Advertising has always fascinated me. Ads that have stayed with me since an early age include Budweiser’s ‘Wassup’ TV spot; Guinness’ ‘Anticipation’, with its ridiculously catchy theme from King of The Mambo, Perez Prado; and Nike’s ‘Airport ‘98’, featuring the Brazilian football team.
All were, and still are, classic ads that have stood the test of time.
As an impressionable whippersnapper, it was the on-screen format that really captured my imagination and, more importantly for these brands, my attention. It should perhaps come as little surprise that nowadays, I’m particularly partial to a bottle of Bud, a pint of the black stuff and a pair of Nikes on my feet.
But with age and experience inevitably comes a change in maturity, tastes and perception.
In the age of digital, social media, video and virtual reality, it’s still the romance of telling a story that provides the greatest allure within the advertising agency for me. Tham Khai Meng, Ogilvy & Mather’s worldwide chief creative officer, said recently on his social media channels that ‘a brand should be nothing more than a product with a story – a story with an emotional core.’
And, in a society that seems to put increasing emphasis on on-screen activity as opposed to face-to-face, human interaction, I believe that getting brands to use copy as opposed to digital and video formats, is still the most powerful tool for them to extract the emotional core that Meng talks about.
Why? Because, as Meng also states, it is our duty as people in advertising, to be first and foremost storytellers. Storytelling, in the traditional sense of parents reading bedtime stories, has served for generations as one of the earliest and most important ways of creating an emotional connection for children, as well as inspiring and fuelling their imagination.
It will continue to do so simply because, as humans, regardless of age, we are susceptible to emotion.
There is no greater, more powerful weapon in creating emotion than with written copy. The most effective battlefield for implementation, even after all these years, being press and print.
If words represent the essence and core of storytelling, then as a copywriter and creative, press and print allow me to explore and tap into this emotion in a way that no digital format can offer.
Now that’s not to say I’m unwilling to adapt to these modern formats, copywriters need to change the way in which they tell stories in accordance with the times and technology, whether that be through Twitter or Snapchat, virtual reality, or immersive content.
But, call me old fashioned and slightly self-indulgent, there is still no greater or more satisfying feeling than enticing consumers with a witty headline, before using the body copy as an emotive tool to sell the client’s story.
The notion that somebody might not only read an ad, but be influenced by the story on an emotional level, their thought process or buying habits influenced as a result, is what gets me out of bed every morning. And it’s only when I feel as though I’ve mastered the short-story format of the press ad, that I’ll truly be able to sleep at night.
If innovation and technology teach us to keep our eyes on where we’re going as an industry, then copywriting should serve as an equally important reminder as to where we came from. After all, cavemen used walls to get their message across, not iPads. And they were never limited by 140 characters, as far as I’m aware.
Brands will always want to tell their stories. And there’s nobody better qualified to tell those stories than copywriters.
Jack Rivers is a copywriter and creative for S3 Advertising
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