Service With A Simile

See what I did there, in the headline? I took a common, every day phrase, changed one word simply by adding one letter to it, and created a phrase I've never seen before.

Not only that, but the new phrase introduces exactly what I want to talk about here and now: one of the secrets of successful copywriting.

That secret is to smash two seemingly unrelated ideas together to create a new idea. And to do that, you need to be a generalist – someone with an inquisitive mind, who loves learning a jumble of different things and can keep them tumbling around inside, continually combining them until the right combination solves the marketing problem you've been working on, answering the correct strategy.

I tried to make that sound easy, but I couldn't, because it isn't. It takes a lot of training, and a lot of trial and error, until one day, you realize that you can eliminate most of the errors and skip right to the good parts.

I tried to find a simile for this talent. You know, a copywriter is like a.... craftsman? That doesn't quite satisfy me, because a craftsman uses raw materials to create something new. A painter uses oils, watercolors, etc, and combines them to make a picture. A potter uses clay and glazing.

A writer uses words. He doesn't create the words, usually – although great ones like Shakespeare certainly coined some good ones – 62 alone just in Macbeth. Incarnadine as a verb, assassination – the entire list is here.

So is a writer is more like a cobbler who puts existing pieces together to create a shoe? No, the cobbler shapes and cuts the pieces. Maybe we're more like the architect who uses existing materials, not changing their shapes like Frank Gehry, but using them as is in new combinations.

Then there's the aphorism, “A carpenter is only as good as his tools.” Once again, a writer's words are not his tools – they're his material. The implement he uses to assemble them is his knowledge and facility with words.

So, writer, your main implement, of course, is your brain. Train it, stuff it with a wide and wild variety of facts, words, parts of speech and write, write, write. (You don't have to know the names of the parts of speech -- just learn how they work.)

You say you have writer's block? My grandson, the young troubadour Nick Stoddard, once told me he had it. My advice to him was the same as it is to you – write about having writer's block. That'll be the end of it.

One more word of advice – just because a phrase is clever, doesn't mean it's right. You should know the strategy behind what you're writing, and if the phrase you come up with has several meanings, they should all reinforce the strategy. If there's a negative connotation, or if the phrase can lead the reader down the wrong or distracted path, throw it out.

If you're a writer, you're an idea person, and you have to trust that you're going to have lots of ideas, and not to cling to one that isn't good enough.

More about strategy next time.

Secrets of a Successful Copywriter

Part I

Writing about teaching a course in advertising at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights back in the 80's got me thinking. I know, that's dangerous, but I do it from time to time.

Specifically, I'm thinking about teaching copywriting, and while I can teach the rules and the tricks and the jargon, I don't think it can be taught. It can be learned, however.

Here's a bit of how I learned. First, I grew up watching my father. He was a master at engaging people in conversation, mostly because he got them talking about themselves. He was genuinely interested in what they had to say, and think, and why they did the things they did.

That caught my attention, because of something else the grownups around me did. Since they were first and second generation Italian-Americans, they had a basic knowledge of the Italian language, and used it often. But not to communicate with this new third generation crop they were breeding. On the contrary – they used it to not communicate with us.

I knew that what they were saying in Italian was important stuff, because they were either serious when they used it, or they laughed the unique kind of laugh you laugh at adult humor.

So, my father's interest in other people, and the fact that the important stuff was in "code" led me to a strange conclusion for a child – that there were secrets to being a human that they were concealing from me. It left me with a determination to pay attention to everything around me, in order to discover those secrets and become a “real boy,” like Pinocchio in the first movie I remember seeing. (My mother always said that when Disney's Pinocchio became a real boy, he looked like me. More reinforcement for my idea.)

So I tried to retain everything. That made me a generalist, a word a pr writer used to describe me in an article she wrote when I created my first million dollar ad campaign, back in the late 60's.

And that, being a generalist with a wide range of interest and a self-trained ability to hold as many different facts, figures, opinions and trivia as possible, is the first secret of a successful copywriter.

It allows you to write in the “voice” of whatever client you're working for at the time. Every trade has its own jargon, and to use it correctly puts you one up on someone who writes the same way for every client.

Examples: using “stat” instead of “immediately” for a medical-related client; using the symbol for sulphuric acid instead of the term in a headline to engineers.

Having lots of seemingly useless stuff in your head also leads to smashing two seemingly dissimilar thoughts or phrases together to create something new.

I'll talk about that next time.

Hitting The Heights

Brooklyn Heights, that is. Account Exec Bob O'Connell, who worked on the Quaker State account, among others, came to me with a proposal to do something I'd never done before: teach a college class on advertising at St. Francis College.

