On a suitably grey London morning in early November, three BBC copywriters made the short hop across the channel to attend CopyCon.
To the uninitiated, CopyCon might conjure images of nervous creative types dressed in literary cosplay. Or a gathering of sun-averse, bespectacled, and socially awkward writers, making their yearly pilgrimage from behind their laptops to reaffirm theirs as a noble and important art form.
Of course, these caricatures couldn’t be further from the truth. CopyCon is a celebration of writers (and marketers with a writing problem). It is an opportunity to learn from the best minds in the business, and a great excuse for a bit of ‘networking’ at the pub.
It’s also a yearly reminder that copywriters are a fun, clever and entertaining bunch, not some alien race who can only communicate via Google Doc comments. We might joke about it—case and point being Mel Barfield quipping “I’m better written down” during her excellent talk—but CopyCon affirmed that copywriters are a great bunch of people.
Hit them in the limbic system
With so much great content from the 10 speakers on the day, it would be easy to list off highlights from each one. From tone of voice expert Nick Parker, with an opening act more akin to stand-up comedy, to confirmed ‘copywriting legend’ Dan Nelken closing the show, it was copy gold from curtain up to ‘oh go on then, just one more pint’ at the after party.
But I want to focus on one talk in particular, where the aforementioned audio branding specialists took us back to our childhoods, demonstrating why and how audio has reentered the advertising and communication arena. And why we noble copywriters should be paying attention.
To start us off, Kristie O’Brien, Head of Copy at PHMG, explained the science in as much depth as anyone could in a twenty-minute talk. Sound has strong emotional associations as it triggers our limbic system, which is responsible for emotional processing.
The best way to inspire action is to make people feel, and we think that no medium has the power to do this better than sound when it is done well.
Kristie O’Brien – Head of Copy at PHMG
Sound leads to emotion, emotion leads to memory. You don’t have to be Yoda to know what comes next. Yes, the dark side. The dark side of convincing (sorry, inspiring) people to part with their hard-earned cash.
If you want to inspire action, hit them in the limbic system.
From radio jingles to podcast marketing
Alex Alcock, Copy Manager at PHMG, then took us on a whistle-stop tour of the history of audio advertising, from ancient Roman street vendors to the much-loved radio jingles of the mid-20th Century. Audio branding has transformed in the present day, Alcock told us, where podcasts, voice activation, sonic branding and TikTok all vie for our attention.
“Did we listen to a podcast on the way to the conference?” Alcock asked us. Of course we did, we’re not monsters. It is exactly this ‘listen while you’re doing something else’ quality that makes audio such a powerful medium, Alcock explains. In fact, 79% of audio is consumed while multitasking.
You don’t have to stop to consume audio, which is an attractive quality for your common or garden marketer. How many times have you listened to your favourite podcast host interrupt an interview to bring you 10% off their favourite new product, which just happens to be paying their salary? But you’re just listening to a podcast, right?
As the pair got into their audio marketing stride, I was instantly taken back to childhood, listening to radio jingles on long car journeys, or singing the annoying but ultimately unforgettable songs that dominated 90s and 00s television adverts.
You only have to shout ‘Calgon’ at a British millennial and they’ll begin singing the ‘washing machine song’ back to you, like a performing puppet who can’t control their desire to please others. If you grew up in Belgium, it might be the old Vandeborre jingle that drove you crazy as a kid (met dank aan mijn Vlaamse collega’s).
And we all know that hearing ‘holidays are coming’ means it’s time to get the decorations box out.
We sat in the auditorium, a room full of writers, recalling how sound had moved us throughout our lives, but also asking ourselves ‘How can I recreate this in my copy? How can I move my reader, or listener, to feel something that deeply?’ It would be like harnessing the power of the wind, or the emotional power of ‘the breakup song’. Thank you, Alex, for taking us all back to our most painful breakups.
