Good copywriting is good writing.

I had lunch with a colleague last week.

Like me, he comes from an ad agency background from way back.

We have the same opinions about a few aspects of advertising and copywriting.

First, we both get hugely irritated by bad advertising. We hate blunt, clumsy ads and blunt, clumsy copywriting.

And we both agree that really good copywriting is also really good writing.

That shared opinion led me to tell him the story I share in my live talks about copywriting. It’s about a series of ads written for an insurance company in the UK back in the 1970s. The company was Commercial Union and the copywriter was Susie Henry.

Reading her ads is a joy. She followed advertising legend Bill Bernbach’s philosophy that “good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling”.

Her copy style was also conversational…it was “across the kitchen table” copywriting. In that sense she anticipated the more conversational style of writing for the web.

But the thing that stands out about her copywriting is that she is a fantastic writer.

Read a good sonnet, read a great novel and read one of her ads.

You’ll notice the same qualities in each. The flow and pace of the writing. The rhythm of the reading experience. The pleasure of reading every word from the beginning to the end.

It doesn’t feel like copywriting at all. It just feels like great writing.

That’s one end of the spectrum of copywriting and, sadly, it seems to be falling out of fashion.

Today copywriters are more likely to use blunt force trauma to make the sale.

I understand the blunt force trauma approach and have used it myself sometimes. It’s attractive, because it tends to deliver results faster.

But… there is a price attached to that fast success.

It also impacts the brand of the company behind it.

If your copy is all about “Buy NOW!” “FREE!!!” “Don’t miss this opportunity!” – those phrases and that approach become attached to the advertiser’s brand.

So while the company may love the idea of a short-term jump in sales, are they comfortable with how all that shouting and chest-thumping will impact their brand?

I have talked with marketers about this, and they tell me they take the blunt force trauma approach because the conversational approach doesn’t work.

Hmmm…not true.

Susie Henry’s work for Commercial Union was massively successful for the company.

To put in another way…

If you are at a party or in a bar with a group of people, who do you REALLY pay attention to… the loudmouth or the really interesting person who speaks so softly you have to lean in to hear what she is saying?

And who would you invite back to dinner at your home?

Which “brand” would you trust and follow?

For my money the best copywriting tells a compelling story in a low-key, conversational tone.

Above all, good copywriting is great writing.

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