hi there and welcome to the very beginning of what I hope will be a really helpful series on copywriting for advertising [Music] I'm a creative director and copywriter I've been working in advertising for over a decade and I have so much I want to share about copywriting but before we get into all the Nitty Gritty details I figured we could start high level in this video we're going to talk about what a copywriter does at an ad agency all the kinds of things that they could write in their day-to-day job and what makes a great copywriter so if you're a copywriter on an ad agency chances are you're going to be partnered up with an art director now some agencies mix up Partners so every project you'll be with a different person while some agencies keep it the same all the time so you are stuck with that partner and I hope you have a really good relationship with them because you're going to be with them a lot now even though you have the copywriter title and your partner has the art director title you should both be thinking in written and visual ways some of my partners have come up with really awesome copy ideas and I've come up with a bunch of visual ideas it should function as a true partnership so together you're going to come up with conceptual ideas that eventually turn into campaigns like this or this when you're not brainstorming with your partner and coming up with those big crazy ideas you're going to be writing and literally anything that needs words on it or an idea communicated is something that a copywriter could get their hands on here are some things you might write and there's a lot no day in this job is the same and that's what makes it so fun when I was a junior copywriter I was mostly working on social posts and social ads I'd also write General headlines and just throw in some extra stuff for various campaigns that the wider team was working on I'd also work on radio commercials emails a lot of the smaller lower Stakes kind of stuff but typically as you rise in the ranks you get to work on bigger more important stuff like TV commercials big campaigns brand voice stuff establishing things for the brand at large a lot of that bigger more strategic stuff there are four qualities that I personally think every great copywriter shares and there's this great quote from the ad week copywriting handbook that I think is a perfect representation of the first two the best copyright writers in the world are those who are curious about life read a great deal have many hobbies like to travel have a variety of interests often Master many skills get bored and then look for other skills to master they hunger for experience and knowledge and find other people interesting they are very good listeners I personally identify with the getting bored and looking for something else to master part I've had like 200 hobbies in my life but to sum all that up great copywriters seek knowledge and are super curious people let's talk about the knowledge part first as a writer you're going to house a lot of knowledge in your brain there's the everyday stuff and the super duper specific stuff everyday stuff is just life experience things you learn just by living and doing things and trying things that's super duper specific stuff is the kind of things that you learn because of the specific product or client you're working on I've had to get to know a lot of stuff that I was clueless about before working on the brand two notable ones include health insurance and Credit Unions so make some space in there because you're gonna need it then there's curiosity having Natural Curiosity is going to make this job so much easier and way more fun you should always be striving to dig beneath the surface because spoiler alert that's where all the good ideas are the surface level stuff is boring people have already heard that they've seen that that's not going to convince them to buy a product or like a brand so as the copywriter it's your job to go a little deeper and find that more interesting stuff to talk about but it's also in how you talk about it which is why I like to compare copywriters to stand-up comedians comedians have a way of taking stuff that's totally normal and already out there in the world like normal human emotions or typical everyday scenarios and finding a really unique way to present them and talk about them that's what makes comedians worth listening to they're not just telling you about that normal thing they're twisting it and building a different kind of narrative on top of it that makes you so engaged so you have to do the same thing with the brand or product you're talking about you have to find something really unique about it wrap it in a really interesting bow and get people to listen to you the last two qualities of a great copywriter adaptability and thick skin I think something that a lot of people don't realize about this job is that you are almost never writing in your own voice as a writer at least in agency life if you're gonna be going into the advertising industry and working at ad agencies there are very few times when you're going to be writing as yourself most of the time you're taking on the tone of voice of the client or of the brand and every brand you work on is gonna sound a little or a lot different from the last one you worked on there are going to be times when the client you're working on their tone of voice kind of overlaps with your own and that's great but most of the time you'll probably feel like you're writing in someone else's voice and that's fine because that's what you're supposed to be doing you have to be a chameleon and take on all those different voices and make the people reading that stuff not even aware that there's a different person writing it it should all feel like it's coming from the same place the same brand the same writer even if there are multiple writers on it so you really have to adapt to that voice every time a different brand and voice gets thrown at you and semi-related to that super duper specific knowledge I mentioned earlier you're gonna have to adapt to a lot of things that you are not personally familiar with so if you're working for a yarn brand and you have never knitted or crocheted in your life you're gonna have to adapt and take on the personality of a Knitter or a crocheter to speak in a way that those other Knitters and crocheters are going to want to listen to It's almost like method acting like you just have to get in that headspace and be part of the audience that you're writing for having thick skin is important for anyone in advertising or any subjective field really but especially important for those who are going to be working in ad agencies creative work is so subjective what one person loves another person might absolutely hate or maybe they're just a little indifferent about it that's gonna happen with your work pretty much every single day you're gonna have a creative director reviewing your work you're gonna have the rest of the Ad Agency team reviewing your work and you're gonna have a client can't look at your work and every step of that process involves a lot of different opinions and unfortunately those opinions are not always in your favor you could turn in pages of headlines to your creative director and they might pick a couple if that as you go on and get more experience that will get much easier you'll learn what your creative director likes you'll learn what your client likes and you'll just learn what's good and what's bad in general so you'll be able to self-edit a little more but no matter what level you're at in this field you will experience rejection constantly and I'm not telling you that to scare you you will get used to it I am very used to rejection at this point it doesn't sting as bad sometimes when I'm really in love with an idea and it gets rejected it kind of hurts but overall it's just part of the process now but just learn to take criticism and use that to make your work better and always remember it's not personal it's just advertising so what do you think are you a curious knowledge seeking adaptable person with thick skin even if you can't say yes to those right now I promise those are all things that you can pick up as you go so copywriting sounds like something you might love doing for a living follow along with this series as we dive into the wacky wonderful world of copywriting for advertising [Music]