A couple of years ago, I heard voice and dialect coach, Leith McPherson, talking to Radio National’s Michael Cathcart about the importance of breath in acting.

(You can watch a short excerpt of the interview here if you like.)

As the saying goes, acting is all about reacting. And every reaction has to feel as natural as possible. Otherwise, your audience will see you acting and the illusion is shattered. That’s no fun.

(Hmm... reminds me of Elmore Leonard’s famous quote – “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”)

All stories are, essentially, a string of tipping points. Moments of change. And whenever a new character enters a scene or some new piece of information is revealed, it’s not just the story that has taken a hard left. There has also been a shift in the character’s context.  

Actors must prepare themselves to communicate that shift well before they utter their next line of dialogue. And, as Leith explains, that all comes down to breathing.

How you breathe changes everything. Your stance. Your face. Your tone of voice (it’s hard to manage more than a high-pitched squeak if you’ve just sucked in a lungful of oxygen).  

It struck me that copywriters, much like actors, take up, inhabit and express characters to write copy. It’s just that, in our case, the character is a brand.

So, what is a copywriter’s version of this breathing thing?

Well, if we're talking about reacting to a context, you can't go past communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan's, famous statement:

"The medium is the message."

Basically, where your communication appears is as important (maybe even more so) as what you say.

When working up an idea, a copywriter must think about where the copy will be read AND what is likely to be happening in the life of the person reading it.

Where are they?

In a bus shelter? At their desk? In their car? In their doctor’s waiting room?

What are they doing?

Are they a captive audience (e.g. sitting on the loo with nothing but the door of the bathroom stall to look at), or will you have to work hard to get their attention (e.g. a web banner ad)?

Are you an interruption (like those pesky YouTube pre-roll ads) or are they actively seeking you out (as with a website or brochure)?

Working these things out is the copywriter’s version of ‘taking a breath’.

You mustn’t write a word until you’ve identified and prepared yourself to react to the context in which your copy will appear. This will determine so much about the physicality (design), the words you use and the tone of voice.

There are some great examples of copy working really well with its context:

'Wackaging' (wacky packaging for the uninitiated) can be a delightful surprise – as long as you get the tone right.

I loved the entertaining copy found on the inside of this otherwise ordinary cardboard mailing box, begging us to give it a chance at a new life (I particularly enjoyed the line about kids filling it with “headless plastic toys”. That’s EXACTLY what mine would do!):

Billboards. There are literally thousands of wonderful examples to choose from. What I loved about this one was the use of a distinctive brand asset (the instantly recognisable golden arches) and the location (alongside a highway) to literally direct hungry road trippers to their nearest McDonalds restaurant:

Geico’s ‘Unskippable’ five second YouTube pre-roll ads were an inspired acknowledgement of channel behaviour - everyone knows those five seconds until you can hit 'Skip Ads' are the longest of your LIFE:

Sometimes the context is the timing of your campaign.

Aviator Gin’s ‘Peloton Wife’ ad took advantage of the media storm over Peloton’s ill-conceived Christmas campaign – ‘The gift that gives back’.

In the ad, a woman’s husband gifts her a Peloton exercise bike for Christmas. She spends much of the ad looking kinda strung out about the whole thing:

Yeah. That didn’t go down very well. Many viewers felt the concept was sexist. Some even used the word "dystopian".

Aviator Gin’s response? Hire the same actress to star in a 'sequel'.

It was a genius, if slightly risky, move; the joke relies on the viewer having already seen the Peloton ad. Although considering the media storm around the original campaign, that was a reasonably safe bet. And it paid off.

The main thing all these examples share is that there’s an idea behind them. An idea that originated with the context of where the copy or campaign would be seen or experienced.

When you connect your copy to what’s going on in your reader's world at the very moment they come across it, it just feels more natural. Believable. Like you are having an actual conversation with them.

Which is one of the main differences between writing ‘words’ and writing ‘copy’.

It's all in the preparation. In first, taking that breath.

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