Can you tell us about your job?
I am a copywriter for advertising. This job, commonly referred to by its initials CR, is one of the creative professions in communications. I have been doing it for several years at a communications consulting agency. Simply put, copywriters are generally nicknamed "Mr. Words" because they are in charge of the editorial side of a communications campaign. This doesn't necessarily do justice to the job because, in addition to the writing, I'm also involved in the conceptual side of campaigns, coming up with concepts and ideas that will form the creative basis for the work to be done in order to translate the strategic communication guidelines into concrete terms.
What are your main responsibilities?
The copywriter participates in the development of the creative aspect of advertising campaigns. For each campaign, the creative team receives a "creative brief," which is a summary of the campaign's strategic directions and simply outlines what needs to be said and on which media. From there, their role is to figure out "how" to maximize the impact of the message on the target audience, make it easy to understand, and find the most original approach possible to disseminate it.
The creatives then work as a team with several other professionals, including the copywriter. This work begins with a brainstorming session, based on which the copywriter is responsible for establishing the concepts and ideas that will be developed. All the work done in an advertising campaign is the result of collaboration between several professionals, but in a specific way, the copywriter's mission is to develop the editorial content of the communication media to be proposed. This generally involves proposing one or more campaign messages (taglines or brand signatures) that summarize the concept in a single sentence, developing and writing synopses for TV and radio commercials, writing press ads and sales brochures, and writing posts for digital communications. In short, the CR manages all the writing for the campaign.
What skills do you need to develop for this job?
The main attribute of the CR, as with all jobs involved in developing an advertising campaign, is creativity. The CR must be able to develop original and surprising concepts and ideas in a positive sense. This creativity and a real ability to reinvent themselves with each campaign and for each brand are essential for them to handle their workload effectively.
Beyond this, an essential skill for a CR is the ability to play with words and have a good command of the language of communication in which they must express themselves. This ability is essential in this profession, as it forms the basis of all the work that a copywriter has to produce. Without necessarily having the level of an academic, they must have a way with words and be able to write texts without making mistakes.
What academic or non-academic path did you follow to get there?
After obtaining my high school diploma in science, I studied economics at university, where I earned a bachelor's degree in economic analysis and policy before going on to complete a master's degree in international business and management. However, having always been attracted to creative professions, particularly those in the film industry, of which I am a big fan, I decided to reorient myself towards this type of career so that I could develop in a field that would inspire me and suit me better. That's when I started researching the field of advertising, alongside my master's degree in marketing. As soon as I discovered the job of copywriter and read the job description, I immediately saw myself in it because it suited me so well.
From there, I applied to communications agencies, which allowed me to land an internship, prove myself, learn the ropes of the trade, and become a full-fledged copywriter.
In short, I was trained on the job like most people in this field. Broadly speaking, there is no specific academic training to become a copywriter. You just need to have the prerequisites and the desire, and the rest comes with practice.
Do you work with a team? Do you collaborate with other departments?
Copywriters work in a creative studio, which generally consists of themselves, a creative director who establishes the creative basis for each campaign, and an art director who is in charge of the visual, graphic, and aesthetic aspects of the campaign. Depending on the size of the organization, this creative studio may be larger, also including an animator, a production manager, and other creative professionals, depending on the needs and ambitions of each campaign.
If it is not possible to assemble this entire team, the CR works with at least an Art Director or a graphic designer, without whom the CR's work cannot be realized. The CR/Art Director (graphic designer) duo is an essential part of advertising.
Beyond that, the CR collaborates with the strategic, commercial, and digital departments in perfect synergy to deliver work that is consistent with the guidelines set upstream, in line with customer expectations, and adapted to all media to reach all targets.
What are the best aspects of your job? The main difficulties?
What I like most about my job is having to reinvent myself with each campaign and for each brand. Every brief I receive represents a new challenge because each time I have to find a new and original way of saying things. This allows me to express my creativity and push my limits in order to meet expectations. There is no routine in this job, or rather, routine is the new thing.
This aspect of the PR profession comes with its main difficulty: the stress of the blank page. It's not easy to reinvent yourself every day and for every request. Also, having to reach and influence a target audience whose perceptions and expectations you can never fully control means that there is an element of uncertainty in my work which, even after I have come up with ideas that I am happy with, causes me to feel a certain amount of anxiety until the campaign is launched and its reception by the target audience is confirmed.
Despite everything, these difficulties are part of the charm of this job and make it exciting and motivating, with challenges to be met every day.
Do you have an anecdote to share with us?
When I started working on a campaign for a mobile phone brand, I was faced with a dilemma that was difficult to resolve. I wanted to use a popular Wolof expression as the campaign message. The problem was that this expression was generally used in spoken language and in the media, but when written with the correct Wolof spelling, there was a part that was difficult for ordinary Senegalese people to read and decode, since this language is the most widely spoken in the country but very few people know how to write it well, let alone read it. So I finally had to rewrite the word to make it more readable, but with a twinge of regret because I was aware that with this choice I was not helping to promote this local language.
I like to cite this example and remember it because it clearly shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of reflection and education in the field of communication in Senegal in order to be more effective in our statements and better control the impact of each of our choices.