Thread by @unclebernbach

David Abbott was one of the best copywriters the ad industry ever had. Here are 20 of his most interesting thoughts on advertising and on what it takes to create great work. (A thread)

1) "I spend a lot of time fact-finding and I don’t start writing until I have too much to say. I don’t believe you can write fluent copy if you have to interrupt yourself with research. Dig first, then write."

2) "Directness has its place in advertising but so do subtlety and obliqueness. Things you can’t say literally can often be said laterally."

3) "Use your life to animate your copy. If something moves you, chances are, it will touch someone else too."

4) "...I don’t panic and I know that the best thing for me to do when tired or thwarted is to walk away from the ad and do something else."

5) "One of the reasons we ended up as a top agency is that we insisted on being a non-political place."

6) "It’s about sentiment, not sentimentality."

7) On the 'The Economist line', David explains: "what is potentially a banal positioning line — 'read this and be successful'— is made acceptable and convincing by wit and charm.”

8) "Like many copywriters, I read my copy out loud as I write. It helps me check the rhythm of the line and ultimately the flow of the whole piece."

9) "Agency life rarely allows for a level of concentration so I also write copy at home, late at night, or I’ll book a hotel room and work from there. I couldn’t work in an open-plan creative department, but I’m sure there are brilliant copywriters who do."

10) "Think visually. Ask someone to describe a spiral staircase and they’ll use their hands as well as words. Sometimes the best copy is no copy."

11) "Planners are bright, usually necessary people in the process, but you have to be watchful that they don't take on themselves the responsibility of being the only thinking part of the agency."

12) “I always strived during a pitch process to come up with or have in our possession an insight about the product that no one had ever had before.”

13) “You need to be a decent human being (to work in an ad agency). I think you also have to be a decent human being to speak to the audience who are generally decent human beings. I don't think you can understand them if you're so wrapped up in yourself.”

14) "Most of the talk in the advertising business is about clients picking agencies. I think it's just as important for agencies to pick clients."

15) “Always try to get the client’s name into the headline.”

16) "Most advertising is fairly mundane and is average-to-good. There's not much excellent stuff being done anywhere. But I don't think there's a drop in talent or craft. These things are cyclical, and I think it's an inspirational business." (quote from 2001)

17) “In advertising, words are the servant of the argument. Choosing the precise word is important, but I don't use words to impress the audience by their strangeness or their intellectual quality. Good plain words usually work better.”

18) “Growth in an agency is like climbing a real mountain. You ascend a bit, stop at base camp, get supplies so you can raise higher.”

19) “We wouldn’t hire nasty geniuses, but I hope we didn’t hire nice idiots.”

20) "You care about two things. You care about quality – in everything you do. The second thing you must care about? That’s easy. It’s each other."

Some of the fonts for this thread:
davidabbottsaid.com
ben-kay.com/2008/11/david-…
adage.com/article/rance-…
ben-kay.com/2011/04/david-…
vimeo.com/10976043
campaignlive.co.uk/article/david-…

Finally, not a quote from David, but I love this observation from the above Campaign article:
"David really believed in the work he was doing," a former colleague remarks. "You could almost picture him driving to Sainsbury’s in his Volvo."