The idea was, we would co-teach – me, the creative side of the business; Bob, the business side.

There was a little money in it, but my motivation for saying yes was the novelty of it.

Having moved to New York from the Albany area, from whence my theater-loving parents had often taken the family on the NY Central Railroad excursions for a weekend of star-studded entertainment, I was familiar and comfortable with Manhattan.

But like a lot of other transplants, the other boroughs were foreign territory, and I seldom, if ever, ventured off Manhattan, what we at K&E called “An island off the coast of America.”

It even took me a while to get accustomed to traveling underground from one end of the island to the other, although the speed and relative efficiency of it it eventually convinced me to use the subway system.

Bob and I would be traveling together for each class after work, and he was a born and bred New Yorker, so I would have an intrepid travel guide.

The first step was to create a curriculum. The two of us had to cover all the basics of the business in thirteen evening classes, and two times 13 is 26, and that suggested the alphabet, and so we created a format based on that, and called the course, “Advertising, A to Z.” I made a list for each class, beginning with A and B – The Art of Advertising and the Business of Advertising, and working through to the last class, with Y and Z – The Youthfulness and Zen of it all.

I found the requisite quizzes easy enough to construct, reviewing the basics of each double-subject class at regular intervals, and I remember giving the class of young, hopeful, working people an essay assignment, in which they were to imagine themselves as a “brand,” and create an ad campaign to sell that brand.

The experience, as any teacher would probably tell you, was just as rewarding for the teachers as for the students. Maybe more so, because before you can teach what you do for a living, even if it's instinctual, you have to examine it, break it into its basic parts, and understand it.

All in all, it was a valuable experience for me, and, I hope, for the eager hopefuls who got to hear, first-hand, what it was really like working on "Madison Avenue."

Next: more war stories

Open With a Smile

Last time, I promised to tell you about teaching a course on advertising in Brooklyn. You can't always believe a copywriter, I guess.

I decided, in the spirit of the holidays, to offer a smile today, and one that actually relates to the continuity of this "memoir blog."

(Hope you got everything you wished for, and that your New Year's resolutions are attainable.)

Once I found comfort and confidence in just standing in front of a class and talking the students through my work, I learned to begin with a story I had heard somewhere, using it to loosen up the audience and show them that we were all going to have a good time.

The story is a fantasy about the day Einstein died. He goes straight to the pearly gates, where St. Peter, dressed in his finest robes, welcomes the genius.

He tells him how thrilled they all are to have Herr Professor among them, and that heaven has a glorious mansion for him to live in for eternity.

“Just one small problem,” St. Peter explains. “I wasn't told by You-Know-Who that we have more souls arriving than usual, and that we're asking people to share their space. So, if it's all right with you, we'd like to place three other people with you in your mansion.”

“Of course,” replies Einstein. “But I would like to meet them first, just to figure out in advance how we can relate.”

Being the genius that he is, he says he can ask just one question of each of the three, and know what they can discuss through the end of time.

St. Peter agrees, and they go off to meet Einstein's future roomies.

He's introduced to the first one, explains the situation, and asks just this one question: “What is your IQ?”

The answer is an impressive 145.

“Wunderbar!,” exclaims Einstein. “You can help me work on the unified theory – perhaps together we can finally solve that problem!”

St. Peter brings the great man to the second candidate, and this one's IQ is the average – 115.

“Good,” says Einstein – we can discuss the paradox of time travel and enjoy a good game of chess.”

The third roommate candidate turns out to be more of a challenge – with an extremely low IQ of only 65.

Einstein tries not to show his disappointment, as he searches for a subject that would engage a person with a sub-par intelligence.

After a few uncomfortable moments, his face lights up with that familiar smile of his, and he cheerfully announces, “Aha! We can talk advertising!”

It always gets a laugh, and gives me a chance to explain that my chosen profession is actually more complicated than you think, and I will be explaining why.

Next time: Teaching a college course.

Teaching & Learning

Charlie Brown would never grow up to be an ad man. He just didn't have conviction – probably the most important asset for anybody who wants to sell something to somebody else.

The reason I mention Charles Schulz's most famous creation, and probably alter ego, is one particular “Peanuts” strip that came to mind today.

In it, Charlie Brown is complaining that no one ever believes him, no matter what he says. Lucy, in her best “trust me I won't pull the football away at the last minute” mode, swears to him that he can say anything and she will believe him. “Anything?”, he asks doubtfully. She says she will believe the most unbelievable, fanciful and ridiculous thing he can say. He thinks. He bites.

“The world is made of snow.”

