Bravery, cutting copy, and punching a hole in the wall...

I have a confession to make. 

Bravery isn’t normally my bag.

I can talk the talk, no problemo. Walking the walk, however, is an entirely different matter. I inherited the art of interesting conversation from my mother. I inherited the art of running away fast in the opposite direction from my father. 

I have lots of brave bones, muscles, ligaments, organs, and veins…all stuffed inside a pretty heroic bag of skin. But most of them tend to be situated north of my legs.

I remember having a conversation about bravery years ago with an art director friend of mine. 

It was one of those conversations that had nothing to do with physical bravery. 

Nothing to do with standing up (or lying down unconscious) for myself or anyone else in a playground or the street or a pub or a football pitch. 

It had nothing to do with any important kind of bravery. Nothing like doing what was right, when faced with someone who was doing what was wrong. 

This conversation was about another kind of bravery. A grey kind. A small kind. A low-ranking kind. Well…in the galactic scheme of things. 

This was about a relatively unimportant kind of bravery, and it involved me, an extra paragraph of advertising copy, a damaged fist, and a hole in a wall. 

It also involved finding out that an account director had conspired with a client to alter my copy without telling me. 

For one reason or another, they thought it best to keep me out of the loop. I had, after all, access to very sharp, heavy swear words.

So they cut the copy to a point where the client’s wife loved it. And in cutting the copy they ripped out its heart. In my view. 

I was wrong. 

As fate would have it, I saw the ad before it went to print and naturally I went somewhat ballistic. I ranted. I raved. I stuck up for my copy. I discovered a new level of bravery.

And that’s when my clenched right fist made a large dent, complete with small hole, in the stud wall to the right of my desk. 

After running my fist under cold water, I showed the amended copy to my creative director, and he went somewhat ballistic, too.

Then he phoned the account director and went ballistic on the phone to him.

One upshot was that I got my copy changed back to the way it was when its heart was still intact and pumping away good style. 

Another was that shortly thereafter I got an apologetic phone call from the account director in question.

Then I got a phone call from the client, who said he was impressed that I had stuck to my guns. 

He was wrong. 

My creative director gave me a pat on the back. 

He wasn’t right, either. 

Then, around three months later, I happened to see the ad in print. And two thoughts struck me. 

One…when I read the copy I thought it was about a paragraph longer than it needed to be. 

And two…I preferred the shorter version. The one I complained about three months previously.

The one the client’s wife liked. 

That was the day I learned an important lesson. 

Advertising copy might be written by people on the inside. 

But it’s judged by people on the outside…

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The above is an extract from Ad Infinitum. It's the sequel to Ad Hoc and it's still in the melting pot. Ad Lib (the first in the trilogy) and Ad Hoc (the second) are now both available from Amazon. They're all very similar but completely different.

Then there's Love & Coffee...and Heaven Help Us. Available from the same place. They're nothing like the others...and every bit as enjoyable. 

You'll find Ad Hoc here: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8. Ad Lib here: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf. Love & Coffee here: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq. And Heaven Help Us here: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk. 

Why not grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek. 

Then grab a copy. Just in time for Christmas, of course.