Today I spent the first half of the day agonizing over a single word.
It is a very specific word to be used in the headline that sums up everything in the visual. I have hundreds written down in front of me, but they are all either too obscure, too zen, too energy drink, or too corporate. Hmm.
Racking my brains and dictionary.com for a word so upbeat and spirited it can carry an entire campaign has expanded my positive vocabulary and lifted my mood. This would be a good exercise for depressed people.
The next thing I know I am pulled over to production to determine the accent of a voiceover, then on to edit an email, then a quick ad here, a quick proofread here, another ad, some body copy, a headline, some design rationales, an ‘on-hold’ script (I always wondered who wrote those things), then on to trans-create something and draw a picture and help the Chinese copywriters and conceptualize something and write this and that and all of a sudden I am …I’m all over the map.
Now it’s 9 pm, two ads have cleared, one new voiceover talent has been brought in, several headlines have been written, many emails have been sent, and we’ve been briefed on a new pitch coming up next week, not to mention there’s a pitch tomorrow we need to prepare for. In the meantime, my single word has died a horrible death.
No two days are ever the same. But they are always frantic and quite fun.
If you would like to know more about life as an English copywriter in Hong Kong click here.
