‘When you took copy into John Withers before it had actually hit his desk top he was going into his pocket for a pencil, the idea he wouldn't have anything to correct never crossed his mind. He would go through it word by word, thought by thought, link by link, and he'd tell you where it wasn't working.You'd go back and try to smooth it out.This would happen three or four times before the copy was approved.If after four or five times you were getting discouraged and still hadn't done it, he'd do it for you.He'd say do this, do that, move this, move that there, and you'd think how did I miss that?Eventually, after about a year, you might come out of John's office and he hadn't made a mark on your paper.You'd come out and do a little skip in the corridor, or a whoop.It was invaluable.’

That’s David Abbott, the chap with the itchy pencil finger was David’s DDB Copy Chief John Withers.I used to hear that story a lot.Nick Bell’s version features Richard Foster, Andy McLeod’s stars Derek Day and Tim Riley name-checks Al Tilby.They all had one thing in common; the quality of the writers involved, both those teaching and those being taught.Writers don't get this kind of intensive education anymore, it's difficult whether that's due to the speed we now have to work or that words are less respectedBut the consequence is that writers are now expected to be write from the get go.It's like being plonked in front of a piano and being told 'off you go', you may be able to create a bit of noise but be able to make anything people choose to listen to.I recently asked Tom McElligott, considered one of the all time great writers, why all his Porsche posters only used three words, never two, never four, coincidence or self-imposed extra discipline?‘‘I guess discipline, it took me about 25 years to be able to write that way.’’Language is the most powerful tool we have in the communication business.Rub the right ones together and they catch fire.

If we are to get back to being one of the foremost creative industries we need teach our creatives the value of words, stop them as grey functional tools and see them more like Lego, colourful, playful, something you use to create anything you can imagine.The DDB ad for The New York Public Library to the right makes puts it best.

The words you choose are literally the difference between good and bad.Being read or ignored.Take Apple, they could’ve said‘Don’t think like everyone else’, instead they stated ‘Think different’.Grammatically incorrect, but so much better for it, it has a street-wise sassiness about it, a confidence which combine to make it’s tone almost as important as it’s meaning.You could argue that the business has changed, we now live in a more visual world, the long copy skills of someone like David Abbott are no longer relevant to our fast moving digital world.But is that true?

‘PEOPLE NO LONGER HAVE THE TIME OR INCLINATION TO READ TODAY.’The truth is that people read more today than at any point in history.Pop into your local Starbucks and you’ll struggle to spot someone who isn’t reading an email, Twitter, newspaper, Facebook or even an an actual book for that matter.Which reminds Me, even millennials, reading more, 11% more books than their equivalents 20 years ago, (The Atlantic).So words aren’t off-putting today, it depends what they say, as Howard Gossage put it ‘People don’t read ads, they read what interests them, sometimes that’s an ad.’‘TO WIN AN AWARD TODAY AN Ad HAS TO BE ALL picture and HARDLY ANY words.’There are more words used in the latest D&AD than there were 20 years ago.Take the press section, historically the place where the majority of the words hang out.What would you guess the average word count per ad? Five? 10? Maybe even as many as15?It’s 69.Twenty years ago it was 65.A cunning use of statistics perhaps? No, aggregating the numbers make it look closer than it should be, take a look at the numbers below for a more accurate picture.

‘THERE’S NO LONGER THE NEED TO WRITE ‘COPY’ IN AGENCIES TODAY’Writers in an ad agencies now have to write more ‘copy’ than they had to twenty years ago.It’s just not called copy anymore, it’s called ‘Content’, ‘Case Study Film’ or ‘Facebook Feed’,etc, etc.Compare the jobs that may hit a writers desk today compared to those from twenty years ago.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we need to put more words out there, just that the ones we do put out are carefully chosen.That’s if we want our creative industry to be taken seriously again.The process David described at the beginning doesn’t just make better writers, it makes sharper thinkers.‘Copy Chief’ now sounds terribly old fashioned, but the role need is needed more today than ever.Words have the power to change the world, we need to value them again.‘Let’s get the United States back to being as peachy as it was in the old days’ not only wouldn’t have resonated, it wouldn’t have fitted onto those red hats.