Copywriting

Researching and writing a brochure/booklet

Last modified on 2010-03-11 08:17:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

BACKGROUND: In 1996, MRF celebrated its Golden Jubilee (50th year). They needed a booklet / brochure to be distributed to their shareholders and partners and corporate customers showcasing the achievements of their 50 year journey. We, being their lead BTL agency were keen to win this prestigious project and the Copy Head was asked to come up with hard hitting copy that MRF would approve.

I was still a junior writer then and was busy with the day to day MRF btl jobs that had to be rushed out. I was aware though that the booklet copy was still not approved and that MRF wanted something more which the agency couldn’t pinpoint.

Our Copy Head and another senior writer (both from journalistic backgrounds) were baffled. They had written neat copy in journalistic tones about the achievements of MRF…about a page. Can’t do much else with a brief that was almost non-existent.

CLIENT: MRF Tyres LTd (Chennai)

AGENCY: Goldwire Chennai

PRODUCT / SERVICE: MRF Golden Jubilee

BRIEF: A brochure/booklet celebrating 50 years of MRF. That was all that the verbal brief said…nothing written down, no extra information. It was upto me to interpret  and write -  the client and agency themselves were not sure what they wanted (as usual :-) ).

MEDIA: Brochure / Booklet

YEAR: 1996

ART: Sandesh Talpade

COPY: Umesh Ponnusamy

INSPIRATION:

Facts and figures are a copywriter’s best friend. If you are wondering about that quote, I made that up now. It could also have been a quote by anyone of those copywriting legends. Because I remember reading something similar in some of those famous books on advertising…Ogilvy on Advertising, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor (this book was one that Aubrey always asked young recruits to read…the other one being The Hidden Persuaders ) etc.

The perfect brief will have a lot of facts and figures. This will automatically write the copy for you. Facts and figures are what authenticates your copy and create a sincere and persuasive advertisement…which is what you as an advertising professional have to achieve.

Facts and figures were what the previously written copy for the MRF 50 year Booklet lacked. Though it did contain some facts, it was all a repeat of the same old corporate spiel from the countless MRF brochures that had come before it. I realised this as I took a cursory glance at what had been written before. My copy head and the senior writer were at a loss for words since they had exhausted all their approaches, each being rejected.

One of the traits of a good copywriter it is said, is a love for information and an ability to curate and archive information that you can retrieve at the required time for work that needs it.  This or something similar was what I had read in a book called “The Creative Connection“, a recommended text when I was doing my Visual Communication degree at Loyola, Chennai.

True to that above trait, when I had joined Goldwire, I found a lot of scattered MRF brochures and annual reports strewn around the creative department. Nobody had the time or inclination to sort them or get them organised in a shelf.  The first thing I did was to get the whole bunch organised. I got the office assistant to get me some plastic covers and I sorted out the different brochures and annual reports by client name or industry and had them neatly shelved.

I reverted to this information repository, to find out if I could glean some new information on MRF. I struck gold in the old MRF annual reports that I had taken the pains to preserve and archive.

These annual reports dated back to the 70s and each annual report had some interesting information about what MRF had achieved in that year.

I opened up my writing pad…

(Digression: In 1996 though we had a few computers in the creative department and though Goldwire being the most wired advertising agency in the whole of India at that time – another story for another post – not every copywriter had a computer yet, but we eventually did get one for each one of us after a few months)

…and started jotting down these nuggets of information. I was doing this the whole afternoon. Late evening, the account manager checked on me to see the progress, I showed him the notes. He asked me to stay back and complete the draft the same day itself. Goldwire was an accounts driven agency, I think most btl agencies are.

After extracting whatever I could find from the annual reports, I repeated the process with other brochures and also borrowed some information from the copy written by my seniors.

I started compiling, writing, editing and crafting the copy into a computer I think around 8pm and didn’t stop until 2am. I took printouts and left a copy on the Account chief’s desk and made my way home.

The starting quotation in the Introduction was something that I recalled from numerous quotations that I had read. This quote had struck me as being very powerful and symbolised the spirit of entrepreneurship, what the beginning of MRF was all about.

