How to Go From Rookie to NCD in One
Year
So let’s
take the audacious route for a change today, shall we? It holds more promise
than the same old answers that are as agonizing to hear as to experience,
doesn’t it?
A rookie
to an NCD? Is it even possible?
Much
depends on the size of your dream and what you are prepared to give up in order
to gain it.
Let’s say
you have to sacrifice a year of hob-nobbing with friends at the local pub…that
okay with you? No, TV too, nor surfing the internet, nor watching the latest
movie at the theatre? That okay with you? Assuming you want to be a high-flier
soon, I reckon you don’t mind it. So let’s on, shall we?
Make
copywriting your Bible. Read up all you can about some of the agencies you
fancy. Pick one out that will also be a good cultural fit. You don’t want to
join an agency in the hope of vying for the top job and then realize mid-way
that you hum a different tune than that of the agency head, now, do you? (Wink,
wink!)
Oops,
wrong number, no?
Only that
would be too late, no?
So, make a
lot of friends on LinkedIn and other social media sites and find out all you
need to know to make the choice.
Soak
yourself with details about the agency, its rivals, all about the ad world in
your country as also the world. Subscribe to all the newsletters, join the
local ad club: they do encourage individual memberships, even students...
By now,
you know that copywriting is the way for you and you are as hungry for success
as a drowning man to breathe…
Now for
the meat of the story:
Look up
the client list from your agency’s website and make a note of it in the front
page of your copywriting notepad. You do own a notepad, do you not? (Gasp!)
Just kidding. If you don’t own one, now’s a good time to get one.
You do not
have a brief. You could either say, “Too bad” or “Lucky you” and get on with
it. As it is a year-long exercise, you have time on your hands.
Take it
slowly. Aim to write a headline by three to seven days. Think of nothing else.
From 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, just focus on what I call “cracking
the code”; in layman’s language: get the headline right.
Because you see, the
headline *is* the Big Idea that could make you a millionaire.
Don’t be
disappointed if you don’t get it right the first few times. Heck, it might take
you more than a week, initially.
And how
will you know whether you’ve got it right?
Here’s an
exercise that has always worked for me. Say a piece of work has been good, I
call it a day and I sleep over it. And the next morning I read it once again.
If I still like it, it’s good work; else, I re-do the entire work and start all
over again, till I’ve got it pat.
Put a tick
on the front sheet of the writing pad next to the name of the client that you
have finished and move on to the next.
Never be
smug about your victories. You’ve got the rest of the list to complete equally
well.on your fragile head.
Never work
only for those clients who tickle your fancy. Consider the tragedy of all those
missed opportunities, the awards the small ones could also muster. One of my
better ads is for pro bono work on AIDS. Just to make the point…
Similarly,
do not insist that you are a morning or a night person. I am a morning person,
yes, but I work all the time, anywhere anytime. I need silence too to put in
the best possible work, but do not shirk my work if I do not have the perfect
environs. I may work more slowly or with more errors, but I trundle along even
through the disturbances…
But you
might wonder if writing great ads for all the clients in one year is too much.
Even if you take it slow, at one ad per week, you will have 52 great headlines.
And may I add, with practice and if you have a wealth of ideas, you could get
at least two if not more ads all in less than a day’s work. Do the math and come back to me! (Wink, wink!)
But more
of that in another post. Suffice it to say that it is not too much, if your
hunger for success is as strong as your desperateness to breathe were you
drowning… The reason I repeat this point so much is that you have to want
something so badly to get anywhere. The hunger to succeed… to be someone out of
the ordinary…to be the next NCD…
After you
have cracked the code for all the clients, prepare a file of all your ads on
Spec in your own neat handwriting. Give it a name, mentioning clearly that
these are ads on Spec.
Dash an
attractive letter asking for a meeting with the Creative Director and pray for
the call and be ready to see your career soar!
Good Luck
and God Speed!
Until the
next,
Adieus!
