You are what you write.

         Every once in a while, an advertising writer gets an assignment that looks overwhelming. There are a hundred facts and every one seems important. All the technical data sounds like it should be told; every detail in the brief you're given screams to be included.

         My advice: put it in a drawer and forget about it for a day or two.

         Soon your brain, which has been unconsciously working on it, begins to sort things out. You do what you've always done as a professional. You begin to look at it from the reader's point of view. What's important to her. And your inscrutable problem morphs into a good ad.

         Here are some suggestions from a creative director who's been in this place time after time.

         1. When you're given an assignment, listen. Try to absorb all you can. Even if it's information overload. You never know what will come to the rescue later.

         2. Try not to come to a conclusion too early. That may be the very conclusion you'll come to later,
but don't shut yourself off from a full exploration.

         3. Think hard about the target market. Remember, people who buy a 3" drill don't want a 3" drill --- they want a 3" hole. Think benefits, not features. Think about the stage of the buying process they're in.
They may or may not want all that information at this early point. Maybe you should go for awareness of the product, for instance.

        4.  Explore a universe of ideas. You're a writer, not an editor --- at least not at first. Write 12 headlines, with visuals for each. Write 5 taglines, each pointing in a different direction. Now go do something else.

        5.  Come back with an art director and go over them. These ideas might spark one that's even better.

       6.  Now give it the "will this really do the job?" treatment. Look at it again from the customer's point of view. Is it convincing? Who will it convince to do what?

       You'll see. Even these complicated "everything's important" assignments can turn into great advertising.

        If you give them room to breathe.

How to write out loud.

       One of the hardest things I have to do in both my fashion marketing and advertising classes is getting some students to write the way they talk.

       They're absolutely fabulous in class discussions, with opinions on everything, comments on everyone, and colorful language punctuated with metaphors. Ask them to write an ad or critique, and it's a whole other story.

       I understand. By the time they get to college, students have read and seen thousands of ads and commercials, and written a dozen papers. That's the problem. They know what these are supposed to look and read like, and they try to copy those styles.

       I'm asking them to write conversationally, the way they think and speak. Advertising and persuasion are often best when they are (to use an old term) person-to-person. One to one, me to you. Friend to friend, mother to kid, boyfriend to girlfriend.

       The difficulty is partly tone of voice, partly what you say, partly how you say it. I think we're good at the extremes ---- the way we were told to do term papers and how we text. I'm asking for something in the middle: clear, honest, spare language without the flowers or the thorns.

      It's curious how simply we can say "I love you", and how complicated our language can get when we want to describe our target market as flirty women 24-35 who want to look professional without looking dull or predictable.

     Here are some suggestions for writing more conversationally.

     1. Read good stuff. I recommend the "Talk of the Town" section in the New Yorker. To me, it's the most reliable source of contemporary writing every week. Go to the library, find it, read it. For online writing, I like The Daily Beast.

     2. Don't be so hard on yourself. Edit after you write, not before or during. Let the ideas come out, the words flow. Then come back tomorrow and cut and chop and season.

     3. Trust your voice. When you've chosen the voice you want, stick with it. That way, you can be trusted and your reader will stick with you.

    4.  Don't worry about length. At least not up front, if you've got something worth reading. If the problem is that it's not compelling, go back and fix it.

    5. It's better to be clear than cute. Trying too hard to be different can obscure what you're trying to say.

    6. What you say is more important than how you say it. Period. As the comedian says, underneath all that phony tinsel there better be real tinsel.

    Try it. Writing like you talk will soon become second nature to you. Just listen to it in your head as you write. Soon you'll want to talk the way you write.

Why ads are too long but Harry Potter isn't.

         In class after class, with both my advertising and my fashion marketing students, the complaints seem to be the same.

         "That ad is too long."

         "Nobody's going to read all that."

         "Put words in a fashion ad? That would cheapen the clothes!"

         I wonder how these people got through all those volumes of Harry Potter a few years back. They were probably at the bookstore at midnight to get their copies and read all night. These days, three paragraphs pose an overwhelming barrier. What's changed?

        I think I know. For one thing, Harry Potter was fascinating. Most ads are hopelessly dull and banal. That's one of the reasons some people hate commercials and love Tivo.

        We only read and watch things that are interesting to us --- helpful, relevant, sometimes silly, often funny, hopefully useful. Most ads aren't, so why should we pay attention to them?

         When I was a young, $15,000-a-year copywriter, I made the mistake of telling my supervisor that the product he assigned to me, Delco shock absorbers, was dull. He made it clear: there were no dull products, only dull writers. He was right. Good shock absorbers make your car more comfortable, can help other parts last longer, and under some circumstances, could even save your life. Suddenly, they're not so dull anymore.

         Some people blame MTV for our lack of attention. All those quick cuts and fabulous visuals and music that we were brought up with. Other people blame all the new media, Facebook et al.

         I blame copywriters and art directors if people aren't reading ads today. The principles of advertising are the same. Research has shown that only about 20% of the people who see an ad read the text. But those are the people who are most likely to buy the product.

         My simple point: if the ad is dull, it's always wrong. If it's interesting, it can be as long as Harry Potter.