line between the two.

Close!  Good shot!   Needs appetite appeal     Off strategy.     Better more visual (word)

Big energy dip – last sent should be strong, memorable.  If possible, pithy.     Cliché!

You need to better familiarize yourself w/Advertising Objectives and their terminology

Much better!     This is product’s problem, not the prospect’s!

This structure is so poor I had to read it three times to figure out what you’re trying to say.  Still not sure.

Who R these people (prospects), inside?  What emotional/threads run through them all u can use to hang KKF/concept on?

Never start a head line w/”Being _____,” ask I’ll give you a gazillion reasons!    Lighten up!  Tone change!

Prospect benefit, not a Creative Objective

Don’t worry so much about getting it out – make it visual, interesting – make me want to read more!

You’re talking down to prospect    Where did this come from?   Try changing order

Nice – but tone a bit elevated 4 prospect…sounds like trial by fire – make it appealing

This is tourism – should be visual, put me in picture!    Stop writing ads and just start writing!

Too Addy    Inaccurate benefit   Logic of meaning problem   Redundant.  See it?

Is there a better way to say this? Maybe structural to deliver more irony?    Good! Make it active and memorable    Need stronger close     Simplify    

TRANSLATE THE THOUGHT      Y bring this [idea] in at all?      You’re talking down to prospect

Nice – but tone a bit elevated for prospect      Don’t repeat words too closely    Play with it!

Use structure to say expected things in unexpected ways.      Don’t be so heavy-handed

Get into inner landscape of what diverse new [prospects] have in common, not just {subject].  May find a gem in there, never know

These are internal (KCWP), to help us concept – bullet points, lists, simplify 4 yourself so you can always find what you need.  Also 4 clarity – densely structured lines are usually difficult to understand.  Be simple – be good to yourself!

What inner stuff – thoughts, emotions, common experiences – do they share?  That’s where the key to motivation is.

Competitive info must compare these co’s and their promise/features/bennies w/ [product] – can reveal neat little copy points, inspire new uses 4 existing products, new markets, 2!

Not working.  Tricky.    This is not true.  Don’t make blanket claims like this unless you can back them up

Never start a line w/”just like…”poor structure!     Good work!    Clarify benefit    Punch up

Competition is Real & Perceived – real maybe other products/companies.  Perceived is…anything that helps your [prospect] [do the same thing/respond as you wish]

Don’t just describe prospect, go inside.  That’s where the KKFs you can use 2 motivate R.  Drill baby drill!

How to write headlines:

1.       Write a line as simply as possible, what you want to say

2.      Translate the thought (not words) based upon prospect knowledge and promise

Would like to know more about product   Try to get into their heads/hearts

Great!  Except where’s the [product] except in lst para?  It needs to be integrated into story

Perfect! Good! Done!   Simplify.  Get real.   Translate the thought!    Tone change.  More visual.   

Clarify some references or rework not to confuse   Inject a little product    Very skimpy work plan    Great!   

What do they have in their lives in common, connecting them, exposing motivation keys?

Love it.    Check your product knowledge!    Better word   Insert product    Energy drops, should increase!

Copy Sins!  Order- simplify, have fun, don’t B so heavy handed – you can nail this one!

You have nothing here (KCWP) to indicate the style you chose will resonate w/your prospect

(KKF) Product focused, not prospect focused   Change Order.     (KKF) Too close to products

Do you really mean to use this word?    Need strong close.  Nice V.1 – keep trying, digging 4 words

Tone change.    Copy Sin    Break up.    Simplify    Poor word choice    Structure.  Translate the thought.   Not needed

Where’s the close?  Should be memorable, high energy, instead it winds down to nothing

Would you rather do something “like” surf, or would you rather surf?    Change order

Simplify – restructure, get rid of “you” voice     “You” voice – see Copy Sins

Stop writing ads – just start writing-editing editing editing – maybe little more writing – absolutely more edits

You need a stronger argument than “we believe”   Change of intellectual level/vocabulary expectations

(Closing line/paragraph) Rewrite.  More visual active, end on high note     I keep thinking somehow, somewhere, we need to let them know it’s a $300 item - at least imply it isn’t cheap!

