By Charles Olafare

 

 

Diminishing Page Returns

 

What’s the deal with people in advertising writing blogs

 

Like

 

This

 

All

 

The

 

Time?

 

I get the sense that people have seen a particular elder statesman copywriter do the same in several of his books. They must feel that if they copy him and smash that MF’n enter bar hard enough, everything they say will appear stoic, wizened and authoritative.

 

I hate it. I guess it works if your initials are D. T. but otherwise it feels forced and speaks to people’s ability to colour within other people’s lines rather than finding a more personal way to express themselves.

 

Following certain rules of writing is important, I suppose. But isn’t the more exciting stuff in trying to find ways to break them, or questioning why such rules exist in the first place?

 

Phew! I’ve wanted to get that off my chest for ages.

 

Awards Season

 

D&Ad is upon us and we’re all starting to crack on with our briefs. A big part of me resents the process, because to my mind we could be spending the time improving our books, heading out for crits and maybe even spending time with friends and families. But, as we’ve been told, the system is the system and all we can do is trust it.

 

Don’t get me wrong, though. I’d love to win a pencil, purely for the sense of validation it could bring. It’d feel great to have an idea, bring it to life and have a bunch of people say it’s objectively good. I just don’t want to kill myself to get there. Hopefully it doesn’t get to that point, but the balance between ambition and an easy life is a hard one to find.

 

Soppy Bollocks

 

Last week Marc made us do some touchy feely nonsense. We had to look out partners in the eye and pledge to be the best partner we can be…or something like that. There was a whole thing we had to recite that I’ve almost completely forgotten now.

 

I do remember finding the whole thing incredibly awkward. I prefer my earnest moments to be a bit more spontaneous. And there are few things I hate more than making direct eye-contact with people.

 

Anyway, I managed to squint my way through the whole thing and you know what? Despite the inherent corniness of it all, it was a pretty good exercise.

 

Studying at SCA means throwing yourself up against a barrage of headfucks, whether that’s D&Ad, looming deadlines or hitting a wall creatively. I’m glad to have found people that I not only enjoy working with, but can have a proper laugh with. It’s the joy of being around these people that’ll get me through to deadline day and beyond.

 

Now that we’re done with the soppy shit, what’s my Flesh Score?

The copy scores 79.8 in the Flesch Reading Ease test