Sharpening your style

Module 3
 Readers want to be entertained
while they’re being informed:
if you can engage their interest
with wit and style, they’re more likely
to respond to your advertising with
warmth and affection.
The fact that you have to adjust your style –
and often your technique – when you write
for these different media forms suggests
that copywriters have to be cunning
craftspeople, carefully shaping their copy
to fit their medium and suit their audience
 Our customers often want something
that looks fresh and different to tickle
their interests, move their imaginations
and loosen their wallets.
 Every piece of communication has a
tone-of-voice, a personality, which in
marketing, shouldn’t be the writer’s. The
personality should echo the brand and the
tone should be appropriate to the medium
and the audience. Marketing copy is
a company speaking not you writing
Developing a love of language
And if you love language, you will
be a reader – otherwise where else are
you going to draw your inspiration from
and so improve your range?
 an interest in your native language
combined with a love of reading and
a natural desire to analyse words
and phrases are key requirements
for professional writers.
 Learn to appreciate writing for its
quality and cadences. Acquire the
ability to assess an item of text for
the effects it achieves, and try to
understand just how those dramatic
effects have been created.
 The good news is that advertising
copywriting does give you more freedom
to experiment with language. But, do
remember that any writing you produce
has to communicate your ideas effectively
to your audience. If they don’t understand
what you’re saying, then your client has
just lost a load of sales.
Improving your language skills
By using a dictionary that provides
examples of words employed in a variety
of contexts you can gain a much better
sense of the subtle nuances which exist
within words
 By referring to a word’s
history and seeing how it has been
used over generations you can build up
a much better understanding of a word’s
associated meanings
 However, it does pay to keep your
dictionary up-to-date. New words,
and new meanings for words, enter the
language all the time
You also need to be aware of how people
of all ages speak and write English by
listening carefully to conversations,
tuning in to television and radio shows
and reading as widely as you can – from
magazines to novels, from comic books
to product packaging.
each age group and audience will have
different ways of using language
and their own specialised vocabulary
• Big • Fashion
• Strength • Home
• Bright • Pleasure
• Sexy • Creativity
• Reliable • Delicious
It's not a good idea to have rules in writing,
but here’s a rule for you. Check your
work and then re-check your work for
errors. Ideally, get someone else to
check your writing as well – although
that luxury isn’t always available.
 Spelling and its pitfalls
Spelling and punctuation in the English
language might indeed be complicated
but copywriters must take responsibility
not only for the style but also the accuracy
of their writing.
 Any errors you commit –
or fail to pick up – will not only make you
look foolish but can also prove very costly,
especially when print is concerned.
 An incorrect spelling in a headline on
the front cover of an annual report which
results in 10,000 copies having to be
reprinted is going to cost a fortune –
and probably your job.
Knowing the rules and when to
break them
While many of us might struggle to
identify obscure grammatical forms,
that should not prevent us from
writing well and expressing ourselves and the
brand
with power and authority
There are some terms whose position
in a sentence dictates whether
they should be together or apart. For
example, sometimes it’s appropriate
to fuse a phrase – and there are
some times when it’s not.
The apostrophe is used to indicate
missing letters

The apostrophe is used when

you’re being possessive
 And why not?
There are some people who mistakenly
believe that you should never start
a sentence with an ‘And’ or a ‘But’.
And yet, why not? You may well ask,
for there is no grammatical rule against
such a sentence structure.
 Singing all the right notes
When it comes to creating an advert, it
can be useful to check that your text and
visual elements fulfil the four ‘AIDA’ criteria.
 Just to elaborate on this summary, the
AIDA theory is that your advert needs
to attract the Attention of the customer,
deliver relevant Information, persuade the
customer that they Desire this product or
service, and finally, provide a call to Action
that encourages or enables customers to
purchase your product.
Hierarchy of information
The point is that you have to decide
exactly what information you wish to
convey to your reader, and then consider
which elements are most important
and should therefore be most dominant.