Gear up to cover more creative ground.

I rode my bike the nine miles to work today. I live in a farming community outside a small city, and take a route comprised entirely of two-lane roads with no stoplights and very little shoulder.

I passed hulking blueberry bushes bursting with fruit and nearly obscuring the hand-painted sign reading "pickers wanted." Unnaturally still cornfields with leaves like a pair of corduroy pants I had hated in the fifth grade. Dusty swaths of potatoes flowering in faded-quilt colors: eggplant, butter, cream. The river a muddy smear, motionless and sullen.

I felt I was barely moving, too. My legs were churning and creating a happy cicada whirr in the gears, but I felt mired, as though I were pedaling through that thick river. Sleepiness was the culprit for my hazy thought process, and after a mile or so I woke up enough to look down and realize I was in the wrong gear.

By George6996 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

At that rate, as the road curved out from the woods into sprawling golden fields, gearing up didn't cost me much more effort, but my speed increased rather dramatically. I finally felt the morning open up around me and my bicycle begin to eat up the road. I passed the Tim's Upholstery sign on the side of a barn and the big, scruffy eagle's nest in the crag by the railroad tracks, and I thought about the day's work ahead of me.

First on my list was revising a web page that had been reviewed the previous day. "Why didn't you include such-and-such new product in the comps?" the client had asked. "Well, we hadn't been told about that product." Minor details.

The week before, my rewriting talents had been strained to the breaking point with a similar issue. "This page is actually for two audiences: the one that knows about our product and the one that doesn't. Can you rewrite to address both?"

Working with limited information is like riding a bike in the wrong gear: you can churn and churn and churn, but you're getting nowhere fast. But knowing all the products, all the audiences, all the strategic imperatives up front lets the team slide into that lovely, purring rhythm of productivity, making time, pounding out the miles of creative work.

My ancient Trek and I flickered past the country market, the ramshackle houses of the edge of town, past the cement factory and the broad, glittering expanse of Puget Sound. I pedaled hard, eager to get to that copy now that I could rewrite it in high gear.

How to Make Words Do More Work

When you only have a few words to communicate a big idea, as in a tagline or a headline, you've got to make them do a lot of work.

In physics, doing work means acting on a body and creating displacement. In thermodynamics, work refers to energy transfer from one system to another. Likewise, when copy does work, it has an effect on the intended audience. Word for word, headlines have to do a lot more work than copy-heavy ads like this one.*

But how to string together a few measly words to make a really big statement? One way is to use double meaning, either with single words or phrases or with the way they're couched.

Netflix uses this device to great effect in their new campaign.

Tagline: "You gotta get it to get it."

The tagline, of course, means that you must be a subscriber to Netflix in order to understand the meaning of the image. (In this case, you really just need to be a child of the 80s, but that's beside the point.) The repetition of the phrase "get it" to capture each meaning creates a nice rhythm and sound, and the double meaning allows the tagline to do a great deal of work.

On their web site, Nike presents a succinct tagline with two meanings of "fit":

"Introducing the Nike Pro Rival Bra, the ultimate fit for the ultimate workout."

The idea of becoming physically fit is overlaid by the concept of a bra that fits well. Again, they've used the same word twice.

Double meaning in this sense is a like a pun, but it's not humorous; nor is it a double entendre, which implies that one of the meanings is, shall we say, indelicate. Whatever it's called, this device is used often in ads, and also in poetry.

Until "Evening Walk," however, I'd never seen an entire line, or series of lines, in a poem serve as a pun. Poet Charles Simic uses non-humorous puns in words and phrases to create uncertainty and double meaning which lead to a deep yin-yang tension. Here's the first stanza:

You give the appearance of listening
To my thoughts, O trees,
Bent over the road I am walking
On a late summer evening
When every one of you is a steep staircase
The night is slowly descending.

In the third line, are the trees bending over the road? Or, in a more Yoda-like construction, maybe the speaker is walking down the road, bent over. Is it late in the evening, or late in the summer--or both? At the end of this stanza, the trees are each a staircase, implying upward movement. (Will the speaker be ascending to heaven?) But this image is immediately reversed in the next line: instead, night is descending those staircases. The reader gets the sense of both upward and downward movement, and of lightness and darkness, at the same time.

