I just had a struggling copywriter sitting in my office.
She's trying to write the mission statement for a probono/non-profit/apparel company.
And she's concerned that the client doesn't know what she's selling.
My response: clients rarely understand what they're selling.
Because while the eyeballs may say we're selling beer or soap or a trip to Disney World, we're almost never selling those things. If we were selling those things, we'd just put a big picture of them, along with the price, on the nearest flat surface and wait for the phonecalls and the dirty folk and the drunks to show up.
We're selling the idea. We're selling the club. We're selling intelligence. We're selling "But I'm worth it" and "Man Laws" and the feeling of a quarterback who's just won the SuperBowl, but whose only thought - the only thing that could top the feeling of winning the fucking superbowl - is going to Disney World.
We're not selling actual plane tickets., hotel rooms and 7 dollar ice cream cones.
At least I'm not.
My job is magic. There is no inherent magic in a case study or a bar graph or a 3.5% increase in sales. That's math. You hire mathematicians and that's what you'll get. You hire a media company and they'll increase your GRPs. Shuffle your budget to maximize the impact of your message - hit the right target. Or suggest sticking your idea on the side of a bus. But an unmagical message on the side of a bus is just as unimpactful as if you stuck it in your underwear.
You want magic, you'd better not depend on a mathematician. A microsite or an SMS campaign or a brand manifesto is a great thing. But it isn't magic unless, by encountering it, once gains a profound new emotional opinion of the product or service you're researching. Magic takes parity out of the equation.
Look at the difference between the Zune and the iPod. They do the same thing. They both play music. A thinking man says, buy the cheaper one. But we are not just calculators. We care about the way things feel and look and, yes, the way they are advertised. We define ourselves with our mp3 players- not just our music - and who wants to be brown?
Unless you're UPS - who has found a kind of magic in Brown. Not to suggest that iPod's magic is in the color of the device. iPod's magic is in selling freedom and expression and customization and uniqueness. iPod is a spaceship. Zune is a brick.
People spend ludicrous amounts of money on things based on magic. You won't find it on a spread sheet. Or in the transcript of a focus group. Or in a graph plotting your budget and your bottom line.
Magic is scary and inconclusive and risky and all the things we hate in business. But when you get it, you love it, you ride it for all it's worth and you long for it when it's gone. Magic is a one night stand. You make it with truth and luck and a couple people who believe.
Magic is not units or dollars or a big logo.
For the most part, clients can't make magic. Or they'd do it themselves. Like Target. But damn do they need it. And if your agency can't make it, they'll find one that can. I don't blame them, either. You don't stick with an agency for 20 years because they're nice. You stick with them because they've managed to keep a spark alive in your brand. That spark is M-A-G-I-C.
And when the magic gone, well, you know the rest.