Feb 3, 2016

The Future of Copywriting

What copywriters should expect in the nearest future
By Stacy Green / filmsforaction.org

    Content, content and again content. Our digital world is developing rapidly thus a logical question arises: “Does copywriting even have a future?”. For greater insight into this issue, we should distinguish the dissimilarity between traditional copywriting and marketing copywriting. Content marketing has brought brand new features into the advertising industry, but traditional copywriting is quite another sphere. They go hand in hand, but traditional copywriting is a background craft of everything media-related. We can consider copywriting as one of the critical features of content marketing strategy. Engaging, attracting and distributing are more related with marketing system, but the main point lies in their social interaction.

   However, another threat slowly appears. It involves the replacement of manual work by the machine system. Many ideas and startups are gaining momentum nowadays, but, in my opinion, they can't replace the scope of copywriting completely. Until the human intellect doesn't lose its integral value, ideas and thoughts that are created by a human being, as well as imagination, would always be relevant.

   While I have been exploring the web, I noticed a quite radical but interesting opinion from Sanam Petri - an associate creative director at R/GA London. She was wondering why the inflow of new copywriters released such poor work. The answer is simple: they just follow the crowd and imitate everything they see. Writing becomes more predictable and clichéd, without those sparkles in writer's eyes and passion, in contrast to wild days of copywriting in the 1980s.

   For a deeper understanding of this issue, we should also mention the opening of the first Copywriters' Census, run by the Direct Marketing Association. More than 450 copywriters shared with their opinions about the current situation in the market, about the rise of technology, about the role of copywriting, about the growth of media sphere, about the changing demands of clients. The results were stunning and in some way shocking. Here are just some of the quotes that clearly reflected the mood of the meeting:

  • "Copywriting is suffering from the ignorance and illiteracy of marketing people."
  • "Copywriting is bland, uninspired and sucked dry of creativity by clients who get too involved and search engines that don’t understand smart or subtle."
  • "Copywriting is vacillating between smug and needy, flattering and impenetrable, shouty and forgettable; with the very occasional pocket of genius."

   But before we write off copywriting from the media surface, it’s good to remember that copywriters are not fools. They will go where they can be creative, where they can improve their skills and for many that doesn't mean outdated traditional campaigns. Copywriters can be involved in SEO companies, where they need to be able to write large amounts of content that will be qualitative and attractive both to search engines and web users. Content marketing nowadays is open for good copywriting investments. But it is critical to remember that it is more than just copy. Infographics, podcasts, videos description, podcasts, images and other formats of content are key features of marketing strategy.

   So, in conclusion, I can say that media society should create a reliable space for investigations, invite scholars, authoritative planners who should be involved in rebuilding or improving the copywriting profession in order to show the decisive value of copywriting craft in the media industry.

Stacy Green was a senior content copywriter at bestessaypro.com. Her experience also included writing for varied projects, from official university publications to fundraising campaigns, as well as her own creative writing.Now she is a nationally renowned performance consultant, speaker, and award-winning author.

 

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