Great copy in press ads seems to be disappearing with each passing column centimetre
Great copy in press ads seems to be disappearing with each passing column centimetre
Charles Victor
In the beginning there was the word. That was when writers carried notebooks filled with angst-ridden chunks of text that would eventually become four brilliant sentences of bodycopy in a twenty-five by four press ad. Today, writers carry notebooks with a QWERTY keyboard and bodycopy is a little URL running along the vertical edge of the ad.
Before you raise a wordless protest against copy-based advertising, let me assure you that I have nothing against visual-says-it-all ads. Nor am I suggesting that advertising must junk the image and start getting verbose. I would be an idiot to think adding a sentence of bodycopy in the ad featuring a man resting in the shadow of a stack of soft drink crates would have made it better than it already is. This is just my little observation on a fast disappearing aspect of advertising — art of writing. The kind that once made reading about a little island off the coast of Africa as enjoyable as actually being there.
Writers tell me people don’t have the time to read. Really?
The last time I checked, it was still a text-dominated world. People are addicted to the primarily text-based internet. Almost everyone I know reads blogs (another great 20th century text-based phenomenon).
Nobody junks an email or an SMS because they don’t have the time to read it. There are more people reading today than ever before. There is more value attached to the written word today than ever before.
But great copy in press advertising seems to be disappearing with each passing column centimetre. Have clients given up on press advertising? Have writers and art directors joined them? I certainly hope not.
Because the consumer isn’t a moron. She’s your word-hungry, willing-to-read-something-interesting wife (or is the appropriate 21st Century phrase ‘partner’?).
If your hair stands for 30 whole seconds when an evocative voice tells you every home has something to say, surely words are alive and well in advertising. And surely some of them can co-exist peacefully with a visual in a 25x4.
Maybe it’s time to zig while everyone visually zags and give consumers interesting copy to consume. Maybe it’s time to replace a picture with a thousand great words.
Maybe it’s time to apologise to the headline (currently in 28-point extra bold with an exclamation at the end telling consumers they can call for a test drive today) and promise to turn it into something far more engaging.
Maybe it’s time to replace that invisible Hollywood-style white line that traces the spot around copy’s dead body with words that are alive and waiting to be read. Maybe it’s time to try something new, even if it is as old and basic as writing great advertising. Maybe it’s time to shut down our machines and put pen to real paper (like the person who taught me about writing still does).
Oh, and if you do see a wonderful body of copy that’s dying somewhere, please point it my way. I’d love to catch up with an old friend.
The author is senior creative director, Law & Kenneth
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