Creative Insights

Creative thinking from the world’s leading copywriters

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The Copy Brief That Was Really a Brand Strategy Problem

After 20 years placing senior copywriters, here’s how a simple copy brief exposes a brand strategy problem — and what to fix before you brief a writer.
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Transcreation: Why Great Campaigns Die at the Border

Every few weeks an email lands that I've come to think of as the most expensive kind I receive. A marketing director — smart, experienced, fresh off a campaign that worked — writes: "Can you get this translated into German? Nothing fancy,…
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How to Interview a Copywriter (When You’re Not One)

How to interview a copywriter: after 20 years placing writers and hearing how every hire turned out, here's what actually predicts great work.
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Copywriter or Content Writer? You’re Hiring the Wrong One

A client called me a few months ago, frustrated. They'd hired a writer six weeks earlier — sharp, well-reviewed, fair rate — and the work was landing flat. "The blog posts are fine," they said, "but the campaign line we asked for is just...…
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The Revision Where Good Work Goes to Die

A writer I'd placed called me a few months ago, a week after wrapping a campaign for a brand most people would be thrilled to work with. I asked how it went. There was a pause — the kind that tells you everything before the words do. "The…
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The Rise of AI Slop and Why Human Creativity Is Winning

Congratulations, You're Irreplaceable! Here's some good news for all you creative copywriters out there who thought your career was over. Remember the big companies that had a mass clearout of their creative workforce because they thought…
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Why Great Creatives Keep Delivering Average Work

Why Great Creatives Deliver Average Results I've placed hundreds of freelance copywriters and creative directors over the past two decades. Award-winners. People whose work you've seen on billboards, in Super Bowl spots, on the homepages of…
Empty creative agency desk by a window — where did all the good creatives go

Where All the Good Creatives Went

I had a conversation last month with a CMO at a large European brand. She was frustrated. "We've been through three agencies in two years," she told me. "The pitches are great. The teams they present are impressive. And then the work starts…
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I’ve Written 47 CTAs. Only One Worked | CTA Copywriting

The document is called CTA_FINAL_v3_USE_THIS_ONE.docx. It is, of course, not the final version. It is version 11 of an ongoing argument I have been having with myself, a client, and the entire English language about how to make a stranger on…

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