Have you ever felt like some preternatural force is conspiring against you to come up with a decent headline. Do you sometimes feel as if your brain is short circuiting just to sabotage your week and not allow you to birth the right copy content for a certain piece your team is developing, do you sometimes look at your screen and say “Wow, I suck as a copywriter?”
Then you’ve found your post.
Now if you by any chance think that this pseudo bullshit marketing tone used above is an accident, rest assured, it is completely intentional to try and offer you some friendly advice from a copy that’s had his wonderful days in the language latrine where shit sounds that lame.
If you’ve ever had that damned cursor blinking in your face, daring you to come up with brilliance, then you’ve had what creative people call a block and what other people might refer to as unnecessary drama, a brain fart or simply copy issues. Fact is, if you work long enough on one single account or account type, your brain can and will work on autopilot. That isn’t the problem. The problem is when tried and true tactics start being shot down and you are left unarmed and ill equipped to defend yourself.
First off, it’s fine. This happens. You’re human and sometimes shit doesn’t flow.
Ok so what do you do?
There are actually quite a few things you can do that you might think are the statements of Captain Obvious but that you for some silly reason overlooked.
1. Call a friend. If you work in advertising and don’t know more people in Creative, I pity you because you are either a sociopath; you are locked in some corporate dungeon where it smells of stale coffee and rotten donuts or something else that doesn’t fit into the normal set of circumstances. This being said, sometimes you just need to have someone back you up. Maybe it’s because you’re not sure how something is written, maybe it’s because you need some sage guidance or maybe you just need someone to distract you long enough to get your creativity inspired.
2. Read. By read I don’t mean copy off ARCHIVE, or anything of the sort. If you have to resort to that, then fine, but I’ve never needed to do that and though I haven’t won an ad award, guess what? I never needed to claim a knockoff as my own inspiration. Read comics, read books, read magazines, read Penthouse Forum letters. Just read. If you’re a copywriter and you don’t read, you’re doing yourself a disservice. So between Facebook status updates and porn clips, slip in some reading. If you can read up on the news, that’s better because if you get inspired on something that is current and a trend, you get a double bonus and it’s easier to defend what you've come up with.
3. Keep writing until you fill a page’s worth of headlines. That’s about 45 headlines in Helvetica at 12pts single space or 25 headlines at double space, same font. If you’re asking yourself why keep writing if all that is coming out is crap? It’s simple. Eventually you will stop writing crap, even if it’s only one headline and you’ll see it. Also, have a spare document with your crappy lines and keep a clean one with the ones that work. Why not scrap the ones that suck? Because maybe they’ll inspire you to finally win that golden pencil. Great ideas come from anywhere and all it takes is a tweak to become an alchemist and turn a clumpy turd into a bar of gold.
4. Eventually stop writing. Am I contradicting myself? No. But you had to go assuming I did before letting me get to my point which is that sometimes you really do need a breather. Grab a coffee and give yourself 15 minutes to think happy thoughts completely unrelated to work. I mean it. Really just go out of the way to think of something else and really focus on that something else. If you need more time, by all means master the art of looking busy, but do it. You’re brain will give you thanks and what other people might consider a waste of time is you getting in touch with your inner copywriter.
5. Rationalize why a header that sucks doesn’t work. Look at its flaws and highlight everything that makes it not work. Then work in the opposite direction. Hell, sometimes you need to see the problem from all angles before you find the solution.
6. Find a word or phrase or approach that feels right and run with it nonstop for twenty headlines. Review what you’ve written, choose the best even if they’re not that good and do the same once or twice more. At the very least you need to get 3 headlines that kind of work and that’s why it doesn’t matter that you have 50 that don’t.
7. Do things differently, ie. brush your teeth with your left hand. Don’t take the same route you always do to work. Have lunch at a new place. Just get yourself out of the routine. It actually works sometimes
8. Try and keep a stash of the headlines you’ve written that have really worked. See what worked with them and try to apply to your current project. I’m not saying just change the brand name (although that is also a last ditch alternative, which I don’t recommend by the way), I’m saying look at work you’ve done that you consider good, and try to see if you can’t take your brain to that place.
9. Jot down 10 guide words that should come from the creative brief and work with them to create headlines. Also feel free to read the email your account executive sent you. You’d be surprised at the moments of Jungian greatness they have if you just give them a chance. So what if they say the headline is theirs, as long as your Creative Director knows the truth and the check goes to your account, who cares?
10. Think of a different product and make headlines. You’d be amazed at how many headlines you write for other categories that really apply to the one you’re working on.
hope this helps, but by all means add away.
Cheers
1 comments:
Bravo!
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