Lucy screams at the top of her lungs, “You're out of your mind, Charlie Brown!” (It's the title of an old book of Peanuts strips, and you can still buy it online.)

I have conviction. Maybe not enough to convince Lucy of the fanciful composition of the world, but so much that I get excited about whatever product or service I'm hired to advertise. Where does the word “advertise” come from, anyway? Latin: advertere "turn toward," from ad- "toward" and vertere "to turn."

That's what I do – turn toward the subject, wholeheartedly, and try to get you to turn your attention and your inclination toward it.

And I get to know what I'm selling. If it's a restaurant, I work there. A wine, I drink it. An airline, I fly it. And, I get excited about it. And convinced that it's the best thing since the last thing I worked on.

My dear, departed wife, Eileen, who worked in retail, had that kind of attitude. In her case, she was so convinced of the merits of whatever she was selling, that customers always assumed she was the owner of the store.

Conviction is the secret of successful selling.

When I finally got to Madison Avenue, after 20 years of experience one hundred and fifty miles north of it, I was invited to share what I'd learned. First to invite me was Deborah, a beautiful woman (of course) who taught business and communication at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

She asked me to travel back upstate from Manhattan to the tony school of mostly upper class young women for one lecture per semester. The school would pay my transportation, put me up in their guest house and she would take me out to dinner at one of Saratoga's fine restaurants.

I said yes, of course, mostly to have the chance to sit and look at her over dinner for an hour or two, and immediately got very nervous about what I would present to her class. I actually scripted what I would say, rehearsed it, and thought that would be that. It wasn't.

I stumbled through the dry and lifeless prepared text in about 20 minutes, flop sweat running so freely that the front row should have had the same warning as Seaworld's splash zone.

Deborah saved me, by asking questions about things I could answer with conviction, and I came through it well enough that I was asked back the following semester.

From then on, I just brought my portfolio of work with me, wherever I went – The Center for Media Arts, State University of New York and St. Rose College in Albany – and just talked about how each ad or campaign came about, the thinking behind it and the processes involved it bringing it all to life. It was fun for me, and it gave the students an insight into the real world of a real Mad Man.

That worked for me until I had to actually teach an entire course on advertising together with an Account Executive at St. Francis College. For that, we needed a plan.

Next time: Hitting the heights in Brooklyn.

California Weather

Before I begin today's history lesson, some contemporary comments.

First, I notice that the New York Times has printed a correction about the price of squid-ink tagliarini at the Tarry Market in Port Chester, N.Y. I quote: "It is $5.49 a pound, not $29.99 a pound." I'm sure you're relieved to know that.

Next, I would like to direct you to two other blogs, both of which have much to do with my hometown of Troy, NY, and which mention the Saturday Farmers' Market there: Christina's foodie blog, and David's blog about Sage in Troy.

Now, on to today's "Mad Man" topic.

MacArthur Park Wasn't Melting in the Rain That Day.

Let me begin with a couple of very important lessons, learned early in my career as a Mad Ave copywriter: One: if you write on-camera dialogue, you get to go to the shoot. If you write voice-over copy, you get to go as far as the local recording studio. I learned to write dialogue.

Two: if you write outdoor commercials that have to be produced in the winter, you will shoot them in warm locations.

Here's how fate can play tricks, even when you follow those rules. We had one day to shoot three on-location commercials in Los Angeles. It was a day in March.

Everybody knows why the film industry settled and prospered in southern California -- the weather. So we didn't worry.

Across the street from MacArthur Park is a fabulous old building, now the Park Plaza Hotel, built originally as an Elks Club. It's a favorite location of filmdom, and in fact, the day we were shooting in front of the building, because it could look like a bank, two other companies were shooting there -- Steven Seagal's crew was setting up a drug lord's lair in the building's indoor swimming pool on the lower level, and up on the roof Robert Stack was filming an intro to a segment of Unsolved Mysteries. And you've seen the staircase to the mezzanine level in countless movies and TV shows.

For the main commercial we were to shoot that day, I had written a “one take” commercial, which is a spot that requires an actor to do the entire spot without a cut -- always a difficult task, but, when it works, very effective. The commercial, conceived by my art director, was ostensibly a stand-up -- an announcer talking to the camera. But this one had a twist -- what he was promoting was a giveaway promotion at Krystal, a chain of hamburger restaurants -- sort of the White Castle of the South.

The copy went something like this: “peel off the tab from the soft drink cup and you could win up to five thousand dollars.”

As the spokesman walked from the guarded armored car in front of the “bank,” he held up the winning tab, then announced that if you found a “double the prize” tab, you'd win ten thousand dollars. This makes his eyes light up, as he realizes he has the actual winning tab in his hand, and he starts running away, with the armed guard chasing him, and the spot dissolves into chaos and the product shot.

