Dear Intermediate,

 

I've asked Jack Neary, Executive Vice President/Executive Creative Director, BBDO Worldwide, to answer this question. Jack and I have had conversations on this topic in the past, and he, for one, is a writer/Creative Director whom many have reverently referred to as a writer's writer. 

 

Thank you Jack for taking the time to answer a question that is frequently asked of me, and I'm sure, many of your contemporaries.  ~ heidi

 

No, but she's on life support.

Sadly, people who are writers in name only fill most copywriting positions in agencies today. Call them typists -- as Capote described Kerouac -- if you must. Yet many are funny; plenty are imaginative, clever and conceptually adroit; some even manage to nurse engaging advertising into existence, but precious few can actually write. That is to say, rare is the copywriter who can summon the right words, the most powerful words, in artfully rendered combinations that inspire consumers to feel and do something.

It is to weep, and it begs the question why.

I suggest this: Few creative directors want it any more.

Verbal virtuosity is dramatically less in demand by creative directors today than in the days when David Abbott, Ed McCabe, Bob Levenson, Phil Dusenberry and many more occupied the pantheon of heroes influencing the next generation of copywriter. The wordsmith's craft is seldom celebrated, rarely taught, and, therefore, almost never practised.

Also, the increasingly fragmented media landscape has shortened consumers' attention spans putting more of the communication burden on images, which usually connect faster than words.

What is more, consumers are armed with technology to avoid our messages; anything more than a sound bite is flipped away from. Few have the patience or the time to invest in an elegantly paced tome, at least when it comes to advertising. Today's media culture is not a culture of words. Writing, great or otherwise, has become less important.

Here's another thing: truly exceptional writing talent is and always has been scarce. It is a natural gift few are born with. There just aren't that many great writers to recruit, although there was a time when even mediocre writers could become good writers because what they did was valued, encouraged and required, and they were forced to sweat the craft.

There is another culprit still. The heightened, often mindless lust for Cannes Lions has led to more visual, less verbal work because pictures generally do better than words with a cosmopolitan jury. Many judges do not have the patience or the ability to grasp the subtleties and nuances of language. That is why the visual pun rose to such prominence in the last 15 years.

Of course, none of this means words can no longer be a vital part of a creative person's arsenal of persuasion.

Great writing is still preferred over poor writing, at least by a few of us. The right words can still make the heart soar, touch the soul, and elevate the argument.

While the call for long-copy might indeed be in the unrelenting grip of rigor mortis, why should the few words or sentences we do use be anything less than magical and uplifting?

When few words are deployed it makes them count even more. Every word should be carefully, painstakingly considered. Every phrase should be nudged and coaxed into spun gold. That takes talent and hard work and a creative director who demands it, and will mentor her writers to get it.

I cherish any copywriter who can turn a simple collection of words describing a product feature into prose bristling with emotion to make me want that product and believe in that brand.

Recently I had hoped to hire a published novelist for a copywriting position because she had the ability and the desire to string words together in ways that could make even the most mundane product attribute seem like a thing of beauty. She loved words. She gave a sh*t how good her prose was because every sentence she wrote reflected on her and her reputation. She could make words work for her in her fiction, so why not for a brand?  Now that's a real writer, and that's what I want working for my clients.

Then the recession came rumbling in and I did not hire her because we eliminated the opening.

Mark me, when fortunes turn and our P&L allows me to hire again I will always offer the job to the writer who can over the writer who can't.
 

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