Recently, a LinkedIn group for copywriters was in a flutter over the fact that companies are advertising for 'digital copywriters'. They're all agog: "copy is copy, if it's good it can run anywhere... advertising for a digital writer is absurd, there is no such thing."
OK -- in theory I'm on your side: good writing is good writing who cares if it's for digital media.
But my God, you don't get it, do you? Look at music, look at book publishing, look at photography, look at video production: all have fallen into the hands of amateurs and so has writing copy. And this won't change anytime soon, if ever.
Stop acting like you're stunned: Digital copywriter is code for "amateur/semi-pro word pusher who doesn't charge too much -- because after all, people don't read anymore so the copy needs to be short and uninspired."
Marketing and advertising are now crafts, not art... like paint-by-number Picasso's. They are the province of amateurs with high-tech equipment: amateur photographers who can get one decent shot with an 18 megapixel camera; videographers who are good enough for web and youtube and reality TV; digital 'designers' who are coders with minimal Photoshop/InDesign skills; writers who use templated press releases and/or web sites and can move a few words around.
Like it or not, that's the lay of the land. Why pay professional prices when amateur stuff is pretty good; when the vast majority of (amateur) marketing directors can't tell the difference between between good and great; when consumer expectations of ad quality have been lowered by Internet, reality TV and years of bad, uninspired marketing?
Plus, consumers are so turned off by ads and marketing that spending thousands more on great work rarely makes sense (at least to the minds of CFOs, and if you can find great work).
And who's to say this move to amateurs isn't smart? After all, the key factor to determining an ad's success is frequency: if you have the cash to run a piece of bad creative time after time after time, it will eventually get into people's heads.
Look at the music industry: big record labels and expensive, sophisticated studios gave way to do-it-yourself recording and self distribution. Same thing applies to marketing and advertising... we may be just starting down this same path but we're moving quickly thanks to better photography, easier web design, a lowering of standards and expectations and a flood of 'communications' majors pouring out of colleges and all with the idea that marketing is 'fun'.
I was taught that marketing was difficult, artistic, psychological, existential, problematic, courageous, confrontational, mind changing, frustrating, etc. But now it's fun, as in: "here's a 'fun' thing we can do -- let's give away stuffed animals to the first 50 people who send us a video of how they use our hair conditioner to 'tame' loose ends.
That's marketing 2012 for the great unwashed! Well-meaning amateurs all around.
And when it comes to B2B, it's even worse... amateurs who don't like or enjoy what they do and don't think marketing is particularly useful! Stupid amateurs.
“Consumers want a new story... authenticity, not spin... participation, not propaganda.”