What unites them?  What do these very diverse emotional individuals have in common besides finances?  Anything?    PUSH – IS THIS KAMIKAZE?/ WHERE IS IT REFLECTED IN CONCEPT/CW?

This is important, but is treated by structure as minor    Yawn!    Weak.    Not a visual verb.

Rethink this – just don’t rethink 2 hard.  If you want to spoof, you must lst know the source – what’s your Key Fact?  Is it Kamikaze?  Cool.    Grammar or typo?    Very, very close.  What can you do to push it over the top?

BO-RING  Too many Copy Sins, tone changers – what?  You skip my class 1Q and forget all I taught?

HEDGED   More visual.  No repeated words.    Copy Sin – Change structure   [Not KKF] Prospect def.  Prospect def.

Wasted words.  Translate the thought, not the words.    Break up.  Simplify.   Stop trying to write ads and just write.

1.  Stop overwriting.  2.  Stop writing ads.  3.  Write. Jump right in.  4. (and)  NO! WARNING YOU’VE NOT DONE A PROPER EDIT AND MISSED THIS 99.5% SIGN OF A RUN-ON! 

SEGUE    Way too complex structure – simplify    Logic problem    Let down ending   Try reversing order. 

What do you think?     Y is this a benefit?  Promise is a benefit -  Inner commonalities tying the emotional cord   

APPITITE APPEAL=ZERO    Very nice.  Very nice.    Good start  PUSH    Copy Sins     Stop writing ad – say it!    

Yawn! Need stronger close!  (Competitive Information) a little more detail, a lot more comparison    I don’t believe this one.

Where were you when we did this in class?    Lazy structure.  Push yourself.  Good.  Good.  Cliché. Push.

The idea of style isn’t nec 2 parody – it’s to use it as a way in to a potentially resistant prospect

Cut the BS, just get 2 it    Smooth out, it’ll work.  BLAH.    Great.  Work on it.  Nice. Nice. Good!    Not so personal – bigger picture  

You haven’t wowed me yet.  Put all that cultural literacy and just plain literacy 2 use.  You’re the only one who can make it happen.

Dismissive (of product)  DUH!  CLICHÉ!  Too generic    Wasted word.   In and out of tone   

Not true – some do.  Use structure to increase the power of copy.  Too much bad taste, not enough information, humor.

You can do better than this.  Less time w/giving me extra work, more time nailing this as you should have done last time!

(Fortunately at beginning of line) Copy Sin.  Reverse.  Shorten!  You used same structural device in all – and it’s not that great a device

Cut out 25%-35% of words.  Mix up your devices.  Give me more…    Trying too hard – overkill

PUSH.   YAWN.    Your point?    Clichéd device    Yech.  Blah.  What?  Weak!    Copy Sin of highest order (that)  

Blah blah blah – just jump into it    Know where you’re going, but never got there  NO! NEVER! Blah!

RU married to this hedge?  Adds nothing, takes away plenty (tend to)    AWK STRUCTURE.  COPY SIN.  NO STRUCTURE.  COPY SIN. CLICHÉ.  COPY SIN.  COPY SIN. Tone change from informed to stupid

I see where you’re trying 2 go w/this, but lazy editing, clichés and copy sins from someone who knows better wastes my time.  Edit them out.  Resubmit, make them sound like you care.

Off brand voice – too feminine    Expected – push!    Even your tone    This is too generic.  What r u selling?

No, the only thing to prove is 2 yourself.  Pump up, more important, personal, passionate.

Good thought, but just stuck it in the end.    Good line but long way from last mention     Redundant. Tired old ad device. 

