Confusion of a Newbie Advertising Man
By ZULFIQAR HAIDERALI
I’m an ad man. No... I’m what they call a ‘creative’ ad man. Or maybe I’m a ‘creative’ person or just ‘creative’.
Some call me a writer, others call me with even stranger names like ‘copywriter’ or ‘creative writer’. One wag even termed me a ‘concept writer’. Sometimes I’m called an ‘English’ copywriter (I swear I’ve never even been to England.)
They say I ‘develop’ concepts. Sometimes it’s ‘making’ concepts, but most of the time it’s ‘doing’ concepts.
What on earth is a concept? What in the world is a ‘copy’? Who, or rather, what the hell am I?
You see, I belong to a cult known as advertising creative-types which consists of two breeds of humans: writers and artists. We both ‘conceive’. But hang on a second before you jump to any wrong conclusions. It is I who conceives. She ‘conceptualizes’.
Our leader is called the ‘creative director’ who among other spiritual manifestations, tells us that advertising is a religion. Now before you rush to write a letter to the editor demanding that we be declared a religious minority and that ad agencies be proclaimed ‘separate’ worship places, calm down. We renegades don’t believe him either.
Our leader also tells us how to fight our common foe, the evil in disguise, a creature called the ‘account executive’, the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Now again, before you break all relations with any of your dear ones bearing the same title, think again.
I know all this sounds perplexing, but alas, I’m also trying to untangle it all.
When you enter an ad agency’s creative department, expect everything upside-down to be in the process of taking place. The very first thing you probably notice is the way people dress - jeans and tees - our communal robes. There’ll be loud music blended with thunderous laughter which could possibly mislead you to believe that you’re in a madhouse.
Most of the young men and women are arty-types who outnumber us lazy writers two to one and sometimes even four to one. We writers are also notorious for our frequent 'bunks' and low attendance ratios.
By now if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking... you’re damned right. It’s a party that never stops, since creatives don’t follow the usual office hours. I confess, being a writer, I do nearly all my ‘creative’ work at home. Then what on earth do I do at the office? I suggest you don’t ask lest you’re more confused.
Then there’s the all too familiar personality who fascinates everyone from the boss to the office boy, whose name is used more frequently than the Almighty’s in ad agencies: The Client. Books have been written, movies have been made, songs have been sung for this most hated form of humanoids that denounces the creative cult.
The client insists on wanting to advertise every attribute of his product, a task which if performed, could be shown in the length of a feature-film. To make it more ambiguous and complicated he demands that the ad for his product be clutter-free so that it’s entertaining, and yes, ‘creative’. If this doesn’t make for an intimidating picture, think of the client coming in with half a dozen kowtowing subordinates to bark out instructions to the dazed, tongue-tied young copywriter.
They leave the poor guy with a mountain of research material, supporting documents, competitor’s advertising, media research, in-depth analysis of the brand, brand personality surveys, guidelines, many 'one-page' briefs, magazine articles, TV reels, and other unmentionables and expect him to squeeze all this into a 30 second TV commercial and a 50-word press-ad copy first thing next morning.
Well, what does the writer do?
He looks around the empty conference room, makes himself a cup of coffee, helps himself to the leftover cookies and samosas, picks up the piece of paper on which he so very diligently wrote his new song during the meeting and leaves the room whistling a Suzanne Vega tune. On the way out, he asks the office boy to deposit the mountain on the table to his little office.
The confusion has just begun.
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