Copywriting— Have fun while you earn

Have you ever watched an ad and thought to your self that you could have written a better story?

Have you ever actually collected print ads or even given serious thoughts to them?

Have you ever heard a radio jingle and wished really badly that you’d have written it?

If you happened to nod your head in the affirmative to any of the above mentioned questions then welcome on board you have a copywriter lurking inside you somewhere!

Copywriting is one of the most interesting and challenging jobs for a creative mind.

The job entails writing ads for various media. That is, for an average copywriter. But, a great copywriter doesn’t just give words to an idea s/he conceptualizes the entire storyline and layout very much like a story teller painstakingly pointing out every detail of the layout for the print ads or story for the TVC.

One must be able to use correct words and place them beautifully in a meaningful and persuasive communication, because copywriting is selling through products or ideas through ads. So, one must be able to write in a manner that would actually get the Target Audience to spend its hard-earned money on the product/idea advertised for.

Ads are also written to achieve a certain purpose of dissuading a person from doing something. Most of the social ads come under this category whereby one exhorts the public to refrain from killing a tiger, chopping a tree or stopping female foeticide, to name a few.

To understand the job of copywriting one must have an idea of the two major types of advertising which are:

1. ATL- above the line advertising is writing for the traditional media viz. TV, radio and print. Internet is also leaping towards finding a place in this category with the world finding itself tangled in the net all the time.
2. BTL-below the line advertising includes writing ads for pamphlets, posters, brochures, hoardings and other such media.

One needs no formal qualification to be a copywriter but certain attributes are indeed necessary to be able to write meaningful and useful ads. Hence, the five main elements of a copywriter are:

a. Excellent command over a language and the ability to play around with the words to get the desired communication across to the TA.

b. Keen sense of observation-one must know the culture, language and the general way of life of the TA to be able to write something that appeals to them.

c. Loads of experience- not in the terms of age rather as a by-product of observation of one’s surrounding. One of the greatest copywriters of all time David Ogilvy was of the view that the best of ads come from one’s experiences in life.

d. Eccentricity- one would require to write all sorts of ads be it emotional or humorous ads and to do this one would need to shed one’s inhibitions. Therefore, a generous amount of eccentricity is indeed needed to excel in this field.

e. The only formal qualification needed, if any, to be a copywriter is graduation. So, if you can ideate an ad there’s nothing else that a firm would require of you.

None of the stalwarts of this field learnt their trade from a formal course and none of the present big guns of copywriting have done it either. People from fields as diverse as engineering to marketing have excelled in the field of copywriting merely because of their language skill, creativity and observation of their surroundings.

And in any case there’s hardly any formal course in copywriting for the simple reason that no course can make you creative. You of course can train yourself to enhance the creativity that lies within but to enhance something you need to first have it.

However, as part of the syllabus of various courses on mass communication a few lessons are also given on copywriting.

One course that is exclusively for the copywriters is the Crafting Creative Communication course offered by MICA. It’s a six month regular course. The fees is 2.5 lakh plus. Loans are available from various banks for this. www.mica.ac.in is the site to check out. One needs to apply online and appear for an aptitude test. They however, do no provide placements.

A copywriter can work in an ad agency, publishing houses or TV and radio channels or can also freelance.

Besides being creatively satisfying copywriting is also a very well paid job. Creative people are one of the highest paid peop0le in the ad world. The starting may not be as good financially but in the long run if you can establish yourself as an excellent copywriter then you can have it all- fame, success and money.

You may start as a trainee and follow the hierarchy thereafter.