A Creative Communications Agency

When it comes to copywriting for advertising content, there are two different types. Ad Agency writing and writing for the web.

So what is Ad Agency copywriting?

It’s about selling brand image with a smart headline combined with short, well crafted body copy that drops a few ‘why you need the product’ benefits. What the copy implies is equally important as what is stated. Judging by the ads nowadays even short copy is overkill. Print ads contain a headline (some have no headline at all), no copy, logo and tagline (and no website address)—The photograph does the all the communication in synergy with the headline.

The creative force at work here is communication shorthand often produced by brilliant art directors and copywriters. For the viewer the entire message is there, they just have to stop long enough to be intrigued and sold. The power of these high-level communications messages is to convince and persuade the viewer that your brand is better, if not now, but, in the future.

The premise for shorthand communication is: people don’t read anymore, people have short attention spans, people have no time to read the plethora of publications, people are watching television, people are zapping the commercials…the list goes on.

People are bored and bored with corporate advertising yelling at them. People don’t like the being sold to.

So where are people and your audience?

Writing for the web

This is where people have gone, especially younger people. They spend more time at portals that offer news, entertainment, social networks and they research products and competing products before they make their buying decisions. In this environment, web surfers are looking for honest opinions and networked information about products and services—word of mouse. They reject suspicious corporate sales copy that blatantly sells to them—The kind of copy you see on every website, is rejected in favor of informal conversational copy written in a topical manner. Copy that talks to people as individuals.

This is the age of relevant online content, such as blogging, and people are reading, pages and pages of relevant content written in easier to absorb.

If you are to reach your target audience on the web, copy needs a different style approach than ‘Ad Agency copy. This is a topic that is big enough to write books so here are a few resource starting points:

A good overview article.

www.alistapart.com/articles/whoneedsheadlines

A good book by Maria Veloso that covers direct online selling.

Web Copy That Sells

www.webcopywritinguniversity.com

John Maskell

Creative Director