YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Learn Copywriting in 76 Minutes – Harry Dry

Learn Copywriting in 76 Minutes – Harry Dry — Transcript

by David Perell · 15,171 words · 2,361 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00Let's start with a game, six words. I'm
0:01going to ask you which ones do you
0:02remember?
0:03Okay.
0:03Seamless transition, charging pitbull,
0:05muscular Irishman, better way, leg of
0:08lamb. Which ones do you got?
0:09Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb.
0:12You remembered the ones which you can
0:13visualize. You have these three rules.
0:15Can I visualize it? Can I falsify it?
0:18Can nobody else say this? So, you get
0:20three no's, you're probably writing a
0:21lot of rubbish. You get three yes's,
0:23[music] you're onto something.
0:24Why should people learn copywriting?
0:27It's the number one skill in marketing.
0:29Write copy
0:30that can't be copied.
0:32This one's the one of the most famous
0:33lines of all time.
0:34They're instantly communicating what it
0:36is by showing what it isn't.
0:37Exactly. That's exactly it.
0:38So, when you're writing copy, how do you
0:40know that something's going to instantly
0:43resonate?
0:44test. One Mississippi, two Mississippi.
0:46Phew.
0:47You get it?
0:50Harry Dry is the first person that I
0:52call whenever I need help with
0:53copywriting. And the reason is that he's
0:55not just good at it, but he's really
0:57good at explaining it, at teaching what
1:00he does. I mean, you'll see. The guy has
1:02frameworks for everything. My favorite
1:04one is these three questions that he
1:06asks whenever he writes or reviews copy,
1:09and he's going to talk about that here.
1:11But, we got to talk about the elephant
1:12in the room, and it's copywriting. It's
1:14sort of a smelly industry, right? I
1:16always think of hucksters and fraudsters
1:19on Twitter who are just trying to game
1:21your psychology with whatever deceptive
1:23trick they have up their sleeve. This is
1:25the man himself, Harry Dry.
1:28I know that you have these three rules
1:30that you apply to every sentence.
1:32I do.
1:33What are they?
1:34I do.
1:34Um can I visualize it? Can I falsify it?
1:37Can nobody else say this? So, you get
1:39three no's, you're probably writing a
1:41lot of rubbish. You get three yes's,
1:43you're onto something. I'll give you two
1:44examples of what not to do, what to do.
1:47So, I saw an ad on the way here, don't
1:49just get a job, change an entire
1:51industry. It's a recruitment company. Um
1:54Now, if I said to you change an
1:55industry, you close your eyes, Can you
1:57Can you Can you Can you see that? No.
2:00Can you falsify that? Falsifiable to be
2:01proved true or false. Uh
2:04Can you Can nobody else say it? No, I
2:06could start a recruitment company
2:07tomorrow and write don't just get a job.
2:10Change an entire industry.
2:11Um now let me tell you what I would do
2:12all three, New Balance.
2:14Worn by
2:16supermodels in London and dads in Ohio.
2:18I think that is so good. It's so good.
2:21So if you if you close your eyes, can
2:22you visualize the supermodel in London,
2:26the dad in Ohio with a barbecue but pair
2:28of New Balance on? You can.
2:30Can you falsify it?
2:31It's true. Like supermodels have worn
2:34New Balance. Dads in Ohio do wear it's
2:36it's true. And can nobody else say it?
2:37Well, no because a load of dads in Ohio
2:40aren't going to wear a Prada and a load
2:42of supermodels aren't really wearing
2:43Reebok. Like it's it's bespoke to New
2:44Balance. It's something they can only
2:45say.
2:47So that's There's the three rules. Now I
2:48want to go through them like one by one
2:50with you.
2:51Rule one, can I can I visualize it?
2:54So let's start with a game.
2:57Why does this matter?
2:58If If you can't If you can't visualize
3:01it, you won't remember it. Lisa Cron
3:03says um if I can't see it, it's not
3:05there yet. So I'm going to read to you
3:06six
3:07six words.
3:09I'll tell you which ones I'm going to
3:10ask you which ones you remember. Um
3:12seamless transition, charging pitbull,
3:14muscular Irishman, better way, leg of
3:16lamb.
3:18Which ones you got?
3:19Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb.
3:22Irishman, pitbull, leg of lamb. I don't
3:24even remember the other
3:25[laughter]
3:26So what I'm talking about here is the
3:28Did I get it right?
3:28You got it Yeah, you There's no right or
3:30wrong. I'm proving it What What What
3:31What I'm talking about here is the
3:32difference between concrete and
3:33abstract. You remembered the ones which
3:34you can visualize. You can see the
3:36Irishman. You can see the pitbull coming
3:37at you. You can't see a better way. So
3:39this is concrete and this is abstract.
3:41What abstract is is it's intangible. You
3:43can't drop it on your foot. If you try
3:45and drop a better way on your foot, it
3:47just fades away. But if you try and drop
3:49um a muscular Irishman one foot, you
3:51know it hurts. Um how do you do this?
3:54So, how do you how do you go from from
3:55abstract to concrete? The best way I
3:57found is to zoom in on the words. So,
3:59what I like to do, I get a sheet of
4:00paper
4:01and I draw a line down the left-hand
4:03side.
4:04At the top, I'll write abstract.
4:07At the bottom,
4:08I'll write concrete.
4:10All right, it's right I'll write the
4:11word at the top.
4:13Um and I'll just rewrite it and rewrite
4:15it and ask myself what like what do I
4:16actually mean here? What am I actually
4:17saying? Until I end up with a concrete
4:19object. So, here
4:21you could have written not very good,
4:24worn by pretty people in big cities,
4:27and old people
4:30in non-big cities. But instead, pretty
4:33people I can't I guess I can kind of see
4:35that, but a supermodel? Absolutely.
4:38Everyone can see a supermodel. In
4:40London, oh man, that's sexy, you know,
4:42big supermodel London, and then dads in
4:45Ohio. Now, that's funny because also the
4:48juxtaposition of these two makes me
4:50laugh. So, another example of this, like
4:52right on the money, is you might come to
4:54me with an app idea. You might say, "Hey
4:55Harry, I got an I got an app I want to
4:56share with you. It's about regaining
4:58fitness." So, I what I do is I go
5:00through that little zoom in test we did.
5:02You write regain at the top.
5:04And I'd say, "All right, what do you
5:05mean by regain?" And you might say, "All
5:08right, it's for getting people off the
5:09couch who've been sitting on the couch
5:11for the last 6 months." And I say, "What
5:13do you mean by fitness?" And you might
5:15like what type of fitness? You might
5:16say, "Running." How far? 5 5K. So, now
5:19we've got from regain fitness, we've got
5:22uh from from getting up off the couch
5:25um to running 5K.
5:27Couch to 5K.
5:29Funnily enough, that's the name of the
5:31most um
5:32the most downloaded, the most popular
5:34fitness program of all time. Really? Uh
5:36and this wasn't made by Nike
5:39[laughter]
5:40or Adidas. It was made by a Boston TV
5:43producer, but it stuck cuz it was good.
5:46Um
5:46rule two, can I falsify it?
5:49All right, why does it why does this
5:50work? Like why does why do we like stuff
5:52which is falsifiable? I I came up with
5:54this tip and I thought about it myself
5:55and what I what I concluded was um,
5:58when you write a sentence which is true
6:00or false, it's like as a writer you're
6:01putting your head on the chopping block.
6:04Um, it makes people sit up a little bit
6:05in their seat, our ears prick up. This
6:07is true or false. Galileo
6:09um, got got sentenced to 10 years house
6:12arrest by the Romans cuz he said that
6:15the earth spins around the sun. They
6:16didn't like it. If Galileo said um, the
6:20earth has a harmonious connection with a
6:23celestial object, they'd have said
6:24Galileo go go down the pub, have a beer.
6:27[laughter]
6:27Have a um, how do you do this? How do
6:29you how do you write copy that's
6:30falsifiable? Well, you want to write a
6:31sentence which is true or which is
6:33false. Best tip I've seen for this is
6:37um,
6:38deep in a Reddit thread um, by a now
6:40deleted account so I can't I can't get
6:42any credit I'd like to and it says um,
6:45you can't talk, you can only point.
6:47Picture your best friend um, right now
6:49who's single, okay? And I want you to
6:51try and set him up on a blind date with
6:53somebody, okay? Now, we're going to go
6:54two versions of this. The first version
6:57you got to you got to set him up but
6:59you're not allowed to you're not allowed
7:00to um, describe them with anything
7:02that's objectively true or false. So,
7:05you have to write subjectively. So, you
7:06could say he's good looking, he's
7:07intelligent, whatever. What would you
7:08how would you describe this friend?
