The Punster Who Schooled A Copywriter

Is there anything more intimidating than your first day out of college into an ad agency as a newly hired copywriter?

It’s safe to say I didn’t know squat.

Yeah, I had done a little freelance work in college, writing what I thought were headlines and body copy.

But this was the real deal.

Typical of small agencies, you didn’t just plunge into copy assignments.

They had you do menial crap to justify your meager starting salary: delivering things around the office, running ads to typesetters, or completed ads to the local publications.

You might even get a chance to shadow a radio producer in a local station recording a client spot (a little fun mixed in with your shlepping).

But soon, you would have to buckle down and write. Maybe 40 headlines for an upcoming ad that your Creative Director would review and hopefully pick enough to tweak with not too many rounds of revisions.

On day one, you meet everyone – from head honchos to the bookkeeping squad.

I was mostly hanging out with the other young copywriter who had been there a while.

A tall, lanky, good-natured fellow named Steve who was quite the jokester.

His humor mostly consisted of shooting out non-sequiturs which he would then grab out of the air and piece together to create truly groan-worthy puns.

My initial reaction was that this guy named Steve was off-the-wall. And the puns he was throwing out were atrocious.

Then, a lightning bolt struck me inside. Maybe his penchant for puns and spouting disassociated remarks could be a way to think about connecting the disparate dots on a copy assignment. The thought made perfect sense to me.

A basis for making connections between random thoughts might produce livelier writing for a client’s product or services. By liberating your thinking about what the message might be, it could turn seemingly unrelated phraseology into potential attention-grabbing headlines and give you a runway to supportable body copy.

The explanation may sound a bit ephemeral, but at the time it made perfect sense to me.

And for this new copywriter, this epiphany was a truly life-changing experience.

Immediately, my work was lifted from linear thinking into something resembling 3-D chess.

My Creative Director noticed right away reacting more strongly to my initial rounds of headlines and copy. He was jazzed about the unexpected places I was taking things. Consequently, he felt that much more assured about where I could take them next.

The clincher of the process came in the form of a headline I later presented to him for a building and roofing client: Cheap Can Be Expensive.

He flipped. He was so enthusiastic. As if I had invented fire or taken a successful plunge over Snake River.

In short, it solidified for him that he had made the right choice with me and I was on my way.

Of course, over the years, I incorporated more good advice from colleagues. Mature refinements to those early breakthroughs. I could now more easily finesse such things as end-user benefits. All the while ratcheting up the persuasion and wrapping up the message.

But it all took off from that first blast of neural connectivity provided second-hand by Steve.

Not long ago, I was having an open discussion with a Creative Director for a science client of mine.

He asked me point blank: “How would you describe the creative process?”

I said: “It’s like your mind is a pinball machine. Thoughts knocking into one another pushing other thoughts and ideas into play.

He laughed: “Exactly!”

There you have it.

And to my old copywriter comrade, Steve, who inadvertently showed me the way.

Thank you!

You are an unsung hero no more.