The next day, I was called by the CEO (Aubrey). He wanted to know from where I had gathered all this information. I told him. I think they were surprised and maybe didn’t even remember that these annual reports existed.

MRF approved the first draft without much changes and filled in the gaps by providing us with annual reports from the 50s and 60s and suggested a few more inclusions. All in all I didn’t have to rewrite and I didn’t think of revising the drafts, as I was again sucked into the whirlwind of daily activities at the agency.

Aubrey later lambasted the Copy Head for not improving the quality of what I had written as I think there were a few crafting errors. My first draft got printed as is!

LESSONS LEARNT:

1)  Facts and figures are a Copywriter’s best friend.

2) Fancy words and literary soliloquies (hope you get what I mean-get the dictionary if you don’t :) ) won’t get your copy anywhere.

3) The amount of respect and love you show towards information (in this case my preservation of old annual reports and brochures), the same is what you get back.

[Print Campaign] Synergy Financial – My first print campaign

Last modified on 2007-05-01 10:42:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

CLIENT: Synergy Financial, Chennai, India
PRODUCT / SERVICE: Financial products and services
BRIEF: To communicate that Synergy Financial is a Trustworthy, Reliable and Secure financial company because of:
a) 40,000 depositors
b) Rs. 60 crore depositor base
c) Investments in Hire Purchase

MEDIA: 50 x 2 Paper Ads
YEAR: 1997
AGENCY: Goldwire Communications, Chennai
YEAR: 1997
ART: Shaji
COPY & IDEA: Umesh Ponnusamy

INSPIRATION: When I was given the brief with the 3 primary benefits (listed above) and the client requirements of stressing upon the values of Trust, Confidence and Security. I started ideating with these in mind and decided to link each primary benefit with a value in separate ads. That’s when the idea for using verbal imagery of POWER struck me. The headline and subhead were linked with this idea. The third ad is missing – I couldnt get a copy.

After I revised the headline and copy a couple of times guided a bit by Shaji who was then the Creative Director at Goldwire and Paul – Branch Manager and Account Head for Synergy. The layouts were approved on the first go with minor changes. This was my first ad campaign that actually went into print in The Hindu daily in Chennai. Though the size was small, it was noticed. I personally would have preferred a different kind of creative execution that went with the POWER theme…but I guess Shaji’s approach got the ads noticed.

By Neil French’s standards, this would be a weak ad, as it has all the elements – headline, subhead, bodycopy, visual, logo, baseline (btw the baseline was something that I led Paul to come out with).

AD 1 – POWER OF TRUST

Headline : The Power of Trust
Subhead : 40,000 depositors have plugged into it.

Bodycopy :

Synergy Financial

· Steady growth for the past 5 years

· CRISIL FA+ rating

· The only Indian finance company to have an Ombudsman.

· Rs. 60 crore depositor base.

· Safe investments in vehicle finance with a good recovery rate.

Baseline : Synergy Financial – Power to the Depositor.

AD 2 – POWER OF CONFIDENCE

Headline : The Power of Confidence
Subhead : Rs. 60 crore depositor base..

Bodycopy :

Synergy Financial

· Steady growth for the past 5 years

· CRISIL FA+ rating

· The only Indian finance company to have an Ombudsman.

· 40,000 depositors.

· Safe investments in vehicle finance with a good recovery rate.

Baseline : Synergy Financial – Power to the Depositor.

Strawberry Stripes Sale – My 2nd published ad

Last modified on 2007-04-22 07:48:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

AD SCAN:

CLIENT: Strawberry Stripes, Chennai, India

PRODUCT / SERVICE: Kids Nightwear

BRIEF: To communicate that the popular Strawberry Stripes Kids Nightwear Sale is back again !

MEDIA: Print- Newspaper (The Hindu) 10 x 3

YEAR: 1994-1995

AGENCY: Purple Patch – Minoo Jha, Chennai, India

BACKGROUND:

Comments : My first advertisement to be released of which I could get a copy. The first ad of mine to be ever released was HILL COUNTRY RESORTS – it was a full page ad that was released in Dubai…I couldn’t get a copy…working in a copy services firm had its limitations…sometimes, you couldn’t get art pulls and the like for your portfolio.