The problem was, it was a lot of copy and a lot of precise movement, and it was cold. Not just morning mist cold, but exactly like this very mid-December morning in the suburbs of Albany, New York – cold enough that if it rained, the water would freeze before it hit. And it did rain.

Here we were, agency people and production company from New York, in summery clothes, shivering with cups of coffee in our hands. We shot the commercial, in between downbursts of ice, and ended up with just one good take, which we used. The other spots we shot that day were shot in other parts of MacArthur Park, and were all MOS (an old movie term that means silent, but allegedly comes from the mouth of a German Director who abbreviated his own term, Mit Out Sprechen, and it stuck), so we got them out of the way quickly and headed back to our hotel bar for warmth. One of our beautiful models cavorting in one of the spots was one of the two gorgeous daughters of Tommy Chong, either Robbi or Rae Dawn, and I wish I could remember which one.

Another footnote to the day and place -- MacArthur Park was the hangout of a lot of homeless people in the eighties (it might still be), and the catering that was provided for cast and crew, as usual, was much more than any such group of people could eat in a day.

It didn't go to waste -- we provided a veritable feast for the homeless of the area that day, giving them every edible morsel that was left -- and it was a lot.

Next time: Teaching and Learning.

Go West?

Seven years in Manhattan, surviving advertising's merger mania, and you'd be worn out, too. I needed a change of everything. Rich Capparela, the friend I drove west with, had made a name for himself in LA radio.

He was hosting an advertising awards show around the time I was involved in a commercial shoot out there, so I stretched my time in LA -- on my own dime -- and went. I had an idea that if I saw the kind of creative at the show that I would like to do, I might try to work at the shop that created it.

I did see some very well crafted, long copy ads for the Times Mirror. Thinking it was an LA agency, I wrote a note complementing the campaign, and received a letter back from the head of an agency in San Francisco. He was running a boutique shop inside a bigger shop, and was looking for someone to share the load.

TWISTED.

The man in charge wanted to fly me and my girl friend at the time, Wendy (a pretty, voluptuous research maven who worked at the Wall Street Journal) out for a series of interviews. This was flattering. I asked my friend Mary Van about this mucky-muck. (Mary is the one who had moved to New York on my advice, who later found for me my first real New York job at a real agency, and who was now in San Francisco with her British computer whiz husband and running a nice little ad consulting business of her own.)

She told me in very certain terms not to consider it. She said he was extremely difficult to work with, and had a bad reputation among creatives in the Bay Area. But he was willing to pay for two of us to come out for a long weekend, for a series of interviews. And, I thought, if this is my job, I can make it work. And if it's not, it's a free vacation for us.

Well, it wasn't my job, and it was no vacation. I knew that as soon as I realized what was going on. The mucky-muck, who was married, was having a relationship with his Italian-American Account Executive. The small group that worked for him were like his children. He was the bad daddy, taking up with the hussy.

In separate meetings, I realized what a dysfunctional family this really was. Wendy and I met with the mucky muck and his hussy for dinner. His snobbery was only exceeded by his petulance.

Wendy and I met with the art director and his wife at a beautiful waterside restaurant in Marin County. The AD was miserable, wanted to stay on his farm and never leave. I told him he should.

I met with the mucky-muck's mentor in the office. He took advantage of my nervousness, and put me through hell.

I met with the group for an input session, and then was ordered to go away and create an ad on my own. Advertising agencies don't work that way -- it's a cooperative effort, everybody adding something to the mix until the final outcome is greater than the sum of the parts. I did my best, which was pretty good, considering the pressure.

The final meeting was with everyone except the mucky-muck, at a lunch. It was like facing a firing squad, except over a nice, trendy, California meal. They all had rehearsed their questions, and fired them at me -- fortunately, one at a time instead of in a single, deafening, mortal volley.

By now, as much as I wanted to leave New York and be anywhere else, I knew this was exactly the wrong job for me. So about halfway through their questions, I formulated one sublime question of my own, and waited to ask it.

When their ammunition finally ran out, I asked them each to respond.

“What will the person in this job do?”

Each one responded just as you might expect – the prospect would solve all their problems, have the all answers, insulate them from nasty clients, speak for them, listen to them, advise them. Their cumulative picture of this person became crystal clear to me. And even if there had remained a slim chance of my getting the job, I willingly threw that away with my response.

“Well, the last person who answered that description was,” I said, carefully pausing for effect, “crucified.”

The meeting ended with embarrassed niceties, Wendy and I flew back to New York and the declination call came about two weeks later.

Next time: location, location, etc.