Choosing the Right Words

As a copywriter I spend a large part of my day thinking about words.

As a human I spend a large part of my day using words.

The difference between the two situations is that in the first I analyse each individual word that I use over and over again whereas in the second I usually use the first word or collection of words that come into my head.

But in advertising we would like to think that our copy sounds more like the second scenario than the first.

We want to write stuff that sounds natural and real, speak to people as we speak to each other.

But it doesn’t always work out that way.

I mean when was the last time you heard an ad on the radio that made you want to punch walls it sounded so ludicrous? Or saw a TV ad with such moronic dialogue that you ended up wanting to throw the remote at the telly, only stopping yourself because it's a fancy new 48inch widescreen HDTV?

I'll take a wild guess and say that it was the last time you listened to the radio or watched TV. Am I right?

As advertising copywriters we spend hours poring over each and every word in a radio commercial or outdoor poster. We let so many people have their say in what word should be used here or how this sentence should be phrased that we often end up removing any hint of naturalness that was there in the first place.

Natural sounding copy should be just that - natural. Dissecting each individual word under a microscope is not conducive to natural sounding writing.

That’s not to say that analysis, editing and revision of what you’re writing is a waste of time. I'm not that brainless.

At the end of the day we’re not writing for the sake of writing, we have a job to do. We have to sell stuff.

So it’s no good writing the most natural sounding copy if people aren’t going to pay a blind bit of attention to it or be motivated to take action.

But it’s also no good editing and overthinking copy to within an inch of its life in the pursuit of natural sounding copy.

People very quickly see through contrived ‘natural’ writing.

And they’re very quick to shut it out and ignore it as well.

The secret to good advertising (he says as if he has decades of experience and it were the easiest thing in the world) is having something good and worthwhile to say. If you have that as your starting point then natural copy should, well, naturally follow.

But just because the writing should be natural doesn’t mean the situations always need to be completely natural.

The latest John Lewis Christmas ad (which I think is great) has been criticised by a lot of people who say that you’d never see a real kid acting like that.

And they’re not wrong.

But when has anything creative been bound to rely on real characters?

Engaging, well developed characters, yes, but real?

Have the characters in every good movie, play or music video you’ve seen acted exactly the way people in the real world do?

No, of course they haven’t.

But if the characters are written well they can still draw you in and feel real and believable in the context in which they appear.

Whether it's in advertising or another creative discipline choosing the right words to put in the mouths of your characters can make you. But trying too hard to choose the right words will definitely break you.

An Interesting Concept

I’ve never been a particular Metallica fan. That’s not to say I dislike them. They have a bunch of great tunes - you'd have to be musically numb not to want to rock out to 'Enter Sandman' or 'Master of Puppets', and 'Nothing Else Matters' is one of the best tunes from the past 20 years, particularly when it's performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, but that's about as far as it goes for me when it comes to their music.

The same can be said for Lou Reed - who doesn't automatically think of 'Perfect Day' when they hear a mention of something that happened back in 1997? But again, I'm no hardcore Lou Reed lover.

And for me these two acts have always been in completely separate musical spheres, travelling on different orbits, never even threatening to collide.

I’m sure I’m not unique in thinking that.

That’s why my ears pricked up when I heard that Lou Reed had invited Metallica to collaborate on a concept album inspired by 2 plays by German playwright Frank Wedekind.

On first appearances it’s not exactly a musical combination crafted by the hands of the great Apollo himself.

I’ve been dipping in and out of the album for most of today and my initial reaction is, well, I don’t quite know what my initial reaction is.

Concept albums themselves can be dodgy territory. Sometimes they’re sensational, groundbreaking, era defining albums. Sometimes they’re annoying, musical wankery, full of their own self worth. Other times they’re just pure musical sludge.

Where Lulu falls I’m really not sure. Apologies for planting my arse so firmly on the fence on this one but all I can say for now is that, for me, it sits somewhere in the triangle of those three extremes. It’s exact position in that triangle? I’m currently undecided.

Lou Reed supposedly claims it’s the greatest thing he’s ever done. Album sales would beg to differ (it sold only 15,000 copies in its first week on sale).

Reviews can't seem to find a consensus. Some say it's 'excellent', while others claim it's the 'worst piece of junk to be produced in album form in the last 20 years.'

Luckily for us recovering students and people with security codes on our wallets we don't need to fork out hard-earned cash to figure out who we agree with because Lou, James, Lars, Kirk and Robert have kindly put it all online here, for free. Why, I don't know.

If you're not bothered listening to the whole thing here's one of the tracks, 'The View', for your aural pleasure:



Now, to go find someone I can pitch that Leonard Cohen/Slipknot duet album to.

There's a War on. See Twitter for Updates

I’m a big fan of Twitter. I've written before about why I think it's so great and some of the incredible things people have done using Twitter as their foundation.

Well lately I’ve come across a great new account that's my latest obsession: @RealTimeWWII

It’s a fantastic idea. Someone (my guess is that it's a group of people) started tweeting on September 1st, the day in 1939 when the Germans invaded Gdansk in Poland and World War 2 began, real time updates as if we were back in 1939 and the war were taking place.

Something similar was done through Facebook a while back (you can see a jpeg of it here) and while it was impressive and well done, it wasn’t nearly as detailed or as engaging as this Twitter account.

This guy (or these guys) tweet several updates a day including quotes, pictures and videos. The amount of information and the level of detail is astonishing. We get tweets about the famous speeches and actions of Hitler at the major Nazi rallies as well as quotes and pictures from individuals you've never heard of who were living in the ghettos or concentration camps. It literally covers the whole spectrum, from the major turning points in the war to the daily lives of those suffering through it.

Here's just a small sample of some of the tweets:










Aside from being a really interesting account of the events of World War II it also gets you thinking; we’re so used to instant updates on major world events through Twitter, what would it have been like had Twitter been around for other historical events? Would it have shaped their progress and outcome, as Twitter has done with major events like the current ‘Occupy Protests’ or the political movements in the Middle East over the past few months?

Wouldn’t it be great to see similar accounts for other historical events – the Irish Civil War, Columbus’ voyage to America, the Spanish Inquisition.

Of course the thing about WWII is that it was in the very recent past so there are lots of video, photographic and documentary footage and resources available, that’s why this one works so well.

To say that something is ‘brought to life’ is a bit of a cliché but it definitely presents the events of the war in a way that hasn't been done before and a way that is really engaging and captivating.

There's also huge potential here to use Twitter as an educational tool. I reckon social media is going to be used more and more in education in the future and this is a great example of how it can be done.

So go and check out RealWorldWWII and if you know of any other Twitter accounts doing somehing similar involving different events from history please let me know.