7:10Good family.
7:13Great values. Good family.
7:15Great values.
7:15Smart. He's clever. Hilarious.
7:17He's funny.
7:18Yeah.
7:18He's funny.
7:18You're talking.
7:19Funny guy.
7:20Now, I'm a woman right now. If I'm a
7:21woman or a man, I would I would say I'm
7:24you know, you're just you're just saying
7:25stuff. Like is he is he actually funny?
7:28Now,
7:29three run. Now, um,
7:31describe this friend, your your single
7:33friend
7:34but you're only allowed to say things
7:36which are are true or which are false.
7:39So, instead of say you said um,
7:41good values. You could say um, why? Why
7:45does he have good values? Point to
7:46something. So, if we're good looking,
7:47I'd be like, looks like Ryan Gosling,
7:496'2". Looks like Ryan Gosling. Exactly.
7:52Have you seen the meme?
7:53Uh, I haven't seen the meme.
7:54[laughter]
7:56There's like this popular meme going
7:57around that all these chicks, it's like
7:59they hold these signs, it's like, 6'5",
8:01works in finance, trust fund, blue eyes.
8:04it. That's exactly it. Reads on the
8:05tube.
8:06[laughter]
8:06You know, he's not If you say someone's
8:08intelligent, it's like, all right,
8:09whatever. Does he read He reads on the
8:10tube. That's true or false? Um, that's
8:13what I mean by falsifiable. Can you Is
8:15it able to be proved true or false? Now,
8:16what's funny
8:17So, what is the lesson with the
8:19pointing? This is what I still
8:20[laughter] don't understand.
8:21When I say When I say don't talk, only
8:23point, let's say I'm trying to sell you
8:24gold, all right? I might say gold, you
8:26know, it's a great investment, David.
8:28You want to get some gold, you know,
8:29that stuff never to go out of fashion.
8:31I'm just talking right now, or I could
8:32point at the graph of gold for the last
8:3550 years, and it'd be like, just going
8:36one way. I could say that when there was
8:38the last financial crash, what happened
8:40to gold? Just point. I just point at the
8:41graph. So, you just point at stuff.
8:43That's a better way. It it it basically
8:45it gets you off the adjective trail.
8:47So, this is interesting. So, say we're
8:49going to advertise for gold, and all I
8:50can do is I can just point. What I could
8:52do is I would point at a beautiful
8:55castle that is clearly majestic. I could
8:59point at a family's gold stash, and we
9:02could show them feeling very
9:04comfortable, be insecure because they
9:06have so much gold. I could point at the
9:08chart of gold. And now what I'm doing is
9:10I'm getting things that are concrete,
9:12they're visual, they're falsifiable.
9:13point at Warren Buffett and say, how
9:15much gold does Warren Buffett have in
9:16his portfolio?
9:18That's a reason to buy gold, perhaps. I
9:19don't know. You have to research stuff.
9:20You can't just like If this takes This
9:22takes work. That's why it's better.
9:23[laughter]
9:24Finally, final test, can nobody else say
9:26it? Um, Jim I think his name is Jim
9:30Durkey.
9:31Um, never write an ad a competitor can
9:34sign.
9:35Why I like can nobody else say it is it
9:37kind of forces you to look a little bit
9:38deeper at what you're at what you're
9:40selling.
9:41Volkswagen had this ad back in the back
9:42in the day. Your car has five numbers on
9:45the speedometer. Volvo Volvo has six.
9:48One could get the impression that the
9:49people who made your car lack a little
9:50confidence. No one else can say that.
9:53The only way of saying it is you got to
9:54get in the Volvo, see how many see how
9:56many dials there are on the speedometer.
9:58So it's visual, the visual aligns with
10:00the text. Nobody else can say it. Super
10:01simple, differentiates what you're
10:03doing. That's why it works. Exactly,
10:04it's true. It's falsifiable, it's true.
10:07There's a lot of people I talk to and
10:09they're like, "No, copywriting's for
10:11chumps. I'm not going to learn that.
10:13It's not really important." But you are
10:16the first person I met who changed my
10:18mind on that. Why should people learn
10:21copywriting?
10:22Why should people learn copywriting? Um,
10:24all right. In this hand I got a Snickers
10:26bar. Imagine. Uh, Snickers, you know
10:28what you when you're hungry.
10:29Best-selling chocolate bar in the world.
10:31In this hand I got a Fuse bar. Only to
10:33be eaten wearing rubber-soled shoes.
10:35Fuse discontinued in 2006.
10:37Um, both bars look the same.
10:40They taste the same, but one's the
10:41best-selling bar in the world and one,
10:43you know, it didn't get into the mind.
10:45And why I like this example is because,
10:48um, startups, businesses are like these
10:50two bars. You strip away the wrapper,
10:53you strip away the copy, you strip away
10:54the branding, um, they do kind of the
10:56same thing. Like Samsung, Apple, all
10:59right? Um, they both got an app store.
11:02They both take great pictures. But what
11:04what phone you got?
11:05Apple.
11:06You got an Apple. 17 out of out of 20
11:08American teenagers choose Apple. Why do
11:10they choose Apple? Cuz to quote Ogilvy,
11:12um, we don't choose the whiskey, we
11:14choose the image.
11:15Um, let me give you one more story about
11:17why I think you should learn
11:18copywriting. Um,
11:20I uh, my uncle's from Reading. Reading,
11:23England.
11:24And uh, they had a striker so I used to
11:25watch a lot of football at the Madejski
11:27Stadium, Reading Reading's old ground.
11:29And uh, they They this striker up front
11:31called Dave Kitson.
11:33And he wasn't very good and we'd all
11:34kind of laugh at Kitson despite
11:35supporting Reading. Ginger guy, he was
11:37very noticeable. Uh then, I went to
11:39school in Portsmouth. Um Kitson at this
11:41point got transferred from Reading to
11:43Portsmouth. All my friends at school,
11:45well, a lot of them were Pompey fans,
11:46Portsmouth Pompey.
11:48Uh and we saw Kitson run around Fratton
11:50Park, ginger hair. Again, not scoring
11:53very many goals, but you know, he he put
11:55in a shift. Kitson ended up with one
11:57England cap. So, he played for England.
11:59Good player, but
12:00you know, innocuous career.
12:02Now, um
12:03I'd like to tell you that Dave Kitson
12:05wrote a book about football and it sold
12:08more copies than David Beckham,
12:11Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, and
12:13Michael Owen put together.
12:15How did How did he do that? How did
12:16Kitson do that? Um I think it's an
12:18example
12:19of a um
12:21a real foundational copywriting
12:23principle, which is what can I do
12:25that no one else is doing that people
12:27care about? So, Kitson had a good
12:29career. What what could he do? Like,
12:31what could Kitson give you? All these
12:32guys that wrote these books about, you
12:34know, their career plan for England.
12:35Kitson didn't have any of that. So, what
12:36can I do? Well, I've been in the Premier
12:38League. Kitson's been in the in the
12:39Premier League. So,
12:41Kitson thought, "Well, I'll I'll, you
12:42know, tell some home truths about the
12:44Premier League. I'll say I'll I'll do an
12:46undercover on the Premier League. I'll
12:47tell you this player's got a gambling
12:49addiction. I'll tell you this player's
12:51This this is what it's like when England
12:53go abroad to Greece and everyone's going
12:55out. How many drinks are people
12:56drinking?" He did like a big
12:57behind-the-scenes.
12:59Beckham, Scholes, whatever, they they
13:00don't want to do that. People care about
13:02it. But the problem then is it's a book
13:03by David Kitson. Like, no one wants to
13:05read a book by David Kitson. So,
13:07instead, he
13:08he um
13:09he he signed it as the secret
13:10footballer.
13:12Uh that's That's copywriting. It's It's
13:14doing more with with words. Like, you
13:17Kitson's product is is objectively so
13:19much worse than David Beckham's. But
13:22just by positioning it, just by a little
13:24bit of storytelling, he could outsell
13:25him.
13:27So,
13:28what do I have here?
13:30These are Why don't you explain them?
13:32What are these?
13:32I printed a bunch of these as back as a
13:34backdrop for my for my course. You
13:36invited me on and I thought, "What?
13:37Let's let's instead of putting stuff on
13:39the screen all the time, let's um have
13:41some vinyl mounted favorite ads."
