For all of the insults levied against the advertising industry over time, there are few copywriters that would like to be known as killers.
It’s just not a great reputation to bring to the world of marketing!
But bad copywriting is like the lethal injection for a brand. Whether it happens quickly and painlessly or over the course of several months, substandard copywriting sucks the life from an organisation until there is nothing left to see.
Copywriting Gives Brands A Life
The most successful brands in the world are alive. They have personalities all of their own, a sense of taste, style, humour.
Meet Apple. He’s 36 years old and he’s the creative type. He probably goes to the ballet and the opera, and genuinely understands what is happening there.
He knows what the next big thing is before it happens. He sets trends that his friends and rivals follow for years to come.
And Apple is a guy with a great sense of humour. Not a dirty joke down the pub, but a witty, intelligent kind of humour, full of wordplay and carefully selected puns.
He’s also somebody you can depend on to keep things simple. He’s like a builder with a degree in astrophysics – complex ideas, expressed in their most simple terms.
Most importantly, Apple has changed in his three decades of life. What started as a brash, attention grabbing personality has matured into a seriousness that comes only with age.
Apple is a loveable brand because Apple is the kind of guy we want to make friends with.
Copywriting Speaks On Behalf Of Brands
The only issue with Apple and his fictional brand friends is that they don’t come complete with their own mouths. Call it an evolutionary oversight.
And so it is the responsibility of a copywriter to speak on behalf of a brand, allowing its personality to come through loud and clear. The things that the brand says and the way that it says them – that’s the magic that makes these inanimate companies come to life.
Bad copywriting kills brands or – worse – renders them silent in a kind of coma.
By giving brands the spark of life, great copywriting turns companies into friends, colleagues, and trusted sources – the kind of personalities that customers love to do business with.
