The 5 Monsters of Copywriting

The market research company Ipsos recently did a poll that found 46% of Americans believe in ghosts. I found that annoying because they didn’t ask Americans how many of them believed in monsters.
It’s so important which words you use when you’re taking a survey.
Ipsos also found that 7% of Americans believe in vampires, and 6% believe in zombies.
With Halloween coming up, I thought this would be a good time to do a show about monsters. Specifically, the Five Monsters of Copywriting.
Especially for all the copywriters who can’t go trick or treating because they are locked in a room on a deadline.
Now, look. The Ipsos poll also found that 88% of parents eat their kids’ Halloween candy. So I guess being a copywriter on deadline isn’t as bad if you’re a parent.
But let’s talk about these Monsters. They are the very things that keep us from writing.
I saw this sad plea for help on Twitter on in late September, from newspaper humor columnist Alexandra Petri. She wrote:
“Friends if you see me on here next week, please bang a rolled up newspaper on a table nearby. So that I get startled and scuttle away. I am supposed to be working on my book.”
Imagine that. She thinks that her friends can scare the monsters away from her by banging a rolled up newspaper on the table, miles away from wherever she is at the moment.
Well, what are these monsters, anyway?
Everybody knows about these monsters, at least vaguely. Everyone at least has an inkling.
But we’re not afraid to talk about things other people are afraid to talk about.
Even if we are afraid of those things ourselves.
You know, they say the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.
That may be as far as we get with some of these monsters. Other ones, we might have a solution or two so you can scare that one away WITHOUT having to get someone else to bang a rolled up newspaper on the table.
These are monsters all of us face every day. Some of us have learned how to deal with them some of the time. A few of us deal with them well almost all of the time. You’ll want to listen to see how many of them you recognize, and maybe get some new insights on what you can DO about them!


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