13:44I'm just going to find random stuff and
13:47we'll talk about them. Okay, tell me
13:48about this.
13:49They don't write songs
13:52about Volvos. What's going on here? What
13:54do you like about this
13:55It's It's an ad by Corvette, I think. Um
13:58why I like that? Six words.
14:00Um a lot of white space.
14:03I like this because firstly, I've even
14:05got an enemy. All right, so we talked
14:06about enemy before.
14:08They're selling the Corvette by having a
14:09little cheap shot at Volvo. But
14:11secondly, what can Corvette say about
14:12the Corvette that no other car can? They
14:15can say that Post Malone sings about
14:16Corvettes. They can say all these all
14:18these American country singers love a
14:19song about a Corvette.
14:20It's romantic. Like what is What's good
14:22about this and I think what's good about
14:24all copywriting is you get it instantly.
14:26There's um
14:28there's an intuitive test with
14:29copywriting. Sometimes you know more in
14:312 seconds than you know in 2 hours.
14:33let me let me give you this test. Look,
14:34I can't remember who who came up with
14:35it, but it's called one Mississippi, two
14:37Mississippi. So, I got this ad, I show
14:39it to you. One Mississippi, two
14:40Mississippi. Whoosh. You get it?
14:43Oh, let's try that.
14:44You get it? That's how That's how it
14:45works.
14:46[laughter]
14:46If it takes longer than 2 seconds, you
14:47You know what? You printed this one out.
14:49I did not get it. I did one Mississippi,
14:51two Mississippi, 8,000 Mississippi and I
14:54did not get [laughter] it. What is going
14:56on in this ad? You're going to need a
14:58smaller cabinet.
15:00had to crop these to fit them on mounted
15:03um
15:04mounted covers. So, I've missed off the
15:05logo. You're going to need a smaller
15:07cabinet. Um
15:09Athletic Greens, you know, what does
15:11Athletic Greens replace? Positioning
15:12101, what do you replace? That to me
15:14says this does everything in one go. So,
15:16you know that What's the pain point? The
15:18pain point is morning routine.
15:20I want vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin C,
15:22I want some zinc. I want some whatever.
15:24You're going to need You don't need a
15:25cabinet. You use all-in-one Athletic
15:27Greens.
15:28It's clean.
15:30Do you think that sometimes a risk that
15:32you have to take when you're writing ads
15:34is that you're going to do something
15:35that really relates to your in-crowd,
15:38but then the out-crowd won't get it? Cuz
15:39I don't get this, but I don't take
15:41vitamins like that. So, maybe that's why
15:43I don't get it.
15:44Yeah, I think I think if everyone gets
15:46it, you're you're possibly doing
15:47something wrong. Like I think that's I
15:49think that's not a problem, too. I'll
15:50tell you what's funny is you don't get
15:52it, but you talked about it. Like I
15:54don't think it's a problem if you don't
15:55get it. You might You might text that to
15:57a friend. Like, "What is this? I don't
15:58get it." That's fine. It's got your
16:00attention. What's worse is something
16:02which is just like So, the a bad way of
16:04doing that ad, "You're going to need a
16:05smaller cabinet." might be
16:07um
16:11"One drink to replace them all." You
16:13know, it's been said.
16:14You want to write something that no one
16:15said before. That's what I think. Can
16:17nobody else say this?
16:19What else you got for me?
16:22This one rips.
16:24Uh this one's one of the most famous
16:25lines of all time. "A thousand songs in
16:27your pocket." Why do Why do you like it?
16:29You tell me.
16:31You know what?
16:32We need to show these two together.
16:34Yeah.
16:34Because this is why I like it so much.
16:36Okay.
16:38These Mac and PC ads, this is the
16:40problem with PC ads. Where they were all
16:42about features, and it was all about,
16:45"Oh, 4 GB, whatever. You know, this is
16:47how fast it went." Apple said, "No.
16:50Actually, none of that stuff matters.
16:52All that matters" and I still remember
16:54being in fifth grade. I had this little
16:55blue iPod Nano. It was most valuable
16:58thing I'd ever had. My first album I
17:00ever bought was Confessions by Usher,
17:02and it was on there, and I could listen
17:04to all these songs, and that's what made
17:06this such a big deal.
17:07It's also a metaphor. It's an example of
17:09metonymy.
17:09What's metonymy?
17:10What's metonymy?
17:11I don't know what that is.
17:12Metonymy is where a shorthand term
17:14stands in for a literal term. It's a
17:16technical, but I don't mind technical.
17:18So, what actually they're saying there
17:19W- what they should say is 1,000 songs
17:22in your media player. That's the That's
17:24what it literally is. But, they've
17:26substituted the literal word media
17:28player for um a standing word, a visual
17:31word, pocket. It doesn't It doesn't That
17:33sentence doesn't literally make sense.
17:35Like, you haven't literally got 1,000
17:36songs in your pocket. You've got 1,000
17:37songs in your media player. But, you'd
17:38rather say pocket cuz it's it's more
17:40visual. It's more surprising. It's more
17:41punchy.
17:43One of the great ads.
17:44I Well, you
17:46should judge an ad by how much it sells.
17:47Everyone had an iPod. Everyone walked
17:49around with an iPod. You look at the
17:50Vision Pro.
17:51straight to the Apple Store.
17:52Like, look at the Vision Pro. I don't
17:53know what how they sold it, but no one
17:54bought one. That's That's why
17:56copywriting matters. I'm sure I'm sure
17:59if Steve Jobs was around, the Vision Pro
18:00would have been a little bit different.
18:01It would have been positioned a little
18:02bit differently. They'd have had some
18:04some, you know, great line, and they'd
18:05have sold a few. But, they didn't. You
18:08read this one.
18:10The sports sedan.
18:11The people who inherited brains instead
18:13of wealth.
18:14[laughter]
18:15I I love this cuz who said this? Um I'm
18:18paraphrasing someone here, but they said
18:19if you if you can ever make your
18:21customer feel like they're making a
18:22smart decision, you did something right.
18:25So, they're making you think, you know,
18:27God, if you want to be clever with your
18:28money, you're going to buy one of these
18:29sedans cuz you you've got Everyone wants
18:31to be the person with brains and not and
18:32not wealth.
18:33And this is kind of a lame car.
18:36[laughter]
18:36You know what I mean? Right? Like, look
18:38at that car. No one pulls up in that car
18:41and says, "Oh, that's a Right, it's
18:43nothing like the Corvette that we saw
18:44earlier.
18:45So, what they're doing is they're
18:47saying, "You know what? We don't have
18:48the coolest car in the world.
18:50Now, what is it that we can do to sell
18:53this thing? Ah, okay. This is for people
18:55who inherited brains instead of wealth
18:57because the people with the brains, they
18:58know that, "Oh, if I'm going to drop a
19:00load of cash on a Ferrari, I'm spending
19:02a quarter million dollars on an object
19:04that I could crash and break it any
19:05times.
19:07Okay, you know what? This is the smart
19:08decision."
19:09You're right. Bang Come
19:11I've never read The Economist,
19:12management trainee
19:14aged 42.
19:15What's going on here?
19:15It's a classic. That's That's one of the
19:17most famous of all time. Um and it sold
19:19a lot of Economist. I I think um there's
19:22a quote by Neil French.
19:24He says um most people think in any ad
19:26you need four elements. You need a
19:28header, a subheader,
19:30um a picture, and a logo.
19:32And what Neil French says is if you can
19:34do an ad with just one of those
19:36elements, you're onto a winner.
19:38So, there's no there's no subheader.
19:39Well, that
19:40Maybe management trainee, but there's no
19:41picture, there's no logo. The logo is
19:42the I've never read The Economist.
19:44That's why it doesn't look like an
19:45advert. Advert look when they've got You
19:47know that logo in the bottom right?
19:48Picture logo It doesn't look like an ad,
19:50so you read it.
19:51Two other things. The color is Economist
19:53red, which people know.
19:55And then the other thing is you like
19:57look at the the visual hierarchy. You
20:00read I've never read The Economist.
20:01Wait,
20:02[snorts]
20:02what? [laughter]
20:04Management trainee aged 42. Oh, now we
20:07have a story.
20:08Best thing also about the ad is like it
20:09it is basically what's the what's If you
20:11If you If you strip away the send it
20:12well part, what are they actually
20:14saying? They're just saying that The
20:15Economist like is is a good newspaper,
20:17you want to be smart. It's not that
20:18interesting.
20:19How can you make two months' salary last
20:23forever?