This starts a totally different discussion – y not get rid of front, start here?    Good line but long way from last mention

Breaking up run-ons creates emphasis    Break into 2 parts – write it as conversation, not lecture

Blah!    Redundant. Tired old ad device.    This starts a totally different discussion – y not get rid of front, start here?

Breaking up run-ons creates emphasis   Break into 2 parts – write it as conversation, not lecture

You love to complicate your structure – simplify it instead.    Fab-u-lous!

Start by jumping into it, don’t worry about introductions and working up to it.  Hit it right out of the chute.

Good.  Some/same problems w/structure and overwriting.  The strongest ideas are the simplest.  Same goes w/copy.  Think of it as a conversation between you and your prospect.  Add a little warmth, so I’m not surprised by the sweetness, pain of your last, very powerful, line.

Stronger word.  Excessive “ands” Tone changes    R U writing text or ad?    Integrate product more

This is all over the place. 

1.  KCWP   2. What do you want to say?  Say it.  3. Edit extraneous or limit 2 one line. 4.  Killer wrap     Don’t be discouraged by all the notes – you’ll get there.    Not enough product.

Unexpected and original direction – nice!    [Kamikaze Key Fact]:  this is really a Prospect Definition.

See any commonly pulled  threads?  I see a few biggies:

1.  Integrating the product into the copy, using a specific style or not
2. Difference between KKF and Prospect Definition
3. Structure, order, Copy Sins, Wasted words
4. Weak closing lines, Run-ons, Redundancies
5. Inabiity to maintain a constant tone, whether writing in specific style or not

There are more, but these last five, expressed in many ways in the bigger list of comments, are the ones I most wish Santa would remove from the student copywriters’ bag of bad habits and misconceptions.  This doesn’t begin to address the continuing problem of Kamikaze Creative Work Plan aversion/ misunderstandings.  About as big as it gets in my book.

That said, I wrote a secret message in this blog text for my students.  Homework for the live classes on the 14^th & 15^th (will be at Creative Circus, in Atlanta – give me shout if you’d like to meet, join one of the sessions, take me to the Ritz for lunch) will be to find it, put it together, honestly put down the numbers of times you had to read this to find it (all).  First person to get it write and list it in the Comments gets a gold star, maybe something more useful if I can think of anything (an (extra) hour of copy/concept help?).  Hmmm….maybe it’s time to check out all those strangely appealing stores on Cheshire Bridge…!

(YES, I know there are more than 20 remarks.  Creative license – considered counting for the correct number, but some repeat, some appear in different forms, some just are.)

As always, ©2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH STYLE? - or - HOW A GOOD ASSIGNMENT GOES BAD: Doreen puts all Kamikaze Copywriters on Alert: Stop writing ads – start writing.

Let me put it this way.  Last style assignment, One Hit.  Sixteen misses.  The misses showed the following trends:

• Tone changes, often none in selected style
• Run-ons (hint: all those “ands” – take them out, break up the lines, restructure)
•  Where’s the product (this is a course on ad writing, not writing writing)
• The answer to most writing problems is structure (hints:  try reversing order of clauses, mixing up order of information from para to para, then attack those lines for Copy Sins, readability, tone, etc.)
• What did you mean to say?  (Sometimes the writing is so disorganized and/or product free, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be about)
• How is this writing in any way/shape/form written in/to reflect the selected style?  One or two words do not a Style make.  The entire piece should reflect the era you’re trying to use.  Still not sure?  See the one hit, which I’ve put at the end, compare it with what you did.  If you still don’t get it, we can talk Thursday.

It’s the last one that surprised me the most. An assignment requiring me to live in someone else’s skin, to speak someone else’s language – the discovery of all the clichés and truths to spoof, warm and dress up often boring features and benefits – how much fun is that!  I thought this would be a less expected way to stretch and challenge you as writers.  I tried to inspire.  Guess it’s time to talk process. 

