Confessions of a cranky creative

In this post, I share a collection of confessions, opinions, and unvarnished random thoughts that may or may not get me in trouble. Enjoy.

---

1. I was born to do this.

From the time I was 10 years old, I knew what I wanted to do. No, my vocabulary did not yet contain the words “marketing copywriter.” But while other kids were playing cops and robbers or pretending to be cowboys, I imagined myself a dynamic businessman, battling it out with rival companies in epic showdowns to the bitter end. Back then, I wrote my company’s ads in colored chalk on a giant green chalkboard.

Today, I am a freelance copywriter who loves his job — and that job is helping my clients to look, sound, and perform their best.

---

2. I used to suck at job interviews.

I mean, I was really bad at them. An interviewer would ask me a question and these gremlins in my head would start shouting, “BLAH-BLAH-BLAH! Hahaha! Now you’ve missed the question! AAAAHHH! DUMB ANSWER, DUMMY! You’re blowing it. LOOK HOW BAD YOU’RE BLOWWWING IIIIT!”

Don’t get me wrong, I still deal with these gremlins every day. But as a freelance writer, I really don’t do job interviews anymore. And at least when I write, no one has to know what kind of hell I went through to finish the copy.

---

3. Starting out was hard, then easy, then hard again.

I worked at my first copywriting job for six years. After all that time, I found it difficult to start a new job in a new industry writing for all kinds of new and different media as the company’s only copywriter. I remember sitting in front of my home computer late one night, panic in my heart and hot tears streaming down my face, wondering how the hell I was ever going to catch on.

I eventually did, of course. But I remember that terrible feeling like it was yesterday, and every once in a while, a project still comes along that pours gasoline all over my impostor syndrome.

---

4. What the hell, account managers?

I hate it when account managers just mindlessly pass client feedback to the creative team.

No, I’m not going to use the shitty copy the client wrote themselves. Yes, there’s a reason the graphic designer didn’t use the pastel brand colors for the call-to-action.

For God’s sake, fight some battles for your creative team, will you?

Oh, and also, it amazes me nowadays how many psychics are working day jobs as account managers. I mean, shit, some of these wizards can tell me when clients will hate an idea without even showing it to them!

---

5. A hiring manager once trolled me for smiling.

The year was 1986 and I was taking a DECA class for marketing. One day, we were tasked with attending a mock job interview with a real hiring manager at a local business.

I did the interview. I don’t remember what the business was, but I didn’t think I goofed it up too badly.

I waited to hear what the hiring manager thought of me.

The feedback was that I smiled too much. “Some employers may perceive you as frivolous.”

My mother, who had driven me to the interview and whose last words to me before I left the car were, “Be sure to smile!” was pissed.

---

6. I don’t really like being called “creative.”

My job as a copywriter is to capture people’s attention and inform, educate, motivate, and persuade them to act. There’s a lot of research and strategy involved. I think the term “creative” diminishes the amount of skill and effort that goes into the work. No doubt it’s part of the reason so many people in other departments view creatives as “those people in marketing who play with colors all day.”

7. I am no stranger to anxiety.

My first real bout with anxiety was a result of personal and professional stress. My first cat, a beautiful and sweet Persian named Shakespeare, had just passed away. At work, we had just hired a young copywriter to help me out.

You know how nowadays they say it’s so much smarter to hire based on personality because you can always teach the skills? Yeah, don’t do that.

Hire someone who seems nice enough to work with but who damn well knows how to do the job. That way, you’ll save yourself the pain of having to fire so many wonderful yet totally useless people.

---

8. Despite what you think, no, you probably can’t write.

I find it obnoxious how everyone in marketing thinks they can write. Yes, yes, you have a keyboard. Good for you. I have a hammer. That doesn’t mean I can build a house.

---

9. On the other hand, is copywriting really so hard?

I’m surprised at how many transitioning news and publication writers just can’t seem to wrap their heads around marketing copywriting.

“I hate the hard sell,” I often hear them say. “I can’t do it. I sound like a used-car salesman.”

To which I always reply: If that’s what you think copywriting is, you’re doing it wrong. Stop trying to sell people with your words and simply try to help them.

On the other hand, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t get it, because . . .

---

10. So much of marketing is bullshit.

I think a lot of so-called marketing professionals have no idea what they’re doing. Just look at the handfuls of crap you pull out of your mailbox, or the steady stream of stupidity that assaults your senses during every TV commercial break.

Personally, I’ve gotten good results when I’ve written campaigns that spoke to prospects honestly and offered them something of value. But I suppose to many marketers, that’s boring and not nearly clever enough.

For example. While working at my last job for a direct mail agency, I pitched a new client two concepts that took unique approaches to positioning the company as a friendly expert with a helpful solution to a misunderstood problem.

I was excited because the concepts respected the target audience and the finished pieces would speak to prospects in a frank and honest manner unlike anything else in that industry.

So, what did the client choose instead?

Two bullshit concepts based on trickery and deception, designed to prey on the ignorance of the mailing’s most gullible recipients. One concept would use graphics of state outlines and Courier type on the envelope to make it look like official government correspondence. The other was disguised as an invoice that was due to be paid.

Yeah, the client loved those. My marketing and account managers loved those. The copywriters who pitched those ideas sounded incredibly self-satisfied for having pulled these tired tropes from their bags of dirty marketing tricks.

This is the kind of shit that gives marketing a bad name.

---

11. I only have a two-year degree.

Until recent years, I felt incredibly self-conscious about having only a two-year degree in marketing.

