Many years ago, the agency MD asked me if we could make space for an account man as a copywriter.
He said he’d never make it as an account man, but he was popular in the agency, and he wrote funny lines on leaving cards, so that was proof he could be a writer.
I said, no problem, let’s see his portfolio.
The MD said, he doesn’t have a portfolio, he’s an account man, he’s never written any ads.
I said that’s okay, let’s just see his portfolio of roughs.
The MD said, he didn’t have any roughs either, but let’s make him a writer anyway.
I said: so he’s not a good account man and you want to get rid of him, but you don’t want to fire him because he’s a nice guy, so you move him into the creative department then that’s your problem solved?
I think the MD got the idea: I didn’t like the creative dept being used as a dumping bin.
Several years later, at another agency, a different MD approached me.
He wanted to be a copywriter himself, the difference was he’d actually been a great MD.
He’d run an entire ad agency and brought in lots of new business.
But he loved working with creatives and he’d written the lines on some ads.
I asked to see his portfolio, it was seven ads, mainly trade ads.
I wanted to be polite, so I didn’t tell him that they were, at best, average.
I said, you have to understand that what you’ve got here is a portfolio of 7 ads whereas a junior writer’s portfolio would normally have at least 30 roughs.
You were a terrific managing director, pulling in a lot of new business, worth a fortune to your company.
But you can’t expect to be a junior copywriter and still be on the same salary.
You’ll be earning less than a tenth of what you were on as MD.
It was pretty obvious he hadn’t thought of this, so we didn’t discuss it again.
I think most account men look across at the creative department and think what they’re doing looks fun, I could do that, it looks easy.
One person who thought that, but did it the right way, was Mary Wear.
Mary left university with a degree in English.
She got a job in account handling and found it boring, she looked across at the creative department and thought that looks much more fun.
But then Mary did it the right way, she went to Watford and did a year’s course and built a portfolio.
That meant Mary now knew copywriting from the bottom up, not just writing a few funny lines on leaving cards.
Mary was one of the best, most thorough, copywriters I ever had work for me.
She was smart, and witty, and tough, no-nonsense.
Mary eventually became a creative director at Abbott Mead Vickers.
She won pretty much every award there was.
Peter Souter told me the account-men at AMV were frightened of her and used to call her ‘Scary Mary’.
Good for her, she knows how to do their job, and she won’t suffer fools gladly, why should she?
She can recognise a lazy brief because she can write a decent one herself.
Mary made the switch from account-handling to creative the right way.
She respected the job, she didn’t just see the creative dept as a playpen.
Of course it’s fun, ads are meant to be fun, why would you make ads that aren’t fun?
It’s fun, but that doesn’t mean it’s trivial.
Like anything done well, it needs to be taken seriously.
I made a similar transition. I did an Advertising & Marketing degree and wanted to become a copywriter. I didn’t have a portfolio, but thought the best thing to do was get a job – any job – in an agency and build it from there. So I joined as an Account Exec so I could learn the ropes in an agency. In my spare time, I’d work on briefs and volunteer to help in any brainstorms etc. Eventually I started to get given the jobs more experienced creatives turned their noses up at – emails, brochures for small b2b clients and the like.
Obviously, my career took off slower than someone who started off with a full portfolio, but it was what I wanted to do, so I stuck at it and still do it now.
I was a lousy Account Exec though.
Writers are generally derided or ignored. I don’t know which is worse. Neither are better.
We’re hidden heroes, selling things without standing out.
And yet to be invisible takes enormous commitment and experience.
Thanks for explaining that in a colourful and inspiring way, DT.
DT
i wish for 2 things. 1 to clone you and 2 for a time machine. What you wrote about, nothing new. I also had a suit. He was bored and wanted to be a writer. So he sat in for briefings. Shot out ideas faster than a guy on the loo after too many curries. I said look, this guy’s a nuisance, he’s interrupting us instead of doing his job as a suit. Of course management said we should let everyone be creative, that the creative department doesn’t have a monopoly on ideas.
I remember my first job at an agency as a project manager.
I remember looking at an AD from the other side of the open space and see the words “creative concept” on her computer screen. My reaction was: “*sight*, I wish I was doing that instead of looking at Excel. I suck at Excel anyway. Why did I have to add that to my skill set?” I felt trapped.
Sure, it was hard studying at night while working to become a copywriter, but it did pay off. It was terrible to return to a junior salary and learn new skills. But look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?
Great one, Sir David. As always.
This was written like a good piece of long copy. Not an extra word, yet it told the full truth, with a character I wanted to know more about. Go, Mary, and go, you, for seeing her worth.
Thanks Debra, when you start your blog/book sign me up straight away