If you've got imposter syndrome, you're doing it right
You're a copywriter, not a poet. Unless you are a poet, I guess.
I’m not a poet.
I knock around with poets. I love a bit of poetry (one of my mates read his BDSM poem over cigars at my wedding. It was class. Find it in here) - and even have a specially commissioned poem framed in my front room. But I ain’t a poet.
I’m properly jealous of poets though. Because they get to write shit they like, in their own voice, to entertain themselves.
It’s linguistic onanism, basically, and that’d cheer anyone up. The lucky sods.
Unless you’re me, who tried to write a villanelle1 which paired “Dark Satanic Mills” with “Danny Mills is Fucking Brilliant” in an attempt to portray the angst of the Salfordian Leeds fan.
That just upset me even more.
Told you I’m not a poet.
But I was chatting to Hampson about imposter syndrome. And I know, a poet would come up with a better segue here.
We were chatting about how neither of us ever look at a piece of work, a landing page, an email, anything and say “fuck me, I am a great copywriter and no mistake.”
At best, we go with “that’s alright,” or “that looks like it’ll work.”
It’s because the whole point of what we do isn’t to write shit we like, in our own voices, to entertain ourselves.
It’s to sell.
To help our clients get their value across. It’s selfless. Or it would be if we didn’t charge an absolute shedload because we’re damn good at it. In the words of Campaign’s Maisie McCabe in a book I’m about to recommend…
"We should not forget there is nobility in encouraging people to buy great products at decent prices."
Now that doesn’t speak to the poetic soul every merciless capitalist copywriter surpresses so we can write about accounting software or car insurance or dog vitamins or whatever. So we feel like imposters.
But that’s not a flaw. It’s a sixth sense.
Imposter syndrome’s a sign you’re on the right track. Looking at a piece of work and saying “hmm, is this good enough?” is a sign you’re writing for someone else.
If you spend all day gazing adoringly at your work and huffing your own farts about how great you are, then you’re not writing copy. And you’re probably not writing for your clients. Or their customers.
You’re writing poetry.
That’s fine if you’re only doing it for yourself, or consenting partners. But wash your hands once you’re done, yeah?
And please, whatever you do, don’t ask your customers to pay you to do it at them.
Something mint - this book by Steve Harrison
While banished from my office earlier this month so the decorators could lay an actual floor, I caught up on a pair of books that’d been sitting on my shelf for a while.
Both by Steve Harrison. The first, a biography of Howard Gossage, was a lovely read. But the second, Can’t Sell, Won’t Sell, is the one that’s stuck with me.
I’m not a culture warrior. I’m in the “treat everyone decently regardless of race, gender, identity or sexual preferences (unless they support Chelsea) and basically let everyone get on with it” camp. So a lot of what Steve said about advertising being too focused on causes over results rang true.
But the bit that’s really stuck with me is that advertising has to be about empathy.
(I don’t like writing2 about politics, so here’s an attempt to offend everyone equally.)
You can’t just dismiss all the millions of Corbyn voters as Trotskyite fifth columnists who hate anyone marginally to the right of Chairman Mao, or write off half the population as thick racists who were obviously too jelly-brained to realise voting to leave the EU was an act of national suicide. And you can’t call the depoliticised majority who just want to put food on their tables spineless centrists who would’ve applauded the Nazis/Red Army/Roundheads marching down the high street.
You’ve got to realise people do the things they do because they think it’s a good idea.
You’ve got to understand people’s motivations instead of imposing values on them.
You don’t have to agree with what people say or do, or how they vote, but you need to understand them. Especially if you want to convince them.
Oh, and you’ve got to come up with a message that sells product. That’s the whole point of the gig.
Well worth a read, even if you disagree with every word.
“A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas.” - see, verbal wankery.
Get a pint in me though, we’ll be storming the Bastille in no time. I have Opinions.