At the age of 18, my thinking was, why should I spend four years at an expensive school when I can learn what I need in half that time and then go out and get a job where I’ll really learn marketing?

Looking back, I know I made the right choice for me. Career-wise, I really couldn’t ask for things to have fallen into place any better. And looking at the state of higher ed now — with its out-of-control tuition, laughable degree offerings, and super-woke educators and curriculum — I’m glad I didn’t cave in to the system.

---

12. I never, ever thought I would work freelance.

As a young copywriter in my first or second year, I remember being confused as to why anyone would ever want to work freelance. Now, I can’t imagine going back to work for someone else.

---

13. How I got my first gig.

I built my first freelance writing website in 2010 while working at a job I hated. The site was fine and all, but I knew that no one was going to find it on their own. I needed a lead-generation letter to drive traffic.

I remember spending hours and hours writing a two-page direct response letter to try and gin up business. It was worth it, because my first batch of 17 cold mailings landed me a gig with a major catalog company.

---

14. Subtlety was never my strong suit.

Back in the 90s when our awesome catalog company got bought out by a big, crappy corporate one, my creative department found itself scrambling to produce a 1,000-page Mexican catalog on a deadline. As the text was all in Spanish, none of us could even read the damn thing. As you can imagine, this was no bueno for morale. So one day, I brought in some treats to soothe my co-workers’ pain.

I sent an email directing my colleagues to the back table where I had placed a very pretty crystal candy dish filled with waxy white pellets. Beside it sat a bright-yellow box emblazoned with the words “Preparation H.”

Yeah, I know. But I was young. And you can stop clutching your pearls now because you know it’s funny as hell.

---

15. What’s a touchpad?

On one rare occasion when I did have a good job interview, I blew the writing test due to, um, technical difficulties.

This was a lot of years ago, before I’d ever used a laptop. They’d sat me down at a laptop connected to a mouse, but someone had left the touchpad on. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why my cursor kept jumping all over the screen, and why large swaths of copy would suddenly highlight themselves and vanish before my eyes.

In a panic, I went looking for help, but I didn’t find anyone to turn off the touchpad until my time was almost up.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.

---

16. The pages ran red with blood.

I once made a graphic designer cry with my red pen. Well, technically, this graphic designer was moving over to our team to become a copywriter. I was a proofreader at the time. She didn’t understand compound adjectives (the reason why a “hot-water system” is a system that supplies hot water and a “hot water system” is a water system that is currently hot) and she hadn’t hyphenated any of hers. When I handed back her pages, they looked like the punchline to that old joke, “What’s black and white and red all over?”

Man, did I catch hell for that one.

---

17. Never drink three Elephant beers on an empty stomach.

Back in the early 90s, I attended an after-work going-away party for a graphic design friend. After three bottles of Elephant beer, I blacked out. (Hey, they don’t call it “Extra-Strong Beer” for nothing.) One of the last things I remember is one of the senior graphic designers on our team (hi, Hans!) running around the bar pulling his shirt up over his chest. When I awoke lying face-down in my doorway the next morning, I had vague memories of my buddy’s very amused wife driving me home, and of a strange dream I’d had about taking my pants off in a bar and spending some time on a floor.

Given the decidedly cool reception I received from the pretty bartender the next time I visited that bar, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a dream.

---

18. I believe in creative briefs.

I once worked for an in-house marketing department that absolutely refused to use creative briefs. One time, when the marketing manager couldn’t answer my questions about the target market or objective, I went outside the department to speak directly to the job requestor. The marketing manager (hi, Amy!) did not like this one bit. She scolded me, saying, “You overstepped your bounds. You don’t need to know anything more about a job than I do.”

Which only proved to me that she knew even less about marketing than I thought she did.

---

19. Speaking of creative briefs . . .

As a freelancer, I once wrote for a catalog company that told its writers next to nothing about its products to be written. An information sheet for a board game might list the name of the game, its manufacturer, and: “One game board. 18 red plastic pieces, 18 blue plastic pieces, a spinner and a timer. Game box measures 28″L x 18″W.”

I had to scour the Internet (thankfully, Amazon sold a lot of the products) to find out what the damn things were and how they were used.

---

20. Too many companies waste their in-house talent.

It bothers me that so many companies outsource high-profile marketing projects to ad agencies instead of using their in-house creatives. What, you don’t trust your own copywriters and graphic designers to do the website? Then why are you still employing them?

I’ve worked at plenty of places that hired in hot shots to take all the plum jobs. And their work usually missed the mark because those people didn’t know the brand, they didn’t know the customer, or they only cared about “being creative” to pretty up their portfolios.

Note to bigwigs: No one is invested in your company’s success like your in-house team. Use them.

---

21. When did caring about the work become a character flaw?

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but I’ve been criticized in the past for being “particular,” “a perfectionist,” and — most astounding to me — “thoughtful and conscientious . . . to a fault.”

(No shit. That last one actually appeared on one of my performance reviews.)

I suppose if wanting layouts to make sense and text to be free of typos makes me picky, then yes, I might be fucking picky.

But honestly, I view these “criticisms” as badges of honor pinned to my lapel by slack-jawed drones who I wouldn’t trust to fog a mirror.

I loved my boss’s response to one of these critics at the time: “What’s the problem? He cares about his work. Shouldn’t you?”

And that, dear reader, is not nearly all of the confessions I have to make, but it’s all I have time to share for now.

See all Cranky ad reviews | Go to blog home page

---

Have a confession of your own to share? Spill the beans below.