ACADEMIC & CAREER
  Copywriting

 The Copywriting Subject:
It's not just about words. Any Webster can throw open a dictionary and find words. Before there is copy,  there are concepts. The copywriting program at MC 14 goes basic and well beyond. A great idea is worthless if you can't communicate, defend and eventually execute it into advertising (yes, maybe even words) that motivate people.  We'll teach you how to be a part of meaningful collaborations and how to make it work on your own little lonesome. It'll be hard. It'll be fun. It will be just what you need to be a  real live writer in this real live world..

                 You can't draw. So am I. The last film you developed was the one in your tub. The only designs you ever come up with are evil. And you can't even lay out your clothes. But you're a master of irony. A  wizard of wit. A warrior with words. A book-reading, story-making, note-passing, joke-telling, encyclopedia of useless trivia and crazy ideas. You're gonna be a great copywriter.
Copywriters write tv commercials, radio commercials, magazine ads, outdoor billboards, directmail, brochures, and anything else that needs just the right words. Copywriters come up with ideas, usually in tandem with an art director. And most of all as a copywriter, you get to write, write, write. Oh, you'll also work with a lot of other people (besides the art director, your best friend, your worstenemy). Photographers, designers, musicians, actors, directors-a long line of weird people straight out of a Fellini flick-will waltz in and out of your office. And you'll always get just a bit more respect than the art director. You can spell; art directors can't. You'll win all the same awards, get the same bonuses.
 
Account Servicing
O.K. Be honest. Which side of your brain is your best side?

If you want to be an account planner, your best side better be where your intuition hangs out.Because your gut feelings are important in this field. You have to instinctively 'know things'. Can you think like a consumer thinks? What if the consumer is thirteen years old? Or thirty? Or sixty? Can you predict trends based on dull, dull data? Can you wade through all that and find the 'gold nugget' of an idea that leads to creative advertising?

Let's say you're all those things. Great. But, are you also a people person? You'd better be. Because you got to work with wackos the rest of your life. Art directors and copywriters are from another planet and you have to learn their alienlanguage. And you've got to be part of their madness while you're leading them to discover that golden idea that's going to persuade consumers to buy one brand instead of another.

Imagine this -- you've got to write a 'creative brief' that will turn on your creative team (a pair of lions that feast on creativity and rip up thoughts and ideas like so many pieces of meat). Rrrright. But that's what the agency is paying you to do. Because account planning has turned advertising on its ear the last couple of years. Planners are now a vital part of the creative process at ad agencies all over the country. At the same time, planners are hard to find. Few schools are training planners and most agencies don't have time to train them. And everybody's looking for them.

Perhaps you're in advertising already. Maybe you're in account service. Or in media. Or in research. But you're not really cut out to be a 'suit'. Your heart is on the creative side. But you are not quite what an art director or copywriter should be. But ideas come easily to you. You're intuitive, smart, articulate and persuasive. The idea of bringing a brand back to life instills this tingling sensation throughout your body. Should you be a planner?

Here's the real test. You come from work after a frantic day with the wild and crazy creative team you're working with. You just got back to the office after a week on the road doing focus groups all over the Klang Valley. Finally, you can relax. First a glass of Coke. Then you flip off your Sneaker and click on the tv.

 
There's this strange program on about some family in " Jiran" sitcom dating in tractor tires.  Then the girl's father come towards them with a pump gun. What a hilarious thing!. Hey, on the other hand...that's it. That's it! That's really it! What you've been looking for all along. You toss down the remote, pick up the phone and call the creative director. Within twenty minutes you're all at the tavern and rough ideas are already masking-taped to the wall. Who knows how long this will go on tonight? But you're hot on the trail of the exlusive idea. And so is the life of an account executive.
 
Creative
 
Is there paint under your fingernails? Do you tear pictures out of magazines? Would you like a Pantone color chart for Hari Raya? Did you pick the typeface for your tattoo? Maybe you're cut out to be an art director.

Art Directors come up with the ideas and visuals for magazine ads, posters, billboards, tv commercials, direct mail, catalogs, and any other media that tries to persuade someone to buy something from a visual image.

 
 
 
 If you are an Art Director, you're cool; you don't like to wear suits and ties; you're more than a little bit crazy; your office looks like Disney world or the local junkyard. You have ideas!


Take, for instance, ads. First, as an art director, you get together with a copywriter and somehow or the other, Ideas emerge. Then you "rough out" the idea to visualize how the finished ad will appear. Once the rough is accepted by the client, you develop the rough to a "finished ad", ready to go to the printer or the
magazine. You call in a photographer to shoot the idea. Or maybe you use an illustrator instead. Decide on the colors. Choose the type and set it on a Macintosh computer. Look at proofs. Edit film. Make corrections. Send the ad out. Everybody notices the ad in the magazine. Then everybody rushes out and buys the product. The ad is selected to win a Clio or an Addy. You get a big bonus; you buy a Hummer or a Harley. You become a famous art director. You went for it!
 

Media Planing
Here, the people discuss with the account servicing people about the client intention, the product background and the target market.  You will analyze the whole thing and decided on the production and material cost to make advertisement.  You need a job reposition ( seens to me like a proposal) to the media plannner. In that job reposition, you should know everything about the product, the target market, the competitors, the objective of the campaign and the budget. All of these can be seek from yours clients. Aha...don't forget your contact report because all your faith depand on that report....I' am serious nie. Why? It is your proof when clients didn't agree wih your job that had been done ( show me the money !!! - Jerry Mcguire) and a proof if there are something happened between you and your client. It's sound challenging.
 
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