You’ve probably already gone through the CA Advertising Annual and preordered your copy of the One Show. (If not, why haven’t you?)
But if you’re serious about understanding what makes an award-winning ad, you can’t just flip through the annuals. You have to study them. Yes, study.
One of the best techniques I know came from my old copywriting professor, Coz Cotzias. Here’s what you do…
- Sit down with an annual and a pack of Post-It notes.
- Go through the book flagging every ad you totally dig as a creative.
- Put the book down. Go see a movie. Read a book. Whatever. Just step away.
- Come back to the book, but this time, viewing only the executions you tagged as a creative, look at them as a consumer. Tag the ones you dig as someone who might actually buy whatever it is that’s being advertised.
These are the ads you want to aspire to. Why? Because they’re not just clever. They’re smart. They’re effective. They’re the ones that are rooted in a strategy. The ones that are really solving the client’s problem creatively.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Gary Goldsmith…