Inspiration : Once given the brief which said that I had to communicate that the Strawberry Children’s Nightwear sale is on and that the last year’s sale was a success…the starting of Pink Floyd’s “Blue Skies” from the Wall struck me… a child’s voice is heard to say -”Look Mommy ! There’s a plane up there in the sky.” This seemed appropriate to me as mostly mothers would be interested in shopping for their kids. So my line was dramatic one and drew the attention of the right audience too. I just had to substitute my product in that line and add the word “Again” to give the product a familiarity. Minoo approved it at the first go. I even had a cute visual for the ad which was attached with the copy sheet and sent to the agency but was not taken.

Headline :

Look Mummy ! It’s Strawberry Stripes Children’s Nightwear Sale Again !
(7th to 11th April – including Sunday).

Bodycopy :

Yes, folks, we are back with your favourite sale. Of our unique, comfy nightwear for your little angels aged 3-12.

Smart night suits for boys, dreamy night dresses and pyjama night dresses for girls. All tailored with the hallmarks of Strawberry Stripes – unfussy, cozy, comfy and reasonabley priced. Also don’t miss out on our special prices.

Better hurry, stocks are limited. And you have just 5 days to go.

Baseline :

Smart reasonably-priced clothes for kids 0-12.

Ideating and writing copy for a full page print advertisement – Hill Country Resorts – My 1st published print ad

Last modified on 2010-03-11 08:19:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

CLIENT: Hill Country Resorts

PRODUCT / SERVICE: Time Share Resorts at Kodaikanal, India

BRIEF: To communicate that Hill Country is the only resort company to open its Time Share resort on time.

MEDIA: Print advertisement, Full page

YEAR: 1994-1995

AGENCY: Purple Patch, Minoo Jha

BACKGROUND: My very first published advertisement that I wrote copy for was a full page one published in Dubai.

Hill Country Resorts, Kodaikanal wanted to communicate that they were the first time share resorts in Kodai to open on time as promised. The brief triggered images of races and we decided to add “Olympic” in the headline as a hook.

Guided by Minoo, my first copywriting guru, she helped me craft the headline. I chunked the bodycopy under sub-headings – that came naturally to me as I wrote the bodycopy. Aparna, a colleague worked with me a bit on the bodycopy too..specially the ‘As You Like it’ subhead was her idea. Minoo too tweaked the copy a bit.

The only copy (art pull) I had of the ad was submitted for my final copywriting project in college.

Posting the copy below:

Headline :
If opening a holiday resort on time was like running the Olympics 100 metre dash final, we’d get the gold.

Bodycopy :
The excitement and tension in running the Olympic 100 metre dash final and the exhilaration when you win the gold…that’s what we feel at Hill Country Resorts, Kodaikanal. Because we are the first holiday resorts in India to open on time. That’s good news to our time-share investors. They can now avail of our time-share at the earliest and experience Hill Country- Kodai’s special privileges :

Two’s Company, Three a Crowd
We at Hill Country have ensured that you can enjoy your holiday without you and your neighbour stepping on each other’s toes. By providing lots of space between the cottages and all around them.

A Beautiful View is Worth a Thousand Words
A thousand words is what it would take to describe the view from your Hill Country cottage window. And it would surely take less to describe the shabby view which you get at our neighbouring competitor’s.

Home “Sweeter” Home
You’ll find Hill Country cottages cozily designed and comfortably furnished. And the architecture…transports you into a fairy tale world when compared to the box like concrete structures at other resorts.

No more “Q” please
At Hill Country-Kodai, you’ll also find our facilities more user-friendly. You won’t have to experience the ‘law of the jungle’ and the ‘survival of the fittest’ as in some of the other resorts.

As you like it
And finally, at Hill Country-Kodai, you’ll enjoy the privilege of exchanging your week at your convenience and without any fuss.

So…
What are you waiting for ? Dash to Hill Country…