Poems are written to be read, but (unfortunately for the word-lovers of this world) ads, brochures, and web sites can't be. They must be written on the assumption that they'll only be skimmed. I'd like to see (or write) a tagline or headline that can use a pun to create as beautiful and delicate a balance, and do as much work, as "Evening Walk."

Photo by Lynne Kirton [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

*By the numbers, each word in the Netflix ad must do approximately 135 times as much work as those in the Lien Foundation ad, although of course that's not how it works at all.

5 Better Taglines for Transformative Pencils

The tagline here reads: "You never know what a child could do with a pencil." Sounds kind of scary, to me. If you're a parent, you know. Your toddler could stab his sister in the eye with it, or stick it in a light socket, or eat it...the possibilities are endless.

This ad is trying to communicate "the possibilities are endless," too, but perhaps not in just that way. The copy here is clunky and easily misinterpreted; it also has no style, no rhythm, no flow, and no poetry.

What about something like...

1. Now that's a pencil with potential.
2. Pencils create change.
3. Just imagine what a pencil can become.
4. Pencils can transform people.
5. The potential of a pencil.

Now, these ads (see the rest here) are from Spain. Are they translated? That could explain the clumsy language. In my limited experience, the answer would be no, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Via Ads of the World

Never underestimate the power of the superlative negative imperative.

This cute ad by AlmapBBDO for Bauducco Toast (via Ads of the World) succeeds by pairing an attention-grabbing image with a very strong sentence.

Here's exactly what makes it work:

• The tagline uses the prohibitive mood (no, not "Watch out, kids, I'm in a prohibitive mood tonight!"--I mean the grammatical one);
• The tagline echoes several pop culture phrases and memes; and
• The ad forces the reader to make a cognitive connection between the image and the copy, unifying them into a greater whole.  

"Don't Be in a Prohibitive Mood" Is In the Prohibitive Mood

It's important to understand what makes words powerful.  For example, "Stop!" is a pretty powerful word, but why? Because it's an imperative. It tells you what to do.

The imperative mood is a grammatical feature of verbs that command: verbs conjugated in this mood (such as "stop doing that," "write it now," "drink up," etc.) command an action.

The pairing of an imperative with a negative modifier (adverb or adjective) is called the prohibitive mood: "do not," for example. Using a superlative (a word describing the utmost degree of something: best, last, most, least, etc.) like "never" makes this command form extremely strong...well, actually, the strongest it can be. So "never underestimate" is superlatively prohibitive--and very strong.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Pissed Off Woman

"Never underestimate" is a bit of pop culture, too, starting popular phrases like this one

and many others, from FDR ("never underestimate a man who overestimates himself") to rampant internet memes like this one. So it's familiar and it flows off the tongue, and it helps to transmit broader cultural ideas* which in this case are also related to imperatives ("never, always," etc.), helping to underscore the message that the brand is putting across, the "we want you to do X" message, i.e., "buy our toast."

1+1=3

This ad is synergistic: it's more than the sum of its parts. The image doesn't work without the tagline; the tagline doesn't work without the image, but together, they're a thing of beauty. The image grabs you ("ha ha! made ya look!") and the tagline provides the payoff--and makes you look even closer.

Brand? What Brand?

It's a great ad, with great copy that really works well. And certainly you'll walk away from it with the concept that toast is more than just a vehicle for jam. But will you remember which brand of toast is so much better? That remains to be seen...



*Wikipedia actually has a pretty interesting discussion of memes; see especially Reference 1.

Waaaaa-hoo! Dialogue can include features and benefits if done well.

