On being Bad

Let me state at the onset this post runs of risk of appearing like a humblebrag. I assure you it is not. 

I like to think of myself as a good copywriter. Not a great one, by any means. I know the names of great copywriters. And many of you know them too. I don't put my name among them by any means. Moreover, I feel less-than-adequate referring to myself as a good one. 

Mostly, because for so many years I have not been practicing or more importantly, paid to be a good one.

For instance, we all stink when we start out in this business. I stunk harder. Writing crappy recruitment ads for both Bernard Hodes and J. Walter Thompson Recruitment. Both agencies now go by different names as they were swallowed up by huge holding companies. I did that for way too long than I should have.

Those years of writing help wanted ads were followed by a short stint writing ads for a hunting and fishing ad agency. You don't know the glamour of advertising until you start waxing poetic about the magic of Deer Urine. 

Then came the journeymen years working at Abert, Newhoff & Burr, Bozell, Chiat/Day, BBDO, Team One and Chiat/Day again. I cannot even bear to read some of the crap I, and the Fortune 500 companies foolish enough to pay for it, committed to ink. 

When I aged out of the agency world, I turned to an almost 20 year career as a freelancer. In other words, the bulk of my copywriting career. That included a short stint as an interim Creative Director at DirecTV, where I composed banner ads and statement stuffers. 

Who can forget, "Spring into Savings with DirecTV's Super Spring Package"? or "It's Fall, Who's Ready for Some Football? NFL package now only $99"?

You think I jest, I do not. 

Incidentally, I was more than happy to crank out this commerce-driven crap. And so much more. Because they paid my day rate. And as a freelance copywriter I was no longer interested in building a portfolio and much more interested in building my "Stay Out of a Dirty Nursing Home Retirement Fund."

I can't begin to tell you the number of times I came to this shameful compromise and gleefully ate the bowls of shit placed before me. Submitting what I considered good copy only to be overruled by ACD's or clients with not one wit of taste. 

As my friend and fellow freelance copywriter Tony Stern once told me, "They're not paying for your heart, or even your brain, they're paying for your wrist."

In other words, stop fighting the current and start swimming with it.

If I were to be brutally honest -- and when am I not on these supervisor-free pages -- I have barely spent 10% of my career as a good copywriter and 110% as nothing more than a word whore. Not bad considering I could have pursued a different vocation as a CPA or an engineer or a lawyer, and had no opportunity whatsoever to pimp my semantic abilities, modest as they are.

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Bonus material: While looking for an image for this post under the search term: Bad Copywriting, I can across the magic of Daniel Lok, the self-styled Tony Robbins of Copywriting. 

Here are some more must-see images from his Copywriting Self Help Seminar...

Note to self: must buy a Velvet Blazer and bow tie. And plants for my desk.