20:24The diamond engagement ring. Talking
20:26about this one.
20:27Good.
20:28Um
20:29As the classic. So, this this came after
20:32um
20:33What was the bloody ad about? A diamond
20:35is forever. So, this was this was the
20:37follow-up for a diamond is forever. I
20:39think it was Mary Gerety, 1948 for De
20:42Beers. They sold diamonds.
20:44Um at the time, wedding rings were
20:46sapphire, rubies, emeralds. How do you
20:49create demand for diamonds? You You say,
20:51"When's it for?" It's for marriage. Um
20:55How can you make two months' salary last
20:57forever? I love I love that line because
21:00um of the juxtaposition. Like it How How
21:02can you make two months' salary last
21:03forever? You You You can't. It's two
21:05months of your salary, it's forever.
21:07You know, it shouldn't work. There's
21:09contrast there. Um the answer is the
21:11diamond engagement ring. I think now 85%
21:14of engagement rings are diamonds, and
21:15this campaign by Mary for De Beers, uh
21:19the diamond company, is the reason why.
21:20All right, so sit down. You're now,
21:22okay? I'm Harry, I'm going to sit down
21:24and write some copy. Tell me, how does
21:25your process then unfold from there?
21:28I you start I start with what am I
21:29trying to do?
21:31What am I trying to do here? There's a
21:32quote by John
21:34I'm going to say Hen Hengly. Forgive me,
21:36John. Um the current attitude of the
21:39consumer is the starting point, and the
21:41desired attitude is the finish line. You
21:43can't start a race in the middle. So,
21:45when I when I sit down and write, I'm
21:46thinking, what's the current attitude?
21:49What's the desired attitude? That's
21:50point A, that's point B. It's my job to
21:53get the customer from A to B.
21:55Think a picture two telephone poles.
21:58You got You got the telephone poles. Now
21:59we've got to string the wire.
22:01So, how do I How do I string the wire?
22:02Well, there's three pieces here. First
22:04one, piece one, who you're talking to.
22:06Who Who Who am I talking to? Is it
22:08someone at the tube looking at their
22:09phone? Is it someone who's been on my
22:12app for 6 months but hasn't upgraded
22:14yet, but they know the problem? So, let
22:15me give you
22:16[laughter]
22:16a funny example who you're talking to.
22:19Uh Snapchat took out a Super Bowl ad
22:22this year. 7 7 million pounds.
22:25And um
22:27And the ad was
22:29more Snapchat, less social media, or
22:31something like that. The average age of
22:33a Super Bowl viewer is 39.
22:36So, you think a 39-year-old
22:38um
22:39Picture my dad here. Like my dad's a
22:40little bit older, but who's just worked
22:42out Facebook, who's got six friends left
22:44in his life, is going to use Snapchat?
22:45If you use Snapchat at 39, you're a
22:47pedophile.
22:49[laughter]
22:50They spent 7 million on that cuz they
22:51didn't think who we're talking to. One
22:53more example, I'm in St. Ives um last
22:56year and doing a coffee run. And there's
22:58a couple of shops, there's a couple of
22:59cafes. Um
23:01and getting the coffee on the first day.
23:04And the first cafe has this big
23:07um
23:09menu outside, like a blown up huge menu.
23:11And it's got like all the prices of
23:12different lattes and whatever and 17
23:15different croissants we do. And the
23:16second one just says coffee and pastry
23:19equals 5 lbs.
23:21And that's the Yellow Canary it was
23:22called. Like everyone's queuing outside
23:24the Yellow Canary and no one's at the
23:25other one. And I thought I thought why
23:27is this? Well, it's cuz who you talking
23:29to? You're talking to someone, tourist,
23:31just walking down the street as you do
23:33when you visit a new place. Not really
23:35paying attention, kind of taking in the
23:36sights. What's your job? Form follows
23:38function. So, what do you want to do?
23:39You want to tell them
23:41I need a cup of coffee.
23:42You don't need to tell them that follow
23:44us on Instagram and like communicate all
23:46this stuff about you know, the price of
23:48this is this and whatever. Who you
23:50talking to? Say you're walking down.
23:52What's going on? You're on a walk and
23:55you're maybe going to the beach and
23:58when you see that sign, you're looking
23:59out of the corner of your eye. And you
24:01need something that it's not even 1
24:03Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, it's
24:04instant. But the problem is when you're
24:07sitting down to write copy, you're
24:08spending hours in the mode of thinking.
24:11So, when you're writing copy, how do you
24:14know
24:15that something is going to instantly
24:17resonate when you don't have the
24:18privilege of seeing something in the way
24:20that the consumer is going to read it?
24:22I I I think that's where we go wrong. I
24:24think this is Ogilvy what Ogilvy said,
24:26but like if you take out a billboard ad,
24:28you want to pin it up on Photoshop, not
24:30as the ad you made in Photoshop, where
24:32it's just that and it's not competing
24:34against anything. You want to do that
24:35and then you take that ad and you pull
24:37it into a picture where you've got seven
24:39ads around it, people walking by. Does
24:42this actually grab my attention or not?
24:43So, I like putting things in reality.
24:45Like you got to Another way of doing
24:47this is um if if I write a newsletter,
24:49for example,
24:51I write the newsletter in
24:53just as the reader will see it. So, I
24:55don't write it on a Google Doc and then
24:56take it in. I write it I write it on
24:59directly onto ConvertKit. So you see it
25:01just as I'm writing it.
25:03And I like that cuz like I don't trust
25:04when I drag it on a line might spill to
25:06three lines or it might be four lines. I
25:08don't like that. I want to see it just
25:09as the reader reads it.
25:11That's my answer. So
25:13piece one, who you're talking to.
25:15Piece two, piece two.
25:17You got to have something to say. We We
25:18touched on this We touched on this a
25:20little bit earlier. So piece two, so you
25:22got to have something to say. That means
25:24that you need to be
25:25building things for more than the money
25:26that's going to come out on the other
25:28side. You need to be building things
25:29because of something you believe or a
25:30vision that you have or something that
25:32you think is wrong with the world. That
25:33makes it a heck of a lot easier.
25:35Dave Gerhardt asked me once, why did you
25:36start this business in the first place?
25:38Like why I run Marketing Examples. Why
25:39do you start Marketing Examples? Why am
25:41I teaching a copywriting course? Well, I
25:42think that every marketer should learn
25:44to write. That's what Every marketer
25:45should learn copywriting. It's number
25:46one skill in marketing. I I I believe
25:48something.
25:49What do you believe? I think Andy Raskin
25:52um Zuora.
25:54Zuora was the subscription economy idea.
25:57All the investors in Zuora weren't
25:58buying into it because they like
26:00believed in the product. They just
26:01believed in the idea that everything was
26:03going to be subscription.
26:04It can show up in the most mundane of
26:06things. Like how I write. The reason
26:08that I started the show is because there
26:09were so many podcasts where people talk
26:11about what they wrote. They talk about,
26:13oh, I wrote a history book. Let me tell
26:14you about history. Hey, I wrote a
26:15finance book. Let me tell you about
26:16finance. I was like, what Why is there
26:18no podcast that just talks about how
26:20they wrote the book? Doesn't exist. And
26:23I would really like that. And beyond
26:25that, this is what my career's about,
26:28writing is important, learning to write
26:30in all the ways that we do it stinks.
26:33It's boring. It's super academic. It's
26:35very left-brained. There isn't a sense
26:38of vitality in it, and I think that's
26:39ridiculous.
26:41So for me, those are the things that I'M
26:43LIKE, AH,
26:44I DON'T want that. So I'm going to go
26:46counter position and build the opposite.
26:47So So Marketing Examples was exactly
26:49that. I I didn't have a career in
26:51marketing when I started that website,
26:53but I was just fed up of trying to learn
26:55marketing and it will be two pages on
26:57theory. I wanted just give give me
26:59examples. I learn I learn personally
27:01from examples and a lot of other people
27:02do. That was my why. Like I wanted it
27:04you same with you.
27:06Um
27:07Peace free.
27:09[laughter]
27:10Peace free to
27:11Peace free said it well. So, this is
27:13what most people think copywriting is.
27:14Most people you ask people what's
27:15copywriting, they'll say um they'll say
27:18say it well, they'll say write it
27:19quickly, visually, persuasively,
27:22um
27:23and visually.
27:24So, Hinge.
27:27The dating app designed to be deleted.
27:31That's a in my opinion like a near
27:32perfect um
27:34Near perfect.