There is a process.  It’s not necessarily my process.  It’s not necessarily a process you should emulate. It’s just one way of doing it you can try, see if it helps, makes your life easier.  What does the process do?  Hopefully, it’ll give you what you need to take another, completely unrelated shot at it.  This isn’t your expected rewrite – you still must rewrite last week’s assignment (and do a better rewrite on what you handed in last week).

Keep in mind we are retro-fitting this assignment.  You normally wouldn’t be looking at a few styles, choosing one, then bending everything else in the name of whatever era/sociological phenom you decided on.  No, normally you’d be doing your input, writing your KCWP, concepting from the KCWP (and especially the KKF), then writing in the appropriate voice/Language of Concept.  This time, however, we start at the end and move foreward.

Pick a style from last week's list.  Do yourself a favor and choose one you either know a great deal about (first hand is good), have a special interest in or have special access to relevant insights.   When I say relevant, I don’t mean Wikipedia.  DIG.  Art, lit, fashion, history, the whole magilla.  The more you know, the better it’ll be.  Always loved big band music, the intensity of WWII, the lonely freedom women gained so long as the men were on the front?  Did you wish you were there to march with Susan B. Anthony or Margaret Sanger?  Be one of those cool cat poets on the podium as part of the Beat underground?  Here’s your chance.

• Got your Style?  What Prospect does it speak most strongly to?  Does it touch a certain prospect’s fantasy life?  Another’s patriotism?  Glory Days?  Look deep into your style, then retrofit your prospect from those it speaks to.       
• Take one more step.  What product/service might your prospect desire/be motivated by Style to consider differently than before?
• Learn everything there is about the language, look, attitudes, heroes, music, comedy, everything held in the style’s/decade’s cosmic conscious.  Use this to feed your growing expression of your chosen style verbally, with pushed structure and occasional risks, talking about product to customers, sales staff, C-level managers and all?  Go vintage clothes shopping, try on period pieces, put yourself into the style in every way possible.
• Don’t write an ad.  Write something else, something bigger, something carried by style but not buried by it.  However you pair your style with your prospect, however you integrate your product, keep reminding yourself you’re not you.  You’re Al Capone, one of Hendrix’s groupies.  Tears are falling as you wave your hubby good-byeas he leaves for to fight the Hun.  You can out-disco Travolta.  Put yourself into the style, even if you have to play dress-up to do it.
• Edit Edit Edit.   Look up some terms in a slang dictionary, then edit it some more.  That reason your 30s era flapper would buy the product?  Make sure it corresponds to the today’s modern reader, yet keeps her soundly in the roaring twenties.

LAST WEEK’S GREATEST HIT

Headline:

She came in like a light draft on Sunday morning. Another dame in distress. But then came her scent.

That smell, while it paralyzed me, floated through the room and breathed life into this dank stale office of mine.

She told me the particulars of her case. I didn’t hear a word of it. I said yes anyway, nodding like the fool I am.

“What do I call ya?” I asked. Getting up to leave, she turned back to say, “Mademoiselle.”  Like that, she was gone. *Her scent still lingering.

CHANEL Coco Mademoiselle

 A true femme fatale.

*My one suggested edit, “The memory of her scent still lingering.”

As an aside, I apologize for the lateness of this post.  Yesterday was technical problem Monday – I wrote it Sunday, was going to do final edit yesterday, the document was nowhere to be found. Learned quite a bit about Windows and PCs (mainly I want my Mac back), then gave up and tried to re-create it this morning.  Not your fault – this assignment – do your normal edits + write one more ad w/style from your choice of last week’s list, as long as it’s not in the same decade (EX:  You did a 50s Happy Days before, you can’t do the 50s Beats this time.  Use another era.)

  

Because I’m late with this, you have the option of our going over your continuing rewrites this next Skype go-round and moving the deadline for this assignment to 5 pm Friday. I'll go over it, send it back, then we can discuss next week.   If it’s not in my inbox by 5 pm Thursday, you will not be given credit for the assignment. 

As usual, (c) 2013 Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative