My Biggest Lesson: Paul Chappell
Paul Chappell is the managing partner of Brand+Story, a Sydney based creative partnership with writer/director co-founder, Josh Whiteman. The two departed the larger agency world 8 years ago to focus on delivering more narrative-driven brand content for leading brands.
Paul worked in broadcast media in Australia and South East Asia for over ten years before moving into digital strategy, content production and eventually starting The Story Lab, a specialist content agency within the Dentsu Aegis Network.
Brand+Story works with some of Australia's most iconic brands including Qantas, IHG, REA Group, Destination Queenstown, the Motor Accident Commission NT and more recently CBA and Oporto.
Copywriting is an amazing craft to learn. But the journey of becoming a good copywriter ain't for the overnighters.
Back in the early 90s, when my mates were getting their hands dirty learning the art of directing, producing, sound engineering, I was sitting in the back rooms of regional radio stations writing twenty to thirty ads a day. You know the ones...
"Thinking Tyres? Think Morris Tyres"...
"It's our birthday but YOU get the presents"...
"Hear that? (SFX: Applause) That's the sound of you thanking yourself for saving 50 per cent off..." yada yada yada.
I was young - too young to realise the copy sins I was committing every day, but not so old that I couldn't learn to be a better writer. And I wanted to be a great copywriter. The best. At least in Wollongong.
One of the first and best lessons I ever learned about adopting a strong work ethic was from my dad. He often sent me back to the kitchen to wash up the big pots and pans that I conveniently left for someone else to do.
He'd snap his fingers and point over to the sink with the words "If you're going to do something, do it well." And if I was being particularly slovenly and leaving the benchtops unwiped, he'd throw in, "And if you're going to start something, finish it!" At the time, his words slid off me like suds on a casserole dish. But later in my career, they would bubble up again, popping in my face with extra reverb and gain. I wanted to do something with my writing, and I wanted to do well.
They say you need to do something 10,000 times in order to be an expert at it. Well, in the first three years of being a radio copywriter, I did write over 10,000 ads. It was easy to clock up 20-30 scripts a day, especially when the sales team were on a mission to fill all the ad breaks with distressed spots offering birthday presents and canned applause.
I'm not proud to admit it, but I could literally write a 30 second radio spot in less than one minute - sometimes out of mild amusement, sometimes out of necessity. I think I was the exception to the rule when it comes to practice making perfect. I had little supervision, training or development as a radio copywriter and had to learn by trial and error.
The second piece of advice that was pivotal in my copywriting career came a few years later when I started in my role as creative director at Austereo in Sydney. It was a conversation I had with my copywriting mentor from AFTRS, Kevin Best.
At that time, Kevin and John Dickson were running Heard, the specialist radio agency operating inside Austereo. They were the kingpins of radio copywriting, adored by many, including yours truly. I was doing some okay work, but I felt like I was still falling into old habits that had been soldered into my brain from my self-taught writing style.
I asked Kevin to read some of my scripts and give me some blunt feedback. He obliged, and in his typical fatherly demeanour replied... "Who are you writing these to?" I looked at Kev quizzically. "Who am I writing these TO?" These scripts weren't letters. They were ads, written FOR the target audience.
With a simple turn of phrase, Kevin taught me one of the greatest lessons as a radio copywriter that I still use in my work today, regardless of the medium. Radio ads are written for two ears at a time. It's a highly personal experience and the way we write our radio spots needs to connect at that individual level. When I write creative these days, I start with the intent that it's a message I'm writing TO a person, not FOR a person.
It immediately centres the intention of my writing for the one person listening, reading or watching the spot - not the rest of the inconsequential bystanders. I'm writing it with all the empathy, purpose, clarity and nuance that he or she understands and connects with. The script may not be literally written as a message TO a person, but the intention is there from the moment I start shaping the copy.
The last gem of advice I keep in my top drawer is from the master writer himself, Ernest Hemingway. His rule of always using short sentences and short paragraphs served me well as a copywriter, especially in radio. I just haven't been able to carry that skill over to fluff pieces like this. But I'm still working on it, and I'll get there after writing another 9,999 of them!