27:34Yeah, it's you can't beat it, but that's
27:37something to say. So, the brief for
27:38Hinge would be something like I'm sure
27:40the writer got something like we're
27:41making an app and it's for people who
27:43want long-term relationships. It's for
27:44people who fed up of dating apps. That's
27:46not that catchy. So, it's the writer's
27:48job to turn that into something
27:50memorable. And here, like the most
27:52obvious, how do you make it memorable?
27:53Alliteration. DDD. Dating app designed
27:55to be deleted. Also again,
27:56juxtaposition. The same things crop up.
27:59Like who makes an app that wants to be
28:01deleted? It Yeah, like no one.
28:03Also, what it implies. Oh, I I'll meet
28:05somebody and I'll live happily ever
28:07after. I'll delete the app. This is the
28:09app that's designed so that I can
28:12finally fall in love, which is what
28:14people are looking for.
28:15It's right copy that can't be copied. No
28:19other app can say that.
28:20Now, Hinge owns that phrase.
28:21And we're talking about how
28:24a great ad can tell a story.
28:27You can look at this image and there is
28:29so much
28:32cultural scaffolding that it's yeah,
28:35resting on top of. So,
28:37when they released this, they I didn't
28:39like it. They released this with a a
28:40mascot called Hingey and I hated it. So,
28:43when I actually did that uh a couple of
28:45a couple of days ago, I got rid of this
28:47mascot. I didn't like it. And then I
28:49went on their website and then this they
28:50had this beautiful image which I just
28:51thought told the story way better.
28:53Um oh, so you made this one?
28:55I I wouldn't say I made it, but I got
28:57rid of the the damn mascot cuz I I
28:59didn't I didn't I didn't think someone,
29:01you know, Duolingo has a mascot.
29:03Duolingo is silly, it's funny. Hinge
29:05isn't silly or funny. It's like it's
29:07real. It's about trying to, you know,
29:08get married.
29:10Right.
29:10Um
29:12yeah, there you go. Piece one, piece
29:13two, piece three. Who am I talking to?
29:16You got to have something to say and you
29:16got to say it well. That's copywriting.
29:19So, I want to show you this for real. I
29:21want to show you what I've what I've how
29:22how an ad comes together. So, I
29:24I'm making a course on copywriting. This
29:26is not I wrote probably for landing
29:27page.
29:29Probably a little bit too much going on
29:30for a billboard, but I want to give you
29:31the process cuz it's like there's a lot
29:32to it. It's probably about 20 rewrites.
29:35Are you looking at the same thing as me?
29:36Yeah, sir.
29:37Let's do it. So, the difference between
29:401% and 2% is not just 1%, it's 100%. I
29:43saw this like 4 years ago
29:45on
29:46on Twitter. And I thought it was a great
29:48argument for copywriting
29:50because if you can increase landing page
29:53conversions from 1% to 2%,
29:55[snorts]
29:55that's not too hard. Like I could do
29:56that. You could you could do that. It's
29:58not too hard for most landing pages.
29:59You've literally doubled growth. So, I
30:02loved it. I was like there's something
30:02here. That that's the seed of an idea. I
30:04just wrote it on the sheet. I was like,
30:05all right, maybe I can do something with
30:06this.
30:07Mhm.
30:07Um Luke Sullivan,
30:10great copywriting tip. We were talking
30:11about conflict earlier. He just tells me
30:13now he he what Luke Sullivan tells me is
30:15just draw a line down the middle of the
30:16page
30:17and write any two conflicts that come to
30:19mind. So, on the right we got increased
30:21landing page conversions from 1% to 2%.
30:23That was like the idea from the tweet.
30:25What's the What's What's an obvious
30:26conflict there? Well, it's spending
30:28twice as much on ads. That's like the
30:30the parallel of that. One of two.
30:32Explain what you mean by conflict.
30:34How I look at a conflict is just like it
30:36could be red and blue. It could be
30:38Christianity and atheism. It could be
30:40white shirt, red jumper. Like it doesn't
30:42have to be complicated. There's three
30:44types of enemy. If you want to be real
30:46technical, you got ABC. A, different
30:48approaches, different way of solving the
30:49same problem. B, beliefs. I believe
30:51this, you believe this. C, competitors.
30:54So, that would be Apple and Mac, what we
30:56looked at earlier. Um
30:58here
30:59it's a bit of a before and after. Like,
31:01I don't take this too seriously.
31:02Honestly, just draw a line and just
31:04write stuff that comes to mind that are
31:06opposites.
31:06They're opposites.
31:07So, I had that idea. I was like, all
31:09right, we need to set this up a little
31:10bit. So, how can I write a header? Want
31:12to grow twice as fast, you got two
31:14choices. Spend twice as much on ads or
31:17increase landing page conversions from
31:181% to 2%.
31:20Now, at this point
31:22uh this is why I feel like what what you
31:23take in as a writer is so important
31:25because a couple years ago uh I I saw
31:27this Volkswagen um ad which I loved. How
31:30to How to prepare your car for winter.
31:32Volkswagen, ordinary car. And with the
31:35ordinary car, to prepare it for winter,
31:36you've got to drain the radiator, flush
31:37thoroughly, check rubber hose, refill,
31:39blah blah blah. With the Volkswagen, all
31:41you got to do is change the oil. I love
31:43the layout.
31:43And what they're trying to show is just
31:44the simplicity, the ease.
31:46They're trying to show simplicity,
31:47they're trying to show ease, but again,
31:49enemy. And I actually more than
31:51anything, I just like how this ad is
31:52laid out. I love the layout. So, I
31:54thought, how can I turn what I've got,
31:55like my seed of an idea, into this?
31:58So, I rewrite it again.
31:59[laughter]
32:00For the For the umpteenth time.
32:02Um
32:03here I drop in two placeholder images.
32:04So, just forget the images, but I just
32:06thought like I like that that you've got
32:07the Volkswagen and the ordinary car
32:09image. So, I wanted to like placeholders
32:11just so I could work around that. And
32:13then I copied the squares.
32:16The checklist. And then I couldn't just
32:17have one on the left, so I wrote, want
32:20to grow twice as fast, you have two
32:21choices. Raise twice the cash, hire
32:23twice the staff, spend twice as much on
32:25ads or
32:27learn to write and increase landing page
32:28conversions from 1% to 2%. Starting to
32:31take a little bit of shape. And where
32:33are you at now? What do you like about
32:34this? What don't you like about this?
32:36Critique this and just give me a sense
32:38of I
32:39Well, at the time, David, at the time I
32:40wrote this I was like, you know, there's
32:41something here. I I like this.
32:43But, it gets in my in my opinion, it
32:46gets like 200% better. And I think
32:48that's a like a lesson like you can like
32:50something
32:51and you just keep going
32:52Mhm.
32:53until you literally can't you believe
32:55the ink dry.
32:56Well, also there's a moment in the
32:57creative process where
32:59you have an idea and then you're like, I
33:01know that this is going to be good. What
33:03I have now is fine.
33:05But, you have this inner knowing that
33:07what you're going to make is great so
33:09long as you live inside of those
33:11iterations and I feel like that's where
33:13you are right now.
33:14You go to you Yeah, you go to like I
33:16think this is about isn't so talking
33:17about standards. Like I wouldn't sign
33:18this out off. Right now I'm just I
33:20wasn't happy with it. But, I guess for
33:21I'm going to keep walking down this
33:22blind alley to see if it's blind or not
33:24and it ended up not being blind. So, I
33:27rewrite it again.
33:29This time what's missing I thought like
33:31I look at the Volkswagen and it has
33:32headings.
33:33So, I needed to make this simpler. So,
33:35want to grow twice as fast, you got two
33:36choices. You got the corporate way or
33:38the copywriting way. Set it up like
33:40that. Um and then also I liked that
33:43there was more boxes on the Volkswagen.
33:45So, I added
33:47raise twice the cash, hire twice the
33:48staff, spend twice as much on ads, cross
33:50both your fingers.
33:52Or learn to write and increase landing
33:53page conversions from 1% to 2%. Now, at
33:55this point something was like really
33:58irritating me.
33:59Uh
34:00I could not put this out with that line
34:02being two lines on the right hand side.
34:04Learn to write and increase landing page
34:06from 1% to 2%. It was just too long. It
34:08was messy.
34:09So, I thought I got to make I got to
34:10make that one line like by hook or by
34:11crook.
34:12Um easy to remove. Cross out landing
34:15page. Learn to write and increase
34:16conversions from 1% to 2%.
