I’ve written for advertising and marketing in two centuries.
(Dramatic, right? Sure. You gotta grab the attention in this game. I’m aware that this does not make me sound young. But that’s ok. The line wins.)
I’ve worked on all manner of campaigns, in ‘traditional’ media – tv, radio, press, posters, direct – and ‘new’ media (no, it’s not new anymore) – web, digital, social – for both consumer and business-to-business.
Writing for marketing and advertising often means having ideas for ads. Ads usually need to get their point across fast. Sometimes a line and a visual work together, sometimes the line does the heavy lifting, sometimes the visual does most of the work. ‘What does it say?’ is the question. And it has to say it quickly. Here’s 40 ads in 60 seconds:
Sometimes it’s all about the visual, and one or two words will do
And sometimes the message needs to be less pithy, and you need some long copy to get your point across
And it’s not always ads. Other times, long form copy is required, to tell a bigger story
‘Scamps’ or ‘roughs’ are often how you go about showing people ideas. You very rarely just do one. Usually people want a few options.
Here’s a quick journey though idea to production to finished recruitment campaign for care workers
This campaign also included radio ads telling the same stories: