Body Copy
The body copy is the text of the ad and its primary role is to maintain the interest
of the reader. It is the persuasive heart of the message. It develops the sales
message, states the argument, summarizes the proof, and provides explanation. It
is the persuasive heart of the message. The Matter of Principle feature in this
chapter explains the logic and message strategy behind Nike’s women’s
campaign, which focuses on self-awareness.
Two paragraphs get special attention in body copy: the lead paragraph and the
closing paragraph. The lead, the first paragraph of the body copy, is another point
where people test the message to see if they want to read it. Closing paragraphs in
body copy serve several functions. Usually the last paragraph refers back to the
creative concept and wrap up the Big Idea. Direct-action messages usually end
with a call to action with instructions on how to respond.
Print Media Requirements
Media in the print category, which include newspapers, magazines, outdoor
boards, and product literature, all use the same copy elements, such as headlines
and body copy. However, the way these elements are used varies with the
objectives for using the medium.
Magazines offer better quality ad production, which is important for brand image
and high-fashion advertising. Consumers may clip and file advertising that ties in
with the magazine’s special interest as reference information. This type of
magazine ad can be more informative and carry longer copy than do newspaper
ads. Publicity writers and copywriters take care to craft clever phrasing for the
headlines and the body copy, which may sometimes read more like poetry.
Directories that provide contact information, such as addresses or phone numbers,
often carry display advertising. In writing a directory ad, copywriters advise using
a headline that focuses on the service or store personality unless the store’s name
is a descriptive phrase. Complicated explanations don’t work well because of
space limitations. Putting in information that is subject to change can become a
problem because the directory is published only once a year.
Posters and outdoor boards are primarily visual, although the words generally try
to catch consumers’ attention and lock in an idea, registering a message. The most
important characteristic of copywriting for outdoor advertising is brevity. The
copy must catch attention and be memorable.An effective poster is built around a
creative concept that marries the words with the visual.
Sometimes called collateral materialsbecause they are used in support of a
campaign, brochures, pamphlets, and other materials provide details about a
product, company, or event. They can be as varied as hang tags in new cars or
bumper stickers.
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Typically, product literature is a heavy-copy format or at least a format that
provides room for explanatory details along with visuals; the body copy may
dominate the piece. For a pamphlet with folds, the writer must also consider how
the message is conveyed as the piece is unfolded.
Radio Messages and How to Write Them
Ads that are broadcast on either radio or television are usually 15, 30, or 60
seconds in length, although 10- and 15-second spots may be used for brand
reminders or station identification. This short length means the commercials must
be simple enough for consumers to grasp, yet intriguing enough to prevent
viewers from switching the station. That’s why creativity is important to create
clutter-busting ads that break through the surrounding noise and catch the
listener’s attention.
Radio is pervasive in that it surrounds many of our activities, but it is seldom the
listener’s center of attention. Because radio is a transitory medium and listeners
are usually in the car or doing something else, the ability of the listener to
remember facts is limited. That’s why copywriters repeat the key points of brand
name and identification information.
Radio’s special advantage, referred to as theater of the mind, is that the story is
visualized in the listener’s imagination. Radio copywriters imagine they are
writing a musical play that will be performed before an audience whose eyes are
closed. The copywriter has the theatrical tools of voices, music, and sound effect,
but no visuals.
Tools of Radio Copywriting
In radio advertising, the tools are the audio elements the copywriter uses to craft a
commercial: voice, music, and sound effects.
The most important element in radio advertising is the human voice, which is
heard in songs, spoken dialogue, and announcements. Most commercials use an
announcer either as the central voice or at the closing to wrap up the product
identification. The voices specified by the writer helps listeners ‘see’ the
personalities in the brand message.
In radio, speaking style should match the speech of the target audience. We talk
in short sentences, sentence fragments, and use run-ons. We use contractions that
would drive an English teacher crazy. Effective copywriting picks up the nuances
of people’s speech so it will sound natural.
Principle:Radio copywriters try to match their dialogue to the conversational
style of the target audience.
Music is as important as the voice in radio writing. It can be used behind the
dialogue to create mood and establish the setting. The primary use of music is a
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jingle, which is a commercial in song. Radio copywriters understand the interplay
of catchy phrases and “hummable” music that creates little songs that stick in our
minds.
Organizations can have a piece of music composed for a commercial or borrow it
from previously recorded songs. Numerous music libraries sell stock music that is
not copyrighted. In addition to customer-made jingles, many jingle houses create
“syndicated” jingles made up of a piece of music sold to several different local
advertisers in different markets around the country. One of the most famous
jingles of all time was the song, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” produced
for Coca-Cola in 1969 by its agency, McCann-Erickson. Surveys continue to
identify it as one of the best commercials of all time.
Sound effects are the icing on the radio message. The sound of seagulls,
automobile horns honking, and the cheers of fans at a stadium all create images in
our minds to cue the setting and drive the action. Sound effects help make a
commercial attention-getting and memorable. Sound effects can be original, but
more often they are taken from sound-effect librarieson CDs or online.
The Practice of Radio Copywriting
Below is a list of guidelines for writing effective radio commercials that address the
distinctive characteristics of radio advertising:
Keep it personal. Radio advertising has an advantage over print – the human
voice. The copy for radio ads should use conversational language – as if
someone is talking with the consumer rather than selling to the consumer.
Speak to listeners’ interests. Radio offers specialized programming to target
markets. Listeners tune in to hear music, but talk radio is popular too.
Copywriters design commercials to speak to that audience interest and use the
appropriate music and tone of voice.
Wake up the inattentive. Most people who are listening to the radio are doing
something else at the same time. Radio spots are designed to break through
and capture attention in the first three seconds with sound effects, music,
questions, commands, or something unexpected.
Make it memorable. To help the listener remember what you are selling,
commercial copy should mention the name of the product emphatically and
repeat it. An average of three mentions in a 30-second commercial and five
mentions in a 60-second commercial are recommended, as long as the
repetition is not done in a forced and/or annoying manner.
Include call to action. The last thing listeners hear is what they tend to
remember, so copywriters make sure the product is it. In radio, this is
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especially important since there is no way to show a picture of the product or
its label.
Create image transfer. Radio advertisements are sometimes designed to link
to a television commercial. Called image transfer, the visuals from the
television version are recreated in a listener’s mind by the use of key phrases
and ideas from the television commercial.
Writers working on a radio commercial use a standard radio script format to
write the copy to certain time blocks—all the words, dialogue, lyrics, sound
effects, instructions, and descriptions. The instructions and descriptions are to
help the producer tape the commercial so that it sounds exactly as the copywriter
imagined. The script format usually has the source of the audio written down the
left side and the content on the right. The instructions and descriptions, anything
that isn’t spoken, are typed in capital letters.
Television Messages and How to Write Them
Television writers understand that it is the moving image—the action—which
makes television so much more engaging than print. The challenge for the writer
is to fuse the images with the words to present not only a creative concept, but
also a story. One of the strengths of television is its ability to reinforce verbal
messages with visuals or reinforce visuals with verbal messages.
Principle:In great television commercials, words and pictures work together
seamlessly to deliver the creative concept through sight, sound, and motion.
Television’s ability to touch our emotions and to show us things – to demonstrate
how they look and work – make television highly persuasive.
Effective television messages are written to maximize the dramatic aspects of
moving images and storytelling, as the A Matter of Practice feature in this chapter
explains about the emotional pivot in a story.
Dramatic stories with high emotion, as well as demonstrations, are just a few of
the techniques used in television writing. Others are:
Action. Good television messages use the effect of action and motion to attract
attention and sustain interest.
Demonstration.Seeing is believing. Believability and credibility, the essence
of persuasion, are high because we believe what we see with our own eyes.
Storytelling.Television is our society’s master storyteller because of its ability
to present plot and the action that leads to a conclusion in which the product
plays a major role.
