Sunday, June 7, 2009

You Know What Copywriting Is

"It's copywriting," I said, in a like, duh tone of voice.

"Why do they call it copyrighting?"

I was surprised to get this question from a friend and college professor the other night. It took us a brief who's-on-first-like exchange before I realized he'd heard me say copyrighting when I meant copywriting.

Copywriting is what's on the back of cereal boxes and book jackets and all over the Greenpeace website. It's advertising, PR, puff, and when done right, it's persuasive stuff.

Sadly, it's also a much more lucrative calling than journalism. (Don't get me started.) Anyway, I bring this up because there's a rather nice review of positioning (a very important concept copywriters better understand) here.