The Client Brief

This may further define the copywriter’s job as more of a science than an art. If a car company wants you to promote their latest model and the selling point is its hybrid engine, then your brief is defined. Waxing lyrical about its upholstery is not going to cut it. That may be a requirement once the hook is in, but companies usually have their own ideas about where the focus of an ad campaign should be, thus copywriters generally do not have the freedom to play around and experiment as a true artist might.

A good copywriter will listen to the brief and know exactly what it is that the client wishes to convey. As a copywriter, it is your job to express those points powerfully, according to the methods that you know have traditionally worked best.

Of course, this is also where the art comes in because you must be able to give life to whatever words you use. Writing about a new sleeping pill, there is no doubt that the most junior employee of the pharmaceutical company could come up with the line: “Makes you go to sleep when you couldn’t before”. A copywriter will be called upon because the client automatically and rightly assumes that a good copywriter will combine a competent level of writing skills with intelligence, common sense, creativity and imagination. The intelligence and common sense to take on board the brief and know how to apply tried and trusted marketing rules to it, and the creativity and imagination to perhaps add that special sparkle to the finished message.

Ultimately, defining copywriting is a semantic exercise, and it doesn’t much matter what you call it so long as you remember that there are rules that must be obeyed. When an artist mixes colors on a palette, it is both art and science. Science dictates how the colors mix together – you can never mix red and yellow and not get orange – whilst the art is in tweaking the proportions to achieve the subtleties.

As a copywriter, being able to grasp both is obviously beneficial as it gives you the flexibility to adapt to all briefs, but you should not be overly concerned with subtleties. Subtleties are often lost on people, especially those people who don’t have the time or inclination to uncover them.

Remember always that your average audience needs bold colors, and those you can easily learn to produce.

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