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It is said that, back in the day, agencies used to hire copywriters from all walks of life - from lawyers and postmen to philosophers and physicists - whose life experience was invaluable. But these days, argues Stephens Francis Whitson creative partner Neil Francis, copywriting isn't even on the agenda at most colleges. Is the industry missing a trick?

David Ogilvy once said that “advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera”.

It seems as true today, when, almost quite suddenly, we’re having to write to existing customers rather than trying to find new ones all the time. This means we’re looking around for a new language of engagement and for writers who can use it and write in it.

So perhaps it is not too surprising that recently the likes of Dave Trott and Marc Nohr have been pondering how it is possible to do a 3-year degree in advertising or marketing without having heard of Bernbach, Wunderman or a Johnson Box. The simple answer is probably that no-one is telling students about them.

And, although you can learn about them on the job, if you have invested time and money to do a course that’s designed to get you into an agency - and you can’t get one – then that is an issue. In which case you might be left wondering why you did a course with such a narrow focus. And, depressingly, after meeting some of these students I have often been left wondering why they did that course, too.

My point is that this is an industry that thrives on diversity. But it’s not attracting, or seeking that diversity when it comes to its writers. As far as I know agencies haven’t been hiring philosophers, lawyers, postmen or physicists as writers for years. I mention this because apparently in the olden days, we did. You could walk into an agency, take a copy test and leave the milk undelivered from the very next day.

So where might we look for our new writing talent?

The colleges, one or two excepted, don’t treat copywriting as a specialism. Student teams are encouraged to think almost entirely conceptually. So it’s little wonder that we’re not finding the writing skill-sets we’d all like to see in our graduate intakes. The industry could be doing more to engage with the tutors on various courses – and I know people who are doing things to facilitate this. But that still leaves a huge and interesting pool of talent out there of people who didn’t know they wanted a career in writing for communications at the age of 12 and who now, with a bit of life experience in things other than advertising, would like to get into the business of writing for money.

The way I see it, students of philosophy, history, physics, law, politics, sociology and so on have spent at least 3 years writing essays, dissertations, critiques, synopses, emails, code, blogs, and have maybe even held a real pen. They can write a bit and show evidence of it. They can tell a story, make a point, construct an argument and keep it going for longer than a sentence. They’ve been subjected to a level of writing rigour that you just don’t get on most of the courses from which we currently take our talent.

Trouble is, these graduates and undergrads in ‘off-media’ subjects don’t know how to get into the industry. They probably don’t even know that the industry is looking for them. Then again, maybe the industry doesn’t know that it’s looking for them, either.

But don’t just take my word for it, as Ogilvy also said, “the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive”.

Neil Francis, Creative Partner
Stephens Francis Whitson