3 Lessons from Harry Dry : The Master of Copy Writing.

I recently watched a couple of talks by Harry Dry, a renowned copywriter. And In less than two hours, I learned an incredible amount of valuable insights from this guy. I wanted to create a consumable version of my learnings from him for my own sake and also for those who follow me. So, here we go.

1. According to Harry there are 3 golden questions for a good copy.

Can you visualize it?   

Can you falsify it?

Can nobody else say it?

A. Can you Visualize it?

When you read a copy / tagline or caption- you should be able to visualize it.

B. Can you falsify it?

Falsify is the way of answering something with a definitive true or false. When you read a copy, you should be able to feel that it’s true. Here’s an interesting example:

“Adam is an avid reader” - this is a statement that you cannot falsify easily ,as it’s more of a concept than an action. But if you say it like — “Adam reads on his way to work” , it’s a statement that we can prove to be true or false.

C. Can nobody else say it?

A good copy needs to be personal. It shouldn’t be so generic that anyone could claim it. Try to find your USP and use it in your copy.

2. Why does copywriting matter. Can't the product sell itself?

   Think about a Snickers Bar and a Fuse Bar. Both are chocolates with extremely similar content and taste. If you strip them naked, you wont even be able to tell the difference, One is the best selling chocolate in the world and the other one doesn’t even exist anymore. This explains the question.

   We don’t choose the product, we choose the image of a product

3. Adding Metonymy to create a sense of Drama.

   All of you have heard \ the famous ad for iPod. Technically the fact should be saying a 1000 songs in your portable media player— but what makes the visualization interesting is the Metonymy of replacing media player with “Pocket”

Metonymy : Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted with another that is closely associated with it.Example: In the phrase “The White House issued a statement,” “The White House” is a metonym for the President

Watch the full video here

_maheshravi