Creative copywriting doesn’t grow on trees, not yet at least...
One thing we tell new users is that Tongal is a great place to grow your skills as a writer and/or filmmaker. Like any skill, writing takes practice. One thing you can do, of course, is to submit to some Tongal projects, but it never hurts to do some creative copywriting on your own as well!
We’ve compiled a few creative copywriting prompts you can do at any time that are hopefully fun and informative! The main aspect of writing good copy is focusing on how products or brands benefit consumers on a personal level and doing so in a concise manner.
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Pick and choose or dive into all five:
1. Oftentimes brands deliver on great Taglines (catchphrases for brands/products; i.e. “Got Milk?”) but miss the mark on empathy and human connection. Take a major brand or product Tagline (as long as it doesn’t include the name of the product) and write a Manifesto (the why) for a different brand or product. For example, take McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” and attribute that to Apple’s MacBook Pro.
Be sure to focus on what the product offers the consumer on a personal level - rather than technical features, i.e. for the MacBook Pro, instead of highlighting 500 gigabytes of storage, emphasize how the consumer can save and edit all of their memories in one app.
2. Take the chorus or title of 5 songs, pretend they are Taglines and create a Manifesto for a random product or create your own product for each! Keep the same tactics in mind from the first exercise. The point of these first two exercises is to get you thinking creatively and making sure you hit the product marketing aspect as well.
3. In this fast-paced ad-driven world, brevity and bluntness can be more effective than pretty adjectives. Take the first paragraph or two of any major review on Pitchfork (a music review and curation site guilty of using LOTS of fluff in their articles) and attempt to cut the word count in half without sacrificing the message. *Hint - keep sentences in the present, active tense to cut character count!
4. Copycat -- meow. I love recording music in my free time and early on in my music making days, I would attempt to re-track Beatles songs with what instruments and vocals I could. While my execution doesn’t come close to theirs, it really helped me hone in on the nuances that make their songwriting and recording techniques so damn good.
I’ve read that this same exercise is helpful with writing as well! Take some of your favorite passages and simply rewrite them. Replace nouns and pronouns with your own to make the experience more personal. You will know what it feels like to type up something amazing and you’ll likely uncover some brilliant things you haven’t noticed about the passages before.
5. Just write, dammit! If you really want to be a writer, you need to be writing every day. So if these exercises don’t tickle your fancy, write whatever you want! A poem, an essay, a tweet, a joke - have at it! Every little bit helps. Hey, why don’t you submit to a Tongal project!
Stay tuned for more writing prompts throughout the year. If you’re looking for more Tongal-focused writing tips check out the Ideation chapter on Tongal 101!
