Talk to any copywriter and within minutes, they’ll find a way to let you know how terribly clever they are. Nonsense, you say?

Obviously, you don’t know any copywriters.

As a young student of my craft, I daydreamed of a time when my client’s copy needs could be served by my self-proclaimed ‘charming sense of humor and delightfully unique way of looking at things.’ (Please see aforementioned blurb of how we like to talk up our witty nature.)

So imagine my dismay, in my first real copywriting job, when I discovered that not every element, for every client, across every medium needs to be a whimsical, copy-driven romp. At the time, I couldn’t understand why someone in a supermarket wouldn’t stop to read and chuckle at my four well-crafted sentences of body copy in a POS piece. *It should be noted that I was struggling with this prior to any personal attempt at wheeling a screaming toddler through the produce aisle at a H-E-B.

With time and experience, I accepted what was initially a spirit-crushing realization: if it’s a promotion to win a truck, sometimes all you have time to say to effectively get someone’s attention is, “Win a Truck.” You are no less a copywriter for it. In fact, you are a stronger creative because you  know the difference between writing to get a desirable customer outcome, as opposed to writing to simply amuse yourself, and perhaps your surly creative director.

So, how do you like your advertising? Which ones catch your attention? Can you recite (without Googling) any recent campaign’s copy message and the brand to which it’s associated? Talk amongst yourselves.