My Life As a Copywriter

I barely slept, the new brief had me up all night and I can’t seem to decide which of the two taglines to go with. After narrowing it down from like a million. I wish I could remove the ‘work’ compartment of my brain and leave it on my desk cause here I am standing in the shower still cracking my head over the one line that’s missing from my jingle. I hate loose ends and unfinished business. Coming home with work gives me nightmares. I literally dreamt of the client’s brief. This can’t be my life.

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On way way to work all I hear on the radio is advert after advert. I wonder if my radio ads sound this stupid to the people that hear them. So may adverts jammed into one slot. This is what puts me under pressure. How do I get my ads to stick out from a sea of other ads. What about my ad is gonna make the listener stop and pay attention. I can’t drown amongst other ads. I won’t be boring. I will do more. I will be different.

So many billboards. I don’t know how client could approve some of these to be honest. So much happening in one billboard. Its distracting. Clearly this is a driving hazard. But this one billboard is pretty good, I wonder if I would’ve thought of that.

Just got feedback from the client. I won’t open that email right now. This client is confused.If I open that email I’ll get confused and my day will get scattered. Too early for that. Gotta check the newspapers if any of my ads were flighted. Its so weird seeing them in print. Ah well, job well done. The copy doesn’t look like anything when I write it but when the designers do their thing, it really comes together. Designers are the secret sauce in making a great advert.

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Okay, I can’t ignore it any longer, I need to open that email. And of course the client has a million changes. If I hear the words, “this isn’t my brand” one more time, I’m gonna jump out the window. This one client is problematic. Let me Google if unemployment is a cause of death cause this isn’t worth it to be honest.

So there’s also the A.E. The A.E. mediates between the client and the creatives. And I was blessed with a scatterbrained one. Every brief is always urgent but never really is. Advertising is like a relay, the client hands the baton to the A.E, who hands it to me, I hand it back to the A.E, who passes it on to the deisgners, who pass it back to me before I send it on to the A.E who then forwards to the client. She doesn’t care about these dynamics. The ball stays in her court like a repeat offender on Judge Judy.

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Today there’ll be a sparring match. The A.E versus my Journalism and Media Studies degree. I always lose but I insist on showing up for the fight. We must always fight for what’s right and that’s my way of doing things. I studied for four years to do things correctly and no marketing degree or whatever qualifies A.E.s will discredit that today.

I was wrong. The A.E wins. On some days I am willing to go head to head and on some days I just accept the tracked changes on the copy and move forward. Anything for the paycheck.

I have finalised the tagline. Its clever, Its witty, its memorable, its perfect but the client won’t go for it. I am only sending it on to prove to myself and to them that we are creative. Even if they don’t pick it, they’ll know we gave them magic and they rejected it.

Ultimately, the client is always right so of course the basic copy that’s dry as a bone is what got approved. When will I ever learn that when client says, “think outside the box,” they mean think outside the box but get back in the box when you write the copy. I remember my boss saying to the client, “this isn’t award winning,” to which the client replied, “We aren’t after awards.”

WOW! The client gets what the client wants.

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