Anyone who can,
Look at the cowboy themed décor at a kids birthday party,
An orchard farmer loading his truck with green apples,
Or a lady stepping out of a salon with fresh curls;
And come up with an insane marketing hook, tagline or catchphrase for those observations are exactly the kinds of copywriters the world needs right now.
That’s a quote from Claire Sink, Content Strategist at Amenable. And honestly, this statement couldn’t be more true in this age.
Someone on the Other Side: Eagerly Waiting For More
Are we sure that we consider the person on the other side of that screen when we put words down?
As marketers, we want AI to make everything ‘efficient-er’ for us to deliver sharply curated thought pieces.
‘Interesting’ will drive an audience to keep coming back for more.
But somewhere in all of this, we forget who we’re talking to.
‘Convincing’ might be the better word.
Are we making what we write ‘eager enough’ for the reader to read or think about?
I’d like to think that content creators are basically ‘double agents’ because when we sit with our phones, something interesting happens.
We code switch into the exact persona, we spent all day working to target. We take the costume off that stage and become the audience unconsciously.
And somehow, if we, ourselves on the other side of that screen would not be captivated, can we present our work more passionately to pull together a compelling string of words, worth corresponding to?
The Second Life of a Career as Old as Time
Back in Spring, everyone asked one real question around creatives and technology,
Why is Anthropic hiring copywriters? The company opened up two roles paying up to $320,000.
You might think, aren’t those theoretically the first jobs to go in this era?
We are already experiencing massive layoffs and creative professionals losing hope in their careers. But we’re at an interesting inflection point where human, flaw-friendly content is making a real return to the creative market.
If we take Oatly for example, while being steadfast in its mission, they also know how to have fun with their copywriting approach.
By infusing literal humour, truthfulness and sarcasm on copy, they do know how to stand out, capture the attention of their consumers.
The Lesson For Storytellers: Bring Your Depth
While we assumed copywriters would be first to hit the wall in this mass reshuffling, the wordsmiths with a tactile gift for landing unexpected metaphors, the bardic storytellers, are more in demand than ever.
What we are learning is that copywriters get hired for making brands sound ‘story-specific with lore.’ Like they are the only brand doing something adversely different with the experience they went through.
Personality. Humility. Standing out with wits. I believe one witness point of a good writer is when they have thought about that one phrase or tagline, over and over that most people would ignore.
Take Liquid Death, here are some of my favorites on their website that caught my eye.
As a beverage brand, they have amazing non-conforming copywriting.
Audacious enough to stand out.
Writers have to pick up this metaphorical rugby ball of an idea and take it to the other end it with real resistance to redundant copy these days.
That’s exactly what AI doesn’t have what we do: an eye for observing the real world.
Tangibility, sensory experiences, heart-punching emotion, it can never relieve us of that depth to write about.
The Scary Story for Brands
Here’s where it gets mega frightening and very Meta.
Tone of voice architecture is starting to sound obnoxiously the same across all company pages right now since everyone uses the same AI copy paste tactics.
According to Fast Company’s recent article, up to 73% of business leaders are worried about brand redundancy in an ocean of brands that look ‘alike’.
And they believe if design thinking is on its way to the exit, “applied creativity” must be readily primed to take its place.
Practically speaking, unique storytelling will collapse within a few years. If everyone sounds the same, who gets remembered a decade from now?
When future generations scroll back through the brand archives of the 2020s, which ones can they honestly say left a tasteful mark?
That brings me to the only two things I think in my opinion will favor your brand’s voice from disappearing entirely.
Step One: Curate Your Personality. Express It Honestly.
We’re way past the days of static brands following an approved guideline just to keep the identity and socials alive. It’s very 2015 dated. That era of the monoculture of marketing is long over.
We’re in a multi-hyphenate age where brand messaging, captions, and visual direction now needs to be built from real experiences, real community, leading to social media accounts to act as ‘breathing and living’ artifacts to a brand’s culture.
The easiest way to start?
Spotlight stories on how the founder started small, how they worked two full jobs while paying college tuition to afford a place to stay.
Bring out the tough side of the journey, how they were fighting tooth and nail on the come up. Relatability is one important thing to consider.
Bring about the professional and off-duty sides of the team, both the ragged and softer stories they’ve got to share, insider jokes, career growth stories and the do’s and the don’ts, and a few words of wisdom for the next generation. Everyone starts from a place of limitation.
All of these types of content needs to be written, expressed and shared courageously alongside the brand founder’s voice, never without it.
After all, brave brands do change the world. (at least they go down memorable enough for trying.)
Step Two: Gather Your People. Get to Know Them.
A Sprout Social survey of consumers and marketers across the US, UK and Australia found that audiences want brands to make human-generated content their number one priority.
Half of Gen Z will block or unfollow an account for posting AI slop, and six in ten consumers say they’re less likely to engage with brand content in the current AI atmosphere.
For B2B brands, this is why you need to set your employees on a journey to be the brand ambassadors.
Let them talk about what they specialise in the business for you, what they’ve learned, why it’s a great place to work and anything genuinely fruitful for them to share and learned in their career working there.
If they want to write thought pieces or post on socials, build the space to say, “You know what, let’s do it.”
Some observant advice as a content writer I have on this,
Help make their content pieces conversational while meeting brand tone of voice.
Easy to get. Soft, thoughtful and clever. Include a pun here and there. Share something unique and different because everyone’s experience is different.
One more important aspect is critical thinking. In an algorithmic age that’s dulling our memory, people need reminded to look at things from a different angle. That’s the hardest part of a writer’s work.
You’re Telling Me There’s Hope For Content Writers?
This is why in the next decade I have a sense that writer’s will be the nudge for a big rise in sharing honest, raw, stories for the world and for brands.
It’s exactly why Brand Personality and People are what copywriter’s need to block time to think about next.
The whole point of capturing that person’s attention on the other side is to make even the seconds they notice you, worth their time.
So be passionate enough in your writing to push minds to think a little, experience wonder and enthusiasm for your brands, it’s something that AI can never do.
