From the MIMA.org blog

EVENT RECAP – COPYWRITING IN A NEW MEDIA AND MARKETING ERA

Advertising and marketing professionals have all long known that great brands – and great campaigns – are primarily built on great ideas. And that developing and communicating great ideas depends on great copywriting. Just ask any copy writer.

Seriously though. The classics are memorable, in part, because they so clearly provoke strong emotional connections with the intended audience for the message.

Indeed. Traditionally its the copy writer’s ideas and words that tell us what we can expect. Consider: “Mm, Mm good.” Or they remind us about what we aspire to be. Such as: “Breakfast of champions.” Or they promise something new that will change our lives for the better. Who can forget: “Think small.” Just for context, in case these little gems are not part of your personal experience, they are examples are slogans from 60s-era campaigns for Campbell’s Soup, Wheaties and Volkswagen, respectively. Anyway. The list goes on and on. As you might have noticed, the media landscape has evolved and grown over the last decade (or two) to include new communication channels that offer more and more and more ways to get the word out about the product or service you want to promote.

At the same time, you may also have noticed that these new channels, while opening new opportunities to marketers, are also changing the way people respond to marketing messages and relate to brands. Essentially, new technologies like social media, mobile internet, radio frequency identification, geo-location and other “Dick Tracy-like” capabilities are rapidly reshaping the way consumers behave. The upshot of all this? The role of the writer, ever essential to the creative process and the creative product, is changing. Evolving. Growing. Even maturing?

Teressa Iezzi, editor of Advertising Age’s Creativity magazine wants to help us understand where our industry is headed – and how copy writers will continue to help drive results as the paradigm shifts force marketers to update the way they do their jobs. This must be a subject on the minds of many creative and marketing leaders these days. Because more than 200 MIMA members and guests, convened for the February monthly presentation to listen to ideas from her recently published book, The Idea Writer: Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era. (Kudos to the programming committee for bringing her in to speak with us. And a sincere thank you to Teresa for traveling here to share her experience and insights with us.)

The good news is: while technology innovations are driving the changes in how marketers and consumers interact, the fundamentals of human nature remain the same. So while copy writers may have an expanded set of tools to use to communicate ideas, their primary duty – to help create relationships with consumers is pretty much unchanged.

Basically, copy writers simply have more competencies they need to develop. Just like copy writers in the 90s had to learn to expand their range from ideating and writing print ads, direct mail, sales collateral, outdoor and broadcast to also include websites, banner ads and e-mails, copy writers today must continue to expand their repertoire to include social media, “apps” and more. Because developing effective ideas, depends on understanding the underlying technologies.

So the craft of copywriting is not dying. It is simply changing. From being mastery of writing to including mastery of conversation.  And being conversant with technology. Our industry will always need idea people. Word people. People who can take complex ideas and boil them down into something easy-to-read and easy-to-understand. (Like helping people quickly get the gist of an hour-long presentation that touches on a lot of great ideas.)

If you can do that, you’re golden. Writers who can engage readers will always be in demand. There will always be a need for Mm, Mm good ideas and writing.

Download the podcast (available soon, please check the Resources section next time you visit this website) and listen to the complete conversation for a number of practical insights. And be sure to leave your comments here, to share the key take aways you think are important.