Writing for audio = making your copy sing
We have a copy mantra at BBC: ‘make it sing’. Using Gary Provost’s 5-word sentence example as a guide, we try to achieve a certain musicality in our copy, making it dance on the reader’s tongue. Whether it’s a landing page, social post or an actual script; boring copy just won’t cut it.
With a top-notch in-house visual arts team here at BBC, we are increasingly writing for audio purposes. That being said, many of the words we write are still intended for the page or screen. How then can we incorporate audio into all our writing, and try to emulate those famous earworms that so easily get stuck in your head for days?
As O’Brien and Alcock explained, a sentence should flow like the line of a song.
Using 1950s radio ads as an example, they showed just how hard the mid-century jingle writer had it. When the copy had to be both catchy melody (remember, the listener was probably doing something else) and a scene setter, character developer, and product descriptor, you’d better believe that every line had to work for its supper.
And you thought getting the business-professional-yet-fun-and-disruptive TOV for LinkedIn was tough!
At the afterparty, in The Thirsty Scholar (don’t tell me copywriters don’t think of everything), Alcock explained further:
For me, audio is such a great medium for sharpening your copywriting skills and in turn engaging people. The sharper we are, the bigger impact we can have
Alex Alcock – Copy Manager at PHMG
I think what Alex was trying to say was “b sharp, don’t b flat”. Sorry.
The TikTok effect
The rise of social media changed copywriting, limiting the use of long-form copy and forcing us to fit our hard-earned literature degrees into 280 characters. We learned to write for video, accompanying moving images and backing up speech. But did we forget about audio?
The rise of the TikTok video, where every message has to be accompanied by the perfect soundtrack, has certainly helped to bring audio back into focus.
At the cutting edge of B2B, there’s not much call for TikTok copy (yet), but the effect of audio in these videos is not far from the cry of street seller or the radio jingle. It creates memory through feeling, inspiring decision-making and purchasing power. Or, as Alcock put it, “a wanky way to say ‘make people buy something’”.
Think of the John Lewis Christmas ad, unrelentingly released each year on the UK television watching public, whether they want it or not. How much does the song choice influence how the advert makes you feel? I’d wager it’s more than you think.
As every single speaker at CopyCon told us, emotions are the fast track to action. Whether you’re writing blog posts for a heating company or engaging social updates for a SAAS provider, your aim is to inspire action through emotion. To quote a band who knew a thing or two about inspiring people: “Let’s see action.”
The voiceover is a snitch
But how? How can you inspire action with your copy? How can you make your copy sing?
According to O’Brien and Alcock, the key is reading your copy out loud. All of it. To understand how it flows, to hear the musicality in your words, and to see if it sings. Read it out loud yourself, but also ask someone else to read it back to you.
How does it sound to you, the writer, when someone else reads your words? As you thought and hoped? Or somehow different? As O’Brien reminded us “the voiceover is your biggest snitch”. There is nowhere to hide when your work is read out. And try to hide you might, if you hear your work read out loud in the finished edit, and you notice a mistake.
To avoid this, O’Brien advises recording yourself and playing it back throughout the writing process. You’ll hate it so much you’ll want to cut your own tongue out, but you will hear what jars and what doesn’t sing. You’ll also hear how that final just-one-more product benefit ruins the whole message.
If it doesn’t work, change it. Or to quote American speechwriter Peggy Noonan, as O’Brien did: “If you falter, alter.”
And don’t just take her word for it. O’Brien assured us that many well-known authors have adjusted their style after the audiobook boom. I guess having your work read aloud over and over again might make you reconsider that oh-so-clever 5 line sentence.
So there you have it. Among the many takeaways from CopyCon 2024, I urge you to keep audio in mind when writing, whether it’s a headline, a social update or a landing page. Especially in B2B, where endless technical jargon can rob your words of feeling and emotion. Remember to stay sharp, not flat.
Do you want your next B2B campaign to hit the top of the charts with musical copy and 3D animation? Get in touch with our team to discuss your next project.