Blending features and benefits into a natural-sounding story is not the easiest thing in the world, but the copywriters at Doner managed without any grinding of gears in their new AutoTrader spots featuring the Dukes of Hazzard. (Read about the campaign here.) In 90 total seconds, the three spots manage to show viewers that AutoTrader's new app lets them:

• Search by specific features, such as Bluetooth and traction control
• Get alerts about new cars and price reduction
• Save a search and continue later, even on another device 

The dialogue between the Duke brothers* also demonstrates the benefit of using AutoTrader: it allows them—and other customers—to find a car with more speed and options like a backup camera and doors that open. J

Despite the many features and benefits** they've worked in, the copywriting team is spot-on in tone, managing to blend 21st-century digital speak with 1980s good-ole-boy chit-chat in a way that doesn't feel incongruous or forced. Bo's line, "Pick it up on my tablet," sounds just as if he were suggesting that he and Luke pick up Route 73 out behind the old covered bridge.

I do wonder about the demographic they're hitting. Is AutoTrader's primary audience my age—that is, old enough to remember the Dukes of Hazzard? I'd *hazard* a guess that AutoTrader really should be talking more to millennials, and I'm not sure whether these spots will appeal as much to that age group.

I'm also curious about why a Dodge Viper SRT was chosen as the #New01 (nice hashtag) instead of a new Charger, to parallel the original General Lee, or Dodge's sexy new muscle car, the Challenger. The Viper SRT is an expensive car—around $125,000 new, as opposed to around $27,000 for a new Challenger. Would someone shopping for a Viper SRT even use AutoTrader? (AutoTrader couldn't find a Viper SRT for sale in my area.)

Demographics issues and personal muscle car preferences aside, these ads rock from idea to execution. Great work.

*Disclaimer: Bo and Luke Duke could sell just about anything to me. I may be biased.

**Please note: I did not call these RTBs because I don’t want to slit my wrists after publishing this post.

Not Good Enough

Today, in two separate publications, I read about two different writers I admire being given the same advice: "You're not good enough for writer's block."

The first was Pete Hamill, author of Forever (think Highlander, not Judy Blume) and A Drinking Life, among other works. It was actually "You're not important enough for writer's block," and according to today's Writer's Almanac, was told to Hamill by a friend before he wrote his first novel. (I also learned that Hamill was not only friends with Bobby Kennedy but was present at Kennedy's assassination and helped tackle the shooter. I love Writer's Almanac.)

The second was Cal McAllister, founder and executive creative director of Wexley School for Girls, an agency I've had a crush on for ages. In an interview in today's Communication Arts, McAllister talks about his Creative Circus advisor giving him this advice. In a different interview, last year for Seattle Creative Mornings, he says this advice taught him to be "tireless and humble."

I haven't posted for awhile because I haven't thought up anything super smart or creative lately. My husband and I are buying a house and it's my first mortgage experience, so I've been letting myself off the hook as mentally exhausted.

But I'm not good enough to be too exhausted to write. I have to practice and I have to spew words until my fingertips are bruised from banging the keyboard. Practice, hone, be tireless and humble. And write.

Thanks, Pete and Cal. I needed the reminder that I'm not good enough…yet.

Astute Alliteration is Always Apropos

I had a nice lunch with my husband at our favorite dive bar, The Grand Avenue Alehouse. The plucky barkeep, Pootie (don't ask), she of the outrageously loud and contagious laugh, served my Manny's Pale Ale on a Fat Tire coaster.

Collateral materials such as beer-branded coasters are a great way to get your brand's name in front of consumers at the exact right time, and this Fat Tire coaster was one of the best I've ever seen.

This is a great line of copy, for a number of reasons:

• It's brief and therefore easy to remember. 
• It uses both alliteration and consonance* so that it rolls off the tongue. (By design or happy accident--I'd guess a combination of both--these poetic devices are repeated in ever other phrase appearing on this coaster: tire and amber are consonant; amber and ale are alliterative; etc.)
• It pokes a little fun of wine pairing, emphasizing the simplicity and sociability of beer.

You may have noticed that this coaster isn't square or circular, as most are. That's because it's not just a coaster; it doubles as a postcard.

There; that's what this annoyingly alliterative, copiously consonant copywriter calls marvelous marketing.



*Whereas alliteration is a repeated sound at the beginning of two or more words, such as pairs and people, well and with, consonance is a repeated consonant sound within a word (called an interior sound), such as the L sound in well and people. (FYI, assonance is a repeated interior vowel sound, such as the long A in rain, Spain, main, and plain.)