Appalling...

Do you know what a copywriter really does at work?

Well, besides 'snaking', WE do really have REAL work to do...

Because Copywriting is a 'Creative' job, there's no telling us whether we should work on this for 2 hours, or whether we should work on that for 4 hours. We could get an idea from watching the tele, we could get an idea from books, references or a billboard. But because of the Malaysian working culture, we're asked to slog inside the office, and do our 'research' online.

The Internet is indeed a very large library filled with very useful or rather useless information floating around. But unfortunately, the merger between print advertising and e-advertising is still in no way going to converge together. E-advertising is stupid. It's just impressive and it gives you the impact. Like pop-up windows...

Well, what we do at the office has a lot to do with coming up with a great line to convey our product's best feature.

But then hor... The Ah Bengs of a Client hor... Seriously... However good the copywriter is, however good your product is, however creative your art director is, IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ENGLISH EDUCATED MARKETING MANAGER, your product's advertising will end up 'VDAB' (Very de Ah Beng).

Well, to me, I think that advertising is only as good as its lowest denominator. Depending on your marketing manager, you normally would set a rough audience dynamics.

If you're doing something uptown, that'll mean you're talking to the fella who went through Kindergarten, Primary School, High School, Pre-U, College, and in the end twin to a Uni in Aussie and come back speaking and writing English that only Doctorates understand. That's because the common man with a medium grasp on the English language wouldn't know what the fella wants to say by 'I appreciated that you sent me this file asap, preferably by tomorrow morning'. For this type of 'English Educated' Malaysians, it's easy. At least they know how to read between the lines. Give them a few LoooOOooong words like 'Exquisite' or 'Executively Exclusive' or 'Enclave', you'll sell your product eventhough they won't ever know what the words meant. For example: 'Prestigious Condominium - Your Exquisite, Executive Enclave'. They will love it although it means nothing, doesn't make any grammatical sense, and just sounds 'Expensive'.

But if you're advertising for a mass market product like rice or toothpaste for that matter, the lowest denominator means the fella who didn't do too well in Kindergarten, struggled through Primary School, and dropped out somewhere between Form 1 and Form 3. For these kind of products, you don't even try to be creative. Creative a bit, the Marketing Manager will say that their clients won't understand, because they don't understand what you're trying to do. Even if you came up with a very good visual, concept is solid, headline's a bang, the fella will turn it into 'Buy this product and you will get this free gift'.

That's still ok.

Enter the client who tells you, I want to SHOUT that we are having this promo whereby most of our out-going stocks will be sold at 70% Discount. But I want it to look 'Grand'. Like, what do you even mean??? You want a BIG BIG 70% OFF as your headline but you want you sub-head to be 'For the Fine and Exquisite Lifestyle that You've Always Wanted'??
Idiots... Where got Promo Ad that looks Exquisite one?? Ever heard of a Paradox??

Pay a Cheap Price for The Expensive Lifestyle?

Again, I would like to thanks & valued your co-operation and kindnesses.