34:19And then I think how can I make that
34:20even shorter?
34:21I can get rid of learn to write and put
34:24that as the header. That ends up being
34:26learn copywriting.
34:27So, now I've got learn to write
34:30as a header. Increase conversions from
34:311% to 2%. This creates a problem. This
34:34is a mess see the whole process is. This
34:36creates a problem.
34:37I like parallelism in the headings and
34:40the corporate way
34:42as option A and learn to write as option
34:44B, there's no symmetry between them.
34:46Whereas the the corporate way, the
34:47copywriting way, that worked. So, I've
34:49created a problem and I've solved a
34:50problem I've solved a problem. One
34:52forward, one back. So, then I think, all
34:54right, I need to write something that's
34:55like a similar ilk to learn to write.
34:57So, I just start spitballing. Go full
34:59Zuckerberg.
35:00bug Scroll down, roll Monopoly dice,
35:03hidden hope, spaghetti at wall. These
35:05These aren't good, but I'm just trying
35:06to go go go.
35:07And what you're just doing is you're
35:08getting ideas out without even judging
35:10them really.
35:10It's like the Ed Sheeran tap thing.
35:12Yeah.
35:13back. You just write one idea without
35:15judging it. You write another one.
35:16You're getting the dirty water out the
35:18tap. So, you're just flowing the tap.
35:20It's clogged up at the start a little
35:21bit of mud, a little bit of dirty water,
35:23but you just flow. And after a couple of
35:24minutes, couple of rewrites, it will
35:26start being clean. You got to trust it
35:27gets clean. So, I'm just doing that
35:29right now. Spaghetti at wall for And I
35:31end up with throw money and pray. Now,
35:33at this point um I don't know what's
35:35good and what's not. Cuz I've been I've
35:37been um I've been writing this now for
35:39probably I don't know two three hours
35:41and I just I don't know what I can't I
35:42can't work out if it's good or not. So,
35:44I text a few friends going
35:45One thing that's really revealing, you
35:47just said I've been writing this for two
35:49to three hours, but design is a crucial
35:51component of your writing process. This
35:53is writing, design, visual with images
35:57and visual with words working together
36:00in harmony.
36:00I couldn't if I was doing this on a Word
36:02doc, I couldn't I couldn't let I
36:04couldn't do it like this. This is a Copy
36:06I think Jason said this on on on your
36:08podcast, but copy and design are one of
36:09the same. Like I can't do them
36:11differently. You did it in Figma. I did
36:13it in Figma. I never do anything is I
36:15never do anything which is not on the
36:17tool I'm using, ever. So, if I'm doing
36:19the I said if I do the newsletter, I
36:21write the newsletter in the newsletter.
36:22It's weird. If I do an ad, I'll do it
36:24directly into Figma. If I do a landing
36:26page, directly in if I do a billboard,
36:29I'll get it up amongst all the other
36:30billboards and I'll put it in like where
36:32it is.
36:33I don't like doing stuff
36:35not where it is.
36:36So, I'm confused at this point and I
36:39like getting feedback, so I sent this to
36:41a bunch of people who I, you know,
36:42respect their taste.
36:44Feedback comes in. Definitely prefer go
36:46full Zuckerberg over the corporate way,
36:48blah blah blah. But the consensus was
36:50throw money and pray being the header on
36:51the left worked worked best. So, I
36:54settle on that.
36:55Now, I had an idea like what if I do a
36:57really long list like Volkswagen cuz I
36:59like the depth I like depth. It didn't
37:00work, so I then reverted back. At this
37:03point, it's kind of there, um
37:06but the last thing I do in most ads is I
37:08I try and add a little bit of design to
37:10it a little bit little bit more design.
37:12Easiest thing to do here was just bold.
37:14So,
37:15back up a second. Raise twice the cash,
37:17hire twice the staff, spend twice as
37:18much on ads, cross both your fingers.
37:20There's rhythm in those lines, the
37:22repetition of twice and both. I want to
37:24pull that out. Header, wants to grow
37:26twice as fast. I highlight twice as fast
37:29and I add a little line, increase
37:31conversions from 1% to 2%. That's twice
37:33as many. Just in case anyone didn't
37:35understand that the difference between
37:36one and two is a hundred, which is where
37:38I got the whole idea from in the first
37:39place. Finally, I got these two
37:41illustrations which are just
37:42placeholders. So, I I go on a
37:44go on a Fiverr and I pay someone called
37:47Kenzia
37:48to make me illustrations. She starts off
37:50with this guy praying and a load of a
37:52load of um
37:54notes falling. I gave her the oil once
37:55as references cuz that was the style.
37:58And then she gives me this pen and I say
37:59to her like I want it to be the same
38:00person on both of them, so do it like do
38:02you mind doing it again? I think I I
38:03paid her a little bit more.
38:05And then she gives me this guy praying,
38:06but he's smiling. And then the second
38:09one has got this random
38:10like um messy four in a speech bubble,
38:13which I I didn't like, so I said look,
38:15Kenzia, throw money and pray. These are
38:17great. I I really like them, but throw
38:18money and pray. The guy's pissed at this
38:20point. Like he's an idiot. He's throwing
38:22money and praying. He's He's We don't
38:24like this guy. And the guy who's writing
38:26turned that into a typewriter and add a
38:29light bulb.
38:30Um and there you go.
38:32Add one. Want to grow twice as fast?
38:35You have two choices.
38:36Throw money and pray, raise twice the
38:38cash, hire twice the staff, spend twice
38:40as much on ads, cross both your fingers,
38:41or learn copywriting.
38:43Increase conversions from 1% to 2% and
38:45that's twice as many.
38:47And that's what I ended up with. Let me
38:48synthesize a few things here. So, the
38:50first thing This is I just realized what
38:52I love about the way that you approach
38:53this craft.
38:55It is that you When most people think
38:57about copywriting, they think of it like
38:58a fish bait.
39:01We're going to get the consumer to spend
39:03money. We're going to trick them.
39:05That's not what you're doing here. What
39:07you're doing here, this is the art of
39:08simple communication. This is
39:11What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to
39:13say something and then in one image, I'm
39:15trying to capture attention, tell a
39:17story, and there's
39:19You've actually made it delightful. Like
39:21this is beautiful in terms of what has
39:22happened and that is the way that you
39:24approach copywriting. It is the art of
39:26simple communication. It's like an art
39:28project the way that you do it.
39:29So, this is It's copywriting is all you
39:31get. Is it just an argument? It's like
39:33what's the best argument for learning
39:35copywriting? Well, you got two choices.
39:37You can throw money at, you know, a
39:39cliché and hope that it works and it
39:40probably won't cuz we've seen Asana.
39:43Or you can learn this and you can
39:44increase conversions from 1% to 2%.
39:46Also, what I like about this is it's not
39:47a big claim. I'm not being like learn
39:49copywriting be a millionaire. No, I'm
39:50saying just like you can improve
39:52conversions from 1% to 2%. You can
39:54probably That's believable. It's not
39:56It's It's sincere. This ad is really
39:58sincere. I believe I believe this.
40:01I believe it.
40:02And then there's a few other things that
40:03stuck out. First of all, we started off
40:05with that quote from Visual Value that
40:07you can increase from 1% to 2%. So, you
40:09had this little seed and you said I can
40:10do something with that. So, you started
40:12with that and you built and built and
40:14built off of that. That was your first
40:16piece of inspiration. Then, your second
40:17piece of inspiration was the the
40:19Volkswagen ad. So, now you have these
40:21two pieces of inspiration, one in terms
40:23of the copy, one in terms of the visual,
40:26and the way that the information's going
40:28to be organized, and how it's the
40:29hierarchy that is going to show up. So,
40:32both of those things, and then what you
40:33do is you're designing in Figma
40:36as much as you're writing in Figma. So,
40:38design and writing are working together,
40:39and what you're doing is you're using
40:41both of them to amplify the other, and
40:44then you're tweaking and tweaking and
40:46tweaking until
40:48the copy comes alive, tells a story
40:50that, once again, one Mississippi, two
40:52Mississippi, instant.
40:54That's it. I was It was um This was
40:56probably 2 days and 25 rewrites.
41:00And I'm not trying to make out like it's
41:02like that's You can do it You can do it
41:03There's no right way of doing it, but I
41:05I rarely get from I can't I couldn't
41:08write that as it as it is on the screen
41:09right now.
41:10You can't just say go write that. Like
41:12it it it only way, in my opinion, you
41:14can make this ad is if you build it up
41:15piece by piece by piece by piece by
41:17piece. That's how it worked.
