Confessions of a former copywriter

After spending about 17 years in various advertising agencies and marketing departments, my current job doesn't require creativity. I'm actually thankful for this. Creativity is debatable, while policies and procedures generally aren't. 

However, my job must certainly appear boring to the outsider, so I'm not going to go on about it here. Instead, I'm going to burgle Drayton Bird's latest blog/Facebook entry. Mr. Bird was an Important PITA for Ogilvy and Mather for quite a while.

I met Mr. Bird in the 1980s, when I was fresh out of college and looking for that elusive Trainee Copywriter job. I was being interviewed at Ogilvy and Mather in London. I couldn't tell how the interview was going, and I don't think the interviewer could either.

This is when Mr. Bird  wandered into the interview room by mistake, obviously worse for wear after a long and gin-soaked lunch. He squinted down at me and said, "Who the fuck are you?"

Alas, I didn't get that job, but I never forgot Mr. Bird.

Anyway, herewith his latest:

“Don’t tell my mother I’m in advertising – she thinks I play the piano in a brothel"

Wednesday, 09 February 2011 at 07:24

I think that title, from Jacques Seguela, is the most entertaining of any book about advertising, closely followed by Jerry Della Femina’s “From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor”.

But when I inveigled my way into the ad business, hardly anybody was interested in being a copywriter, because hardly nobody knew what a copywriter was and nobody cared. Indeed, one of my late friend the very talented Bill Jayme’s many good jokes was, “Have you ever been able satisfactorily to explain to your mother exactly what you do for a living?”

But I am stunned and shocked by how many people today either are copywriters or want to start on this self-destructive path, paved as it is with unspeakable horrors like Compliance Departments, Art Directors who think 50 words is long and clients who think any fool can write a letter - and proceed to give a live demonstration.

All that preamble leads me to an email I got two days ago from Johnny Cullen who said he was compiling a report called “What makes top copywriters tick (and why)?”

He excluded the obvious answer, which is "other writers". That made it a challenging question. Here is my reply – far less entertaining than the two titles above, but you may find it interesting. Since I was - as usual - too damn busy, I dashed it straight off and was surprised to see it made sense.

I am inspired by:

Desperation --- the knowledge that I HAVE to come up with something.

Fear --- that this time I will fail (and I sometimes do).

Fascination --- with new things and people. Every time I learn something new or meet someone interesting it makes me happy and starts me thinking.

Example --- whenever I see someone who does something well, even if don't have any skill in that area, it goads me on to do better. Years ago I saw a masterclass by Casals. I can't play any instrument, but that cheered me up no end.

Oddities --- I rejoice in them. Never stop looking out for them. They lead to interesting ideas, I suspect.

A sense of inferiority --- I think what I do has little merit, but at least I can try and do it well.

Fury --- it maddens me to see how many people settle for second or even third best. Why bother to live if you feel that way?

Since I wrote that list, three other things came to mind. I find going for a walk gives me ideas, as does the demon drink and its nasty aftermath, the hangover. I do not recommend the latter two courses; the evidence is in the picture on this page.

The joys of forced focus

My attention deficit problems seem to have abated somewhat since Monday evening. I think this is because I made it to last night's shaolin class. Besides learning new forms, the class went on for half an hour longer than usual.

I'm fairly sure that the reason why shaolin is beneficial to controlling ADD is that your mind has much more difficulty wandering during class. You always have plenty to concentrate on, especially as the advanced forms are more complex. For example, I'm now learning how to kick and punch others simultaneously. And if you're staring into space, the instructor will want to know why.

This also explains why I am also fond of other pursuits that work so well to focus the mind, like riding motorcycles, playing the piano and sex.  All of them chase away the squash-playing gremlins inside my head; maybe not all the way back to the Kremlin, but for long enough.  (Sex seems to work especially well.)

Channel surfing

I don't know if I should blame it on last week's cabin fever, or that I'm really tired of winter, but over the past few days I can't get any sort of grip on my ADD. I never considered it worth medicating, especially as I'd learned some methods to rein it in when needed. But over the weekend it was if I was playing a one-person game of raquetball inside my own head. I couldn't get to sleep last night as I couldn't turn off all the channels. And although I'm drowning in work, my lack of focus is not helping me. I don't know what to do.

Spot the 180 changes to the original scenes



My favorite outfit change: Silvio Dante's.  And the flat screen fix is good, too.

Damp, but not in a good way

Having been granted a rare snow day by the Snoopy Borg, I was in the kitchen working on appraisal policy when I heard an odd little explosion in the laundry room followed by a noise. I opened the door to see that one of the water pipes leading to the washer had broken (thankfully, the cold water pipe).

However, shutting it off wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, especially as getting near it was like standing in front of a water sprinkler. After traipsing through the snow with my trusty key to the main water cutoff, I realized I couldn't open the back gate. So I went around my neighbor's house, only falling down once in her yard, to get to the alley. But then I couldn't find the main water shutoff through the snow. I started poking around and thankfully found it pretty quickly.

This is where things began to get frustrating. Seems my key to pull the top off the water cutoff wasn't up to it, and I managed to snap it off inside the rather heavy cover. (I'm always breaking things this way and it always makes me feel like Bullwinkle.) I then tried to remove the mini-manhole top with a crowbar, but this didn't work either.

My only recourse was to call the water company and ask them to cut off the water. She said that they were "very busy". I then asked how busy. One hour? Two? She hesitated and wouldn't commit.

Things began to look up when a snow-encrusted Ian* showed up unannounced. He was on his way to a meeting and, since I wasn't answering my phone, decided to stop by to see if I were a) okay, and b) free later in the day.

When a soggy, wild-haired mistress answered the door, he figured out the situation pretty quickly and retired to the alley with his toolbox. But the water utilities truck showed up at the same time, so Ian was off the hook. He turned down my suggestion that we make a few snow angels before his meeting, but perhaps I can entice him into bringing over his own pizza tray later for some driveway sledding.

So now I've gone from no hot water in the bathroom to no water anywhere. Time to change my shoes and find a plumber, methinks.