All of the exaggeration: copywriting

WHENEVER I saw ads as a boy I was sold.

I came from a very low exposure household in relation to TV. Which probably made me crave it more when I did get a chance to see it.

Certain ads seem timeless. The hohoho of Green Giant tinned sweetcorn. The cheesey 80’s-ness of Head and Shoulders. Toys that looked too good to be true and were. To the shiny new car gliding along a picturesque but desolate road, alloys turning effortlessly.

Being obsessed with basketball, I subscribed to SLAM magazine and would see the adverts for programmes designed to improve a basketballers vertical leap.

I dreamt of dunking a basketball. How high I could jump became an obsession. I don’t know what it is that makes a 5″7 teenager think they can dunk a basketball…well ok, naivety, but I figured if I grew I could definitely do it.

I penned my first advert on glorious yellow paper with reckless imagining and abandon. Fuck trades description, I didn’t even have an idea it existed. My truth stretching was magnificent. My typography and colour scheme horrible.

And that element of wild creativity unhindered by reality is something so easily lost going into adulthood.

I used to be able to pin an idea on a horse, smack it on the rear and watch it charge into the infinite landscape of ideas unimpeded by obstacles.

I think we all lose that edge, but I’m looking to find it again as creative endeavours like my advertising portfolio need that step away from earth – to float freely and get lost in moments of conscious unconsciousness as Bruce Lee might put it.