I used to be the second-best copywriter in Leyland. So I kicked Justin Steed out of town. He only went on to have a mega-career in Singapore, Stockholm, Hong Kong and now as a Paris copywriter. I’m still in Leyland.
You used to be a teacher. Do you miss it?
Not at all. I was the world’s worst teacher. Though I do still get stress dreams about it: waking up thinking I’ve not done the planning or the marking or whatever.
What brought about the career change?
I was miserable in the job, and got talking one evening to a friend’s brother who was a copywriter. I’d always been interested in ads but never really considered it as a career before, so I started applying for jobs. It took a year, but eventually I was hired by Virgin as an in-house writer.
You left England a number of years ago. What was behind that?
While I was at Virgin I was looking at Campaign one quiet Friday afternoon and I saw a job advertised in Stockholm. I’d never been there, and I thought that my CV would probably get me an interview. Turns out it also got me the job!
You’ve worked in some exotic places: Hong Kong, Singapore, Stockholm, Paris. Which have you enjoyed most and least?
I hated Singapore, though that was mostly down to the job and the poor salary. Stockholm will always have my heart, I think. I still go up there three or four times a year to see some clients, and it feels like coming home.
You’re currently in Paris, lucky bugger. You enjoying that?
Yeah – been here 15 years now, and have two kids who are more French than British, though they would hate to admit it.
The UK and France are only a few miles apart but France feels incredibly foreign sometimes. Especially when you’re trying to do something that should be easy but involves an astonishing amount of bureaucracy. But it’s a great place to live and I don’t think I’ll be going back to the UK.
You’ve also worked with the international offices of some big agencies. How does that differ from working in the UK offices?
I’ve never really worked for a big agency in the UK so I’m not sure I can comment on that. But on the occasions I do work in London it’s such a luxury to be able to make a nice cup of proper builders’ tea!
Any favourite accounts you’ve worked on?
I was the writer for KLM in the Nordic area for about 10 years in the 2000s and that was a nice account. It was a bit of a backwater from the head office’s point of view so we were able to do some nice stuff: fun giveaways, ads tailored for LGBT audiences, that sort of thing.
Notable successes?
The best one I can remember is a YouTube thing for Tipp-Ex called ‘Hunter vs Bear’ I did with Buzzman a few years ago. It wasn’t my idea I should stress, but I ended up writing all the scripts.
The idea was that you typed in what a hunter should do to a bear (shoot, dance with, hug and so on) and the app served a funny video: there were about 40 of them all told.
I was working in a big agency in Paris the day it launched, and all day I could hear people around the office trying to find all the videos they could.
Unfortunately, I’d signed an NDA; so even though I had the full list right there on my Mac, I couldn’t tell anyone!
How is the world of agency copywriting changing?
Copy has to be shorter and shorter. Everything is visual now. There’s no time to build an argument in copy. Even on the London Underground, where you used to get those fantastic long copy ads on the platforms that I loved when I was a kid. I think it will change eventually, but it’s a shame. I enjoy the craft of long copy.
What’s better: freelance or agency?
Freelance, 100%. You have to develop a very different attitude (those suits you used to argue the toss with are now your clients, and you forget it at your peril), but it’s very nice to think that you can walk away if you want, even if you know you can’t really afford to.
Plus you usually get quiet Monday mornings that let you slide nicely into the week, and you never have to go to Ikea at the weekends!
Any tips for newbie copywriters?
Be good (this is the hard bit). Be on time, so you get the benefit of the doubt on the occasions you can’t be. Network like crazy and never give anyone a reason to look anywhere else. I can honestly say I’ve never had to prospect for work; it’s nearly all come from people I have worked with in the past who have either hired me again or recommended me.
Also, build up a network of fellow writers you can share your overflow projects with and who can cover for you when you’re busy or on vacation – without worrying about them stealing your business.
You can ask them for their opinions about how much you should charge for a job, too. That can be a surprisingly hard question to answer sometimes.
Oh, and never piss off the person who processes your invoices: they own you!
And any tips for clients?
My pet peeve with clients (and I know for a fact I’m not alone in this) is that experience where you answer the brief, it goes round the houses for about four rounds and then you end up with something very close to what you did in the first place. Mainly because (gasp!) your copywriter’s 20 years of experience mean that he or she actually does know what they’re doing. So avoiding that would be a good tip.
Also brief well: it’s worth the investment both in terms of results and time spent.
And pay your invoices quickly: copywriters have to eat!
Worried about Brexit as an expat?
Actually I think Brexit, madness though it is, will be good for me in terms of business. Plenty of companies and agencies are quietly moving accounts and offices away from London over to Paris, and English is still the main language for the sort of stuff I do.
It’ll also be harder for British writers to come over and start up here, I suppose, which will reduce the competition a bit. Fortunately, the French government seems to be very keen for British expats to stay, so hopefully it won’t be too bad in that regard. I still wish it wasn’t happening, though.