41:19All right, Harry. I like this ad from
41:20you. Here's what it says. Marketers,
41:23you'll spend 22,000 hours of your career
41:26writing. Spend two learning how to do it
41:29well.
41:30Copywriting's arguing the conclusion is
41:32to buy your product. I put it myself
41:33like how long does a marketer spend
41:34writing each day? That's what was my
41:36seed. That was my seed, my idea. How
41:38long does this marketer spend writing?
41:40Well, they write emails, they write
41:41social media posts, they might write
41:43landing page, they might write an ad. Uh
41:45they're writing in Slack. Um
41:47they'll sell, you know, about 4 hours a
41:49day. 4 hours a day times by 300 days a
41:52year times by 30-year career, you end up
41:55with, give or take, uh 22,000 hours. I
41:58think it originally was 20,000, but I
42:00wrote 22,000
42:02because I wanted the parallelism, word
42:05of the day really, with spend two
42:07learning how to do it well.
42:09Um So, I had the 22 and the two. It's
42:12deliberately done. It's deliberately
42:13done that way. Let me pop in here. I got
42:15to add something.
42:16The other thing that I like about this
42:19is the context is important here.
42:23You're
42:24Oh, learn copywriting? That sounds so
42:26boring. 2 hours? Harry, I'm so busy. I'm
42:28so busy. I do not have time for that to
42:31do 2 hours with you to learn
42:32copywriting. I got too much going on.
42:34But what you've done is you've changed
42:37the frame here where rather than costing
42:39me time, you're saving me time. Because
42:40now you're saying, "You're going to
42:42spend 22,000 hours writing in your
42:45career.
42:46And spend just 2 hours, just 2 hours
42:49learning to write. Oh, that's so easy."
42:52It's funny if you said, you know, you
42:53spend 4 hours a day writing. No one ever
42:56is good. So you got to you got to you
42:57can make it up you can make a small
42:58number bigger, which I've done here, 4
43:00hours a day, just by expanding the time
43:03frame. That's the technical side. Um
43:06yeah, one of my favorites.
43:07Tell me about this Tesla ad that you
43:09made.
43:10Better truck than an F-150, faster than
43:14a Porsche 911.
43:15I took that from Elon Elon Musk tweeted
43:18a line along those lines, and I liked
43:20it. And I um stuck it in an ad. Why I
43:24like this is cuz when the Cybertruck
43:25came out, like no one knew what it was.
43:28So how do you make a product make sense?
43:30You compare it to products we know which
43:33make we you compare it. So we all know
43:35what an F-150's like. It's a brilliant
43:36truck. But apparently this is what
43:38better than an F-150?
43:39Faster than a 911?
43:41Cybertruck's complicated. Explain it to
43:44me so I get it.
43:45Based on what I've learned from you,
43:47there's two things I would do to improve
43:49this. Better I would make more concrete.
43:52Better, okay.
43:54Give me tougher. Give me sturdier. Give
43:56me a word like that that's a little bit
43:58stronger.
43:59got to get rid of a word that way.
44:00Tougher than an F-150. Gets rid of the
44:03word truck. It's shorter.
44:04Exactly. Shorter is better in copy most
44:06of the time.
44:06Well, it's not just shorter, but then
44:07you get the parallelism. You get the
44:08parallelism. Stronger than an F-150,
44:11faster than a Porsche 911, sounds better
44:14to me than what you have right now.
44:15Yeah, I I like tougher than a 50, faster
44:17than a 911.
44:19It's great. You That's why you should
44:20buy Also, what we said, can nobody else
44:22say this? What other car can say they're
44:24tougher than a 50, faster than a 911?
44:26There's no There's no car which exists
44:28which can say that.
44:29Read that one.
44:30This from the Ad Professor.
44:31my old friend. It takes 3.1 seconds to
44:34read this ad, the same time it takes a
44:37Model S to go from 0 to 60. Why do you
44:39like it?
44:40Well, it's fast, fibo.
44:42It breaks the fourth wall. So, what it's
44:44giving me is it's telling me how fast
44:47that Tesla car is, which I really like.
44:50And it's also saying, "Okay,
44:51interesting. It takes 3.1 seconds." That
44:53also feels really precise. And I feel
44:55like the ad is talking to me. So,
44:57there's just multiple layers there. And
44:59then, the way that the image is done, it
45:03just looks fast.
45:04I like it as well because it's they I
45:07think it got from Dave Gerhardt, first
45:09line, second line. He got this from Joe
45:12Joe Sugarman. What I mean by that is you
45:13read the first line, "It takes 3.1
45:15seconds to read this ad." You're like,
45:16"What's going on?" You You You need to
45:18read. That gets you to the second line.
45:20Which is the same time it takes a Model
45:22S to go from 0 to 60.
45:24Um There you go, you completed the ad.
45:26What do you think of facts, David? Do
45:28you like facts?
45:29They're for fun.
45:29They're fun. Yeah, you're you're
45:31are fine. They're
45:32sort of dry.
45:33I I love facts.
45:35What?
45:35I love facts.
45:36So, in this episode, I start with Asana.
45:38Asana spends 345 millions of pounds each
45:41year on sales and marketing. That's a
45:42fact. Jack Kerouac lived on the road for
45:457 years. He wrote On the Road in 3
45:46weeks. Fact. Give me a fact. Give me a
45:48fact. Behind a fact, there's a story. I
45:50like a fact cuz it's true.
45:52There's 350 million Americans. Fact.
45:54See, there's something in that. Now,
45:56there's 350 million Americans.
45:59Is that interesting? Genuinely, is that
46:00interesting? for millions. I don't think
46:01it's interesting.
46:02No, so help me understand what you're
46:03saying. When I think of a I just think
46:04of something that is true about the
46:06world, but almost by definition
46:07uninteresting, but it seems like you're
46:09trying to say something else.
46:10I'm trying to say when you say a fact,
46:11it it guarantees that you say something.
46:14Most people when they open their mouths,
46:16they say nothing. They say wallpaper,
46:18word-shaped air, but blue balloon smoke.
46:21A fact is you're giving me something
46:22here. This is true. Where did this come
46:24from? So, but 350 Americans, I don't
46:26think that's I don't think that's
46:27interesting. So, you got to like you got
46:29to you got to work with a fact.
46:30So, it's something like this. It's
46:31something like this. So, I have a pet
46:33peeve where I don't like flying from the
46:35East Coast to London. And the fact
46:37behind this is the flight's only 6
46:39hours. So, the problem is it's too short
46:41for you to get sleep, and it's too long
46:43for it to be a quick and easy flight.
46:45So, it's just in this middle ground,
46:47whereas it's actually way easier to do a
46:4910- to 12-hour flight. So, Austin, where
46:51I live, San Francisco, way better
46:53flight. So, what you're saying is what
46:55that fact is doing is it's grounding
46:57what I'm saying. It's making it real,
46:58and then inside that fact then I can
47:00tell a story from it.
47:01Facts. Yeah, I'm that's that's I'm
47:03saying facts, facts, facts. If in doubt,
47:05give me a fact. That's what I'm saying.
47:07I think that Also, the thing with the
47:08fact we we don't understand what a fact.
47:10You start with a fact, you can turn it
47:11into something else, but start with a
47:13fact. It's true. Then then make
47:15something with it. A fact doesn't have
47:16to be numeric. I'll give you a fact.
47:18When you're in a a when you're in
47:19McDonald's or Duncan, if I want to be
47:22all American.
47:24[laughter]
47:24When I'm in Duncan, um they give you
47:26tomato ketchup, but often what they give
47:29you with the ketchup um is they they
47:31take a Heinz bottle and they pour in the
47:33factory ketchup to the Heinz bottle. As
47:35a fact, I've seen it happen. It was on
47:37the news. Fact. You could make an ad
47:39from that. The woman pours the Heinz
47:41sorry, the ketchup into the Heinz, she
47:43hands it to the consumer.
47:45Even when it's not Heinz, it's Heinz.
47:46So, that that that ad like it's not a
47:49fact. Even when it's Heinz, it's Heinz,
47:50but it comes from one. I think so much
47:52good stuff just comes from fact.
47:54So, inside of this though is an implicit
47:55critique of how most people communicate,
47:57And what you're saying is people don't
47:59communicate with enough facts. They're
48:00trying to give you like an egg, but what
48:01happens is it comes out all scrambled,
48:03all messy. Give me like that that egg
48:05shape. That's what that's what you want.
