The futility is strong

To learn more about this exciting Tuesday morning post on RoundSeventeen, continue reading.

To find out more, or even anything, about the nature of this post, please proceed to the following paragraph.

To discover where all this is going you will have scroll down and put up with this nonsense.

I hate to have tortured you with all that, particularly today, when nerves are shot, anxiety is high and, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic (is that redundant?), our fearless leader is gibberish tweeting....

But believe it or not, this little semantic exercise is not without its purpose. Because as the copywriters reading this know all too well, hours, days, sometimes weeks can be wasted discussing the efficacy of a simple CTA, Call to Action.

"I like using the phrase LEARN MORE. It promises the consumer an educational reward. And who doesn't like to be educated?"

"I don't know, I'm leaning towards FIND OUT MORE. People like finding things. I once found a twenty dollar bill in my husband's pant pocket. I also found a mushed up little blue pill. He didn't know where that came from."

"We should go with DISCOVER.  I don't really have a reason, but I'm the Senior VP."

This is what the "craft" of copywriting has come down to.

The shame of it all is that it wasn't always like that. I remember a time when the last line of copy in an elegantly written print ad was more important and harder to come by than an award winning headline.

Writers at the top tier agencies where I served my apprenticeship (RPA, BBDO, Team One and Chiat/Day) would spend an ordinate time and experience inordinate lost sleep over the perfectly hewn, wrap up line.

As if the devolvement of our industry were not self evident, consider this -- to get a potential consumer to the very end of our advertising messages today and make the fateful choice of whether to Learn/Find/Discover more, we often have to get past this minor roadblock at the very beginning...