Better Copywriting Through Poetry
Ad copy and poetry may be distant cousins on the writer's family tree, but they do share the same DNA, and working in one, or the other, or even both, means you are always looking for ways to engage with the reader, to connect.
Like poetry, ad copy benefits greatly from what is not being
said, as well as what is made plain.
This simple concept can be applied to almost any copywriting assignment, whether email, a script, blog post, Facebook ad, landing page, etc.
Keeping this idea foremost in your mind will invariably make you a better poet, and a better copywriter, capturing and holding the readers attention. Any long time advertising specialist will tell you that you have less than twenty seconds to make the sale, first impressions are that crucial, but holding them gets them to act.
This is why so much attention is focused on writing catchy
subject lines, slogans and hooks.
So you grabbed their attention. Now what?
Every James Bond movie ever made starts right off with action, even before the story, so the audience is invested right at the start. Any narrative work that starts in the middle – in medias res – and fills in the storyline through dialogue, flashbacks, or assumptions, requires the audience to impart some of their own knowledge and insights to understand what is happening in the story.
In poetry, the parts of themselves the reader must invest in order to parse your words are exactly the things that makes that particular poem resonate within the reader.
So let's look at some of the ways the craft of poetry can help elevate your copywriting to an art.
Show me, don't tell me
Remember your fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Applbaum, who smelled like talcum powder and peppermint, when she spent two long, hot weeks in September repeatedly going over the five W's of journalism?
They just popped into your head, didn't they?
Obviously, I don't know the exact name of your teacher, or when you learned Who, What, When, Where, and Why, but by painting that image, I managed to bring you along with me, until the concept I intended arrived unbidden.
Consider this piece by Ernest Thayer, from “Casey at the Bat”
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands,
and echo answered "Fraud!"
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience
was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his
muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go
by again.
The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, his teeth are
clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the
plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets
it go.
And now the air is shattered by the force of
Casey's blow.
The descriptive nature of these words put the reader into the
story, engaging them, and the same concept works in copywriting, helping the
audience place themselves in the situation, which assures their continued
interest beyond the cool headline or subject line. The only thing missing is a
beer and a pretzel.
Haiku before Epics
While it is true that some poets use a lot of embroidered language and baroque descriptives to draw their intent, (Alexander Pope, I'm looking at you) a great deal of the poetry with strength relies on cutting through the noise with an observation or premise that says everything required.
Email campaigns, chatbots, cut sheets, and many other types of copywriting require concise clarity in order to be effective. Flowery prose can muddy the useful information.
Brevity is the
soul of wit, as Shakespeare wrote.
Here is a poem by Basho Matsuo, one of Japan's foremost poets. Note how much is left unsaid, that you already understand.
In the
cicada's cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.
Engage my senses
If you look back at my first example, the hot September days and the smells associated with a grade-school teacher helped you to paint the mental image, and your mind filled in a LOT of raw data from your own memories, populating and adding details to your visualization.
This never could have happened without sensory memory. We all have memories triggered by stimuli we tend to associate with a particular sensory component of the memory; the smell of the hot dogs on sticks over a campfire, the way your first fish felt in your hand when you took it off the hook to set it free, the taste of mom's cooking, the song on the radio during your first kiss.
Sensory details are critical to immersion, both compelling
and propelling, they enrich your story and immerse the reader through their own
sensory data.
Here is a bit of Robert Frost - “After Apple Picking”
I
feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
Tennis without a net
Speaking of Robert Frost, he was a big fan of structured
verse, rhyme, meter, the many forms that had defined poetry since being handed
down from spoken word truthtellers around the fire in a cave. The ability to
count meter, adjust scansion, maintain a rhyme scheme, and still write
sentences that made sense, turned poets into rock stars for almost three
centuries.
Then free verse came along and dumped that apple cart over. Frost famously said
that writing free verse was like playing tennis without a net. But poetry
thrives because creativity cannot be contained. The same is true for copy.
The craft of copywriting has rules, like any other. You must
learn them cold, master them, turn them into muscle memory. Only then can you
break them when it suits you, to elevate your craft into art.
e.e. cummings broke all of the rules of poetry, including punctuation and capitalization. Here is a piece from “you shall above all things be glad and young”
...whose
any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that
you should ever think, may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.
I’d
rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
Feelings and emotions
It is not at all difficult to believe that poetry kind of
runs on feelings and emotions, but copywriting? The truth is, people buy with
their emotions. The decision to buy is made in the “gut” or the “heart” and
then the mind uses stats and facts to justify the purchase, all of it done
instinctively.
Copywriters who can draw you into the story, make you care about the outcome, are far more successful than those who merely state dry facts, product specs, or ROI.
Consider this piece called “The Mask” by
Kleis Val. Consider how the emotional aspect is resolved.
She
smiles, I cry.
She is outgoing, I am shy.
She loves, I am alone.
She is amazing, I am unknown.
She is beautiful, I am a mess.
She is happy, I am depressed.
My mask is perfect:
She hides me.
Create Bravely
A final correlation between poetry and copywriting is the ability, even the necessity, to be daring. A poet can say anything, no matter how outrageous, provocative, or divisive, as long as he is following his form. So can a copywriter.
How useful is hyperbole to a copywriter? A library full of books have been written on the subject. I'm certain you can think of several ads that were “over the top.” But creating bravely does not simply mean being outrageous. It means trying something new, taking something that works and breaking it, or swimming against the tide of your competition.
Elevate your ad copy to the level of political statement (if appropriate), social justice warrior, or educator. Use poetic elements like allegory, metaphor, or simile to evoke a broader response than your copy might warrant. Or simply say something that we need to hear, instead of want to hear.
Consider the much loved poem by Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise.”
’You
may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.’
Powerful words, and emotions, are the key to unlocking the readers attention, and immersion in your copy is the best way to ensure that the reader invests themselves into what they read, makes the emotional decision to heed your call to action, and follows through with the ultimate sale.
-----
Enjoyed this piece! Wrote ads myself for a Boston agency '76-78.
ReplyDelete