48:07The Euros are on. All right, so I'm
48:08listening to Alan Shearer. The football.
48:10Alan Shearer, yeah, and he just he he
48:12just says, "Why was England bad today?"
48:14And he says, "God, they're just not
48:15playing well. It's all wrong. Southgate
48:17this, Southgate that." Give me a fact,
48:19Gareth. Tell me that they're playing
48:20Kieran Trippier at left-back when he's a
48:22right-back. That's a fact.
48:23Okay, now this is a great example. I'll
48:25use a golf analogy cuz it's one that I
48:27know a lot. So, all the time you'll be
48:29watching the announcers and they'll say,
48:31"Oh, Bryson DeChambeau, Tiger Woods.
48:34Tiger Woods just didn't want it bad
48:35enough today. Tiger Woods looked a
48:37little sloppy on the driving range and
48:39he kind of didn't go out as well." No,
48:41no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not good
48:43sports announcing. Good sports
48:44announcing is saying, "Tiger Woods
48:46usually averages 11 fairways per round.
48:49Today he averaged seven. He made up for
48:51that with an extra 30% greens in
48:53regulation and he was three times more
48:55likely to make a one-putt today than he
48:57normally is. Because of that, this is
48:59what I sensed in the round. Here's how
49:01it impacted the momentum and all that."
49:02Now that we're rooted in facts, there is
49:05so much more weight and credibility in
49:07what the announcer is saying. And I love
49:09the word that you said, precision.
49:10There's such a lack of precision in what
49:12people say.
49:13Uh so so um Orwell, all right? Modern
49:16writing does not consist in picking out
49:18words for the sake of their meaning. You
49:20use a fact, it's precise.
49:21So, the point is as a writer, as a
49:24communicator, you should have some facts
49:26in your arsenal about whatever it is
49:28that you're doing.
49:29inequality. The bad way of phrasing it I
49:30mean don't you think it's a bit unequal?
49:33That's an adjective. Turn it into a
49:35reality.
49:36Right. Show me a graph. Show me
49:39the difference.
49:39Yeah, start with a fact, work work work
49:42from there.
49:43All right, that was fun. What I want to
49:45do is I want to switch gears. I want to
49:46just talk about your newsletter. Your
49:48newsletter has
49:51easily more than 100,000 subscribers,
49:53but it's not the number of subscribers
49:56that is worth talking about. It's the
49:58engagement. You once shared this
49:59screenshot a while ago. I don't know if
50:01you remember this.
50:03And you shared the replies that you get
50:05for a newsletter. I've never seen a
50:09newsletter get as much engagement as
50:11yours.
50:12Not once.
50:13Thank you very much. It means a lot,
50:15David, coming from you. I mean
50:16I think I can't remember that. I think I
50:17had mocked his uncle back. Well, my
50:19uncle is not back. And I am Yeah, it's
50:23It was It was crazy. It was really
50:24crazy. I think that when you see 100,000
50:26people, you know, you forget that
50:28they're all
50:29actually somebody.
50:31100,000 people.
50:32it's actually it's actually so well, you
50:33know, 50 50% open it, but it's actually
50:35it's actually somebody. And um No, I
50:38It's why I write it, cuz people people
50:40seem to like it.
50:41How do you write it? How do you actually
50:43sit down to write the dang thing?
50:45I mean, it's tricky. And honestly, every
50:47newsletter, genuinely, is uh I'm not
50:50trying to sound pretentious here or
50:52above my station. Every newsletter is
50:54tough. Like I I It's always a struggle
50:57to to get something good. Um How I write
51:00it, I I think what's the newsletter, why
51:02is it different to a blog? Firstly, like
51:04why is it different to a to a tweet?
51:06Uh Ann Handley has this great line. It
51:08It's It's It's less about the news and
51:10it's more about the letter. So, when I
51:12start to write it, I think, all right,
51:13it's a letter. So, I like starting with
51:14a bit with an introduction and
51:15conclusion. Um how I do this is time,
51:18place, what's going on in my in my life.
51:20Time, place. So, this is what is is a
51:22common in writing. I think J. K. Rowling
51:24started The Chamber of Secrets with um
51:27something like it was
51:29um
51:30Not for the first time an argument had
51:32broken out at num- at over breakfast at
51:34number four Privet Drive. So, from that,
51:36you know, it's breakfast, as they're
51:37arguing, time, place, what's going on.
51:41That's how I start. So, I write I I I
51:42look outside the window, see what's
51:43happening. So, I think last one I did
51:45was um live from London weather update.
51:49Tree shutter in majestic kale. It wrote
51:51itself. I just looked out the window the
51:53kale was really falling. You can't get
51:54that from Twitter.
51:55Now, that's the little you know bit at
51:58start but the actual meat of a
51:59newsletter and there's three things
52:01I do which
52:04not sure too many other people do.
52:05Firstly, you get five things in a
52:08newsletter six things. You'll get five
52:10examples.
52:11It's dense. Secondly,
52:14um
52:15Secondly, we talked about this a lot
52:17today but there's conflict in pretty
52:19much every single example. Why why I
52:20like conflict? This could be a simple as
52:23before and after. It could be here's the
52:24problem here's the solution. It could be
52:27here's how they do it here's how they do
52:29it. Now why I why I like that um
52:33is because we we as human beings we
52:35remember stuff relatively.
52:37So I want to give you pickle juice. I
52:38want to give you orange juice. The
52:39pickle juice makes the
52:41makes the orange juice taste a little
52:42bit sweeter and the orange juice makes
52:44the pickle juice a bit sour. If I'm
52:45writing say about about Loom's
52:48positioning. I did one recently about
52:49Loom's positioning. I don't start with
52:51where Loom's positioning is good. I
52:52start with how here's how every single
52:54other screen recorder positions their
52:55product. Here's how Loom do it. What was
52:57the difference? They started as a screen
52:58recorder tool
53:00and it way back. They were just in the
53:01screen recorder bucket. They were just
53:03sitting in the screen recorder bucket
53:05and then they had an idea. The world's
53:07gone remote
53:08but remote communication sucks.
53:10Remote communication sucks like
53:13so
53:14here we go introducing async video
53:16messaging. That's the category.
53:19Out of what was the screen recorder.
53:20Everyone else is saying here we're we're
53:21an easier to use screen recorder.
53:23They're just saying like
53:24the way remote we talk remotely sucks.
53:26Like no one likes Zoom these long Zoom
53:28calls. Meetings are too long. It's
53:31emails are too impersonal. That's Loom's
53:33positioning and they they now I think
53:35they're worth more than that whole
53:36screen recorder bucket combined. That's
53:38positioning.
53:39um
53:40So I like conflict in in in a
53:42newsletter. I really I really like
53:43introducing some kind of conflict. The
53:44third thing,
53:46I only noticed this the other day,
53:48I was reading back previous issues, and
53:50since March 2021,
53:53I haven't written a paragraph longer
53:55than two lines. Now, I'm not saying
53:57that's like good or bad, to be clear.
53:58I'm just saying it's idiosyncratic to
54:00myself. Why I do this is three reasons.
54:04Um
54:05short paragraphs are like monkey bars.
54:07They're easy to swing between.
54:09So, if you're writing a newsletter,
54:11you've got to get real. Like, people
54:12read it on the train, they're not that
54:13focused. You've got to help them swing.
54:15Secondly, if I write a sentence which is
54:18a paragraph which is three lines long,
54:20there's a good chance I'm not explaining
54:21myself as well as I as I should be or
54:23could be. So, I'll I'll turn the three
54:25lines. I'll look at it like, do we need
54:26that word? Do we need that sentence? No,
54:28two lines. Finally,
54:30I like giving lines room to breathe. I
54:33like writing something which is good
54:35giving it room to breathe.
54:37Walk me through this intro.
54:39Hey, it's Harry. It's 3:47 a.m. I'm in
54:42the big smoke, alone, laptop, green tea,
54:45looking at the whiteboard like a dozy
54:46dog. Six words on it. Five with lines
54:49through.
54:50Intro glares at me. I glare back. The
54:52final Horcrux. Sip some tea. Is this any
54:55good? I don't know. My tea tastes cold.
54:57I should press send.
54:58Good. Walk me through that. Why did you
55:00choose that?
55:01Top of the page.
55:02having me read that back. Harry Hey,
55:04it's Harry. It's 3:47. I'm in the big
55:05smoke, alone, laptop, green tea.
55:08Looking at the whiteboard like a dozy
55:09dog