Creativity? Forget what you knew! (Part three)
By Paul Ugoagwu (ugoagwupaul@yahoo.com)
Thursday, November 1, 2007

You could call it child labour in today’s parlance. But in our younger days nobody saw it that way. My parents (like many parents of that time) tried all sorts to keep food on the table. But one of the ways we were made to reciprocate was through street hawking. As the youngest of three sons, I had my allotted stock. We would map out the streets in our small community and fan out in different directions using the best method we knew to draw attention to our wares. Some of tricks we inherited from veterans who could sell snow to Eskimos. Some of the tricks we invented through experience. Our major wares were perishables like tomato and pepper. Sometimes plantain would be added.

As we left the house, my mother would say a prayer and urge us on to make it a sell out. Sometimes when the particular good was in season and competition was high, she would follow up with incentives like promising us (if we sold out) a new pair of rubber sandals (a luxury in those days) or a new pair of shorts (always a welcome change as those were the only thing we wore).

We would look at mother’s face and we would know instinctively that a lot was riding on our outing for that day. And fired by such sentiments and the added incentives, we would take the streets by storm and compete among one another for the highest sales.

My brothers were more experienced. They would sing and dance before prospective customers. They would weep before doubting prospects telling them mother would show no understanding if they returned to the house without selling. With those wares delicately balanced on their heads, they would entertain on-lookers with stunts that would make Jackie Chan look amateurish. I soon created my own style. I would visit some of my teachers (who thought I was one of the bright kids in the class) and those ones would buy gladly from me. I would mimic any dialect to catch the attention of various ethnic groups. We used every devise under heaven to sell. And we did try! My mother was very proud of us and, believe this or not, we were the reference point for good children who did not specialize in asking parents for sweets and biscuits but who contributed to the family earnings!

Mind you, although we sometimes entertained our audience with our dance and cry, we knew our home video entertainment must bring results. We must sell. It was not enough to sell some. We must sell out day after day. I must also tell you this: We did not always fancy the goods we sold. But we were in no position to choose our stock. Mother determined all that.

She simply passed our allotted portion to us and off we would go. It did not help much either that some other children hawked nicer things like bathroom slippers, provisions and second hand clothes. Why mother kept giving us tomatoes and pepper to sell remained a mystery to us. Could it be because we were poorer than other folks? The goods we sold had life spans. So a deadline came each stock. If we didn’t sell, there would not only be no money for food, the goods would perish and mother would lose. We were under constant pressure to deliver! We must sell.

This in a nutshell captures the copywriter’s job and makes it different from other forms of writing. I have delved into my not so rosy past to illustrate the murky nature of writing copies for advertisers of goods and services. Why our creative standard is taking a nose dive today is that there are many pretenders to the throne of copywriting who would fare better in other literary kingdoms.

Believe me, I don’t mean to be rude and I am by no means making copywriting superior to other kinds of writing. It is not. As a matter of fact, it is more limiting (pardon the pun) than other creative writing. And until recently, it is less lucrative. All the great copywriters I have known have remained pathetically poor. Like Nelson Mandela’s slogan, the job is their life. The copywriter you just told there would be no salary review at the end of the year would brighten up if you announced to him that his television commercial has been approved by client. The psychology of winning, the thrill of creating and the promise of fame are always more rewarding than the pay-slip.

Copywriters write to sell, simple. We conceive ideas and write those ideas so that we can sell a product or service. A poet can wake up in the middle of the night and write about the moon and the stars and how wonderful the world is. We don’t have such luxuries. Unless the world is for sale, we have no business writing about the world. We are salespeople.

We are no different from those who hawk tomatoes and fish who draw your attention to their wares and tell you all sorts of stories to make you buy. Yes, we are no different from the market women or those who sell drugs in big yellow buses. We are traders. Just like these people, we sell whatever is in stock. We can sell a disreputable politician. We can sell a dying bank. We can sell cheap phones. We can sell a war torn country and make it look like a tourist haven. Like the street hawker, we can use all the gimmicks in the world but our focus is clear. We are under constant pressure. All the drama, all the theatrics, all the humor must bring money out of the pocket of the target audience! Now that’s tough and sometimes a bit demeaning. But we do it.

Although it is far more rewarding to entertain the audience (like those writing comedies and plays enjoy doing) and it is far less strenuous writing opinions (like features writers), copywriters must keep pleasure aside when writing. If you can’t deny your entertainment loving flesh and focus on the soul of selling clients’ product or service, all your writing will amount to nothing.

Let’s simplify things a bit. All writers write to an audience for various reasons – entertain, persuade to a point of view, warn, educate, teach, and enlighten. Copywriting uses all the reasons for only one purpose – to sell so that the advertising can achieve his marketing goals. It means that the copywriter is one of the most disciplined writers in the world.

He is disciplined by time and words because he has very little space on the pages of the newspapers to do his selling. He is disciplined in information because although how he says it is his problem, what he must communicate is clear and non-negotiable. He is discipline by target audience because his message must target a specific target audience further shrank by age, gender and possibly socio-economic class. He is also the least important in all the communication parties. He is the least appreciated also as no one cares about him because his company has been duly paid for the job. He is the least gratified because it’s all about the client and his boss who could pass any brief to him. He is perhaps the most frustrated because like all of us who sold stuff for our parents, we simply did our job whether we liked it or not.

Now why would anybody want to be a copywriter for goodness sake?

READERS’ COMMENTS
"I am happy each time I read your creativity story. I learn a lot from it. More power to your elbow." (Adetokunbo Olalekan)
"Hi Paul. I just discovered you. I think I now have a reason to cough out a hundred naira every Thursday to get The Sun. Keep it up." (Onyeka Emele, Faculty of Law, UNEC)

"My namesake, thanks for your insights on idea-centred copywriting. Far too many copywriters are labouring under the illusion that they are literary heirs to Shakespeare. But its all about moving stuff off the shelves and instigating positive thoughts towards a brand. You don’t need literature for that although it can come in useful. You need to immerse yourself in the culture you’re writing for . Maybe you can discuss that in your next article. Regards. (Paul Nwabuikwu)
Well said Paul. Thanks for inspiring this!(PaulUgoagwu)