Art(eh) and Advertising

Once in a while I come across an advertisement that I think is good in the sense that the idea is sound and that it was executed well, but something about makes me not like it… something about it is just off. I could never really pinpoint the element that made it wrong. Now it dawned upon me that it wasn’t something wrong, it was something missing.

Insight is the heart behind any commercial, without heart, you can have a commercial that is an aesthetic hit with no emotional punch. Without that emotional punch, you never really communicate your message across to your intended audience. What’s the point then? You’ve wasted your time and your client’s money.

People don’t deduce the insight from the ad. They just feel it. That’s what makes copywriting very difficult. There is an intrinsic message to all great ads that is layered over by other elements. The job is of a copywriter is to mask that message and bring out only a very distinct emotion. That emotion triggers action.