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Emotion. The ability to touch the feelings of the viewer makes television
commercials entertaining, diverting, amusing, and absorbing.
Tools of Television Writing
Television writers have two primary toolkits: audio and visual. Both words and
pictures are designed to create exactly the right impact. Because of the number of
visual and audio elements as well as the many ways they can be combined, a
television commercial is among the most complex of all brand communication
forms. It is also ideal for storytelling.
When we watch a commercial, we are more aware of what we are seeing than
anything else. Copywriters keep in mind that visuals and motion, the silent speech
of film, should convey as much of the messageas possible. Likewise, emotion,
which is the effect created by storytelling, is expressed convincingly in facial
expressions, gestures, and other body language. Because television is theatrical,
many of the copywriter’s tools, such as characters, costumes, sets and location,
props, lighting, optical and computerized special effects, and on-screen graphics,
are similar to those you would use in a play, television show, or movie.
As in radio, the three audio elements are music, voices, and sound effects, but
they are used differently in television commercials because they are connected to
a visual image.
A common manipulation of the camera-announcer relationship is the voice-over,
in which an announcer who is not visible describes some kind of action on the
screen. Sometimes a voice is heard off camera, which means you can’t see the
speaker and the voice is coming from the side, behind, or above.
Dialogue, both in radio and television, is an interesting challenge for writers who
try to keep the words natural and the interaction interesting. In some ads, the
repartee between characters is as important to the message as the words
themselves. Dialogue between Jack the Rabbit and Larry the Lynx from the
“Leather Seats” commercial is featured in the textbook as an example of this.
Music is also important. Sometimes it is just used as background, other times the
song is the focus of the message. In recognition of the role of music in
advertising, Universal Music released a CD called “As Seen on TV: Songs from
Commercials.” It is a collection of tunes that have become popular, or have been
resurrected, thanks to their use in television commercials.
Other creative tools that support the story line are the setting, casting, costumes,
props, and lighting, all of which the writer must describe in the script. The setting,
or set, is where the action takes place. It can be something in the studio, from a
simple tabletop to a constructed set that represents a storefront or the inside of a
home, or it can be a computer creation layered behind the action. Video shot
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outside the studio are said to be filmed on location, which means the entire crew
and cast are transported somewhere away from the studio.
For many brand messages, the most important element is the people, who are
called talent. Finding the right person for each role is called casting. People can
be cast as announcers, spokespersons, character types, or celebrities.
Costumes and makeup can be an important part of the story, depending upon the
characterizations in the commercial. The director usually manipulates the lighting,
but the writer might specify special lighting effects in the script.
Writers might have to specify the commercial’s pace—how fast or slow the action
progresses.
Planning the TV Commercial
Writers must plan how long the commercial will be, what shots will appear in
each scene, what the key visual will be, and where and how to shoot the
commercial. In addition, the copywriter has to consider the length, number of
scenes, and key frames. Other key decisions the copywriter must consider in
planning a commercial are the length, number of scenes, and key frames.
The common lengths of TV commercials are 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 seconds. The
10-, 15-, and 20-second lengths are used as reminders and product or station
identification. The 60-second spot, which is common in radio, has almost
disappeared in television because of the increasing cost of airtime. The most
common length for a TV commercial is 30 seconds.
A commercial is planned in scenes—segments of action that occur in a single
location. A scene may include several shots from different angles. A 30-second
commercial usually is planned with four to six scenes, but a fast-paced
commercial may have many more. Because television is a visual medium, the
message is often developed from a key visual that contains the heart of the
concept. The key frame is that visual that sticks in the mind and becomes the
image that viewers remember when they think about the commercial.
Writers need to answer many questions such as: How much product information
should be in the commercial? Should the action be fast or slow? Is it wise to defy
tradition and create an unusual, even controversial ad? How intrusive should the
ad be?
Two documents are used to plan commercials: a television script prepared by the
copywriter and a storyboard drawn by the art director. Similar to a radio script, a
TV script is the written version of the commercial’s plan. It contains all the
words, dialogue, lyrics, instructions, and descriptions of the details. The key to the
structure of a television script is the relationship between the audio and the video.
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A storyboard, which is the visual plan or layout of the commercial, is drawn by
hand or on the computer to show the number of scenes, the composition of the
shots, and the progression of the action. A photo boarduses photographic stills
instead of art to illustrate the progression of images. It is created from the still
photos or frames from the filming and is used to present to clients.
The Internet and How to Write for It
The Web is more interactive than any other mass medium. Not only does the
viewer initiate the contact, but they can respond as well. This makes the Internet
more like two-way communication, and that’s a major point of difference from the
other advertising forms. As a result, the Internet writer is challenged to attract
people to the site and to manage a dialogue-based communication experience.
It is true, however, that there are forms of Internet advertising that look like more
traditional ads, such as banners, sidebar ads, and pop-ups. E-mail and video ads,
as well as mobile ads on smart phones, all require variations of traditional
copywriting techniques. Most of these formats end with a link to the sponsor’s
website where the user can participate in a more interactive experience.
Principle:To write great copy for the Web, copywriters must think of it as an
interactive medium and open up opportunities for dialogue with the consumer.
In this complicated, fast-changing medium, there aren’t a lot of rules. In fact,
marketing communication that uses text messaging and Twitter may even throw
out the rules of spelling with vowel-free words. Internet writers write everything
from catchy phrases for banners to copy that works like traditional
advertisements, brochures, or catalogs.
Websites
The challenge for Internet writers is to understand the user’s situation and design
messages that fit their needs and interests. However, the Web is an informational
medium and users come to it, in some cases, for reference information – formats
that look a lot like catalogs or even encyclopedias. Keywords are used to help
visitors or surfers search for the site online, as well as within the site for the
information they need. Creativity is also valued both to entice visitors, but also to
keep them actively involved with the site.
Banners
The most common form of online advertising are small banner ads containing
text, images, and perhaps motion (animation). Banners in this small format have
to be creative to stand out amidst the clutter on a typical Web page and, similar to
outdoor advertising, they have to grab the surfer’s attention with few words.
Effective banners arouse the interest of the viewer, who is often browsing through
other information on the computer screen. It is critical to make the site easy to
navigate.
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COPYWRITING CHALLENGES
The copywriter’s job is to find a memorable way to express the creative concept.
All of the copywriter’s talent will do no good if the audience cannot understand
the “magic words.” This is particularly complicated in global brand
communication.
Writing for a Global Brand
Language affects the presentation of the message, which is a problem for global
campaigns. English is more economical than many other languages. Standardizing
the copy content by translating the appeal into the language of the foreign market
is fraught with possible communication blunders. It is rare to find a copywriter
who is fluent in both the domestic and foreign language and familiar with the
culture of the foreign market.
Headlines in any language often rely on humor, a play on words, or slang.
Because these verbal techniques don’t cross borders well, writers remove them
from international campaigns unless the meaning or intent can be recreated in
other languages. For this reason, international campaigns are not literally
translated. Instead, a copywriter usually rewrites them in the second language.
The major distinction in cross-cultural communication is between high-context
and low-context cultures. In high-context cultures, a message can be best
understood when interpreted within contextual cues. In a low-context culture, a
message can be understood as it stands.
Experience suggests that the most reasonable solution to the language problem is
to use bilingual copywriters who understand the full meaning of the English text
and can capture the essence of the message in the second language. A back
translation of the ad copy from the foreign language into the domestic one is
always a good idea, but it seldom conveys a complete cultural interpretation.
The most recent announcement on the global stage is the opening up of the
Internet to non-Roman letters, such as those used in Chinese, Korean, and Arabic.
It’s a challenge to develop translations for these languages so that a posting can be
read in its original language, as well as in Roman-letter alphabets. However,
technology is making this possible.
END-OF-CHAPTER SUPPORT
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