Tips For Social Media "Creatives" From A Classically-Trained Copywriter.
Yes, very necessary quotation marks.
Trends. Yous follow them closely, just so you can be one of the first 100 brands to “capitalize” on them. This is not creativity. It is the direct opposite of creativity. It’s sameness. It’s habit.
What’s habit? Let George Lois—who was a better creative than you, me, and everybody we know—explain:
“Reject group grope. Teamwork might work when building an Amish barn. But it can’t create a big idea … Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything”.
Group Groping is what you’re doing when you hop on the trend train to unoriginality. “Everybody else is doing it, so it must be a good thing”, said the lemming about to jump off a cliff.
The original Duct-Taped Banana, by Maurizio Cattelan, just sold for $6.2 million. Well, one of the three “pieces” did. Smart, “making” three of them. So of course you socializers attached your brands to the news like lampreys sucking blood out of an already dead lamprey. While you’re at it, why not stick five of your products into holes in a wall, for some stupid reason.
Yes I know your job: daily impossible deadlines, “Engagement” numbers (meaningless) to hit. Does this actually help your brand grow? I know what would. Buy a subscription here, and I’ll tell you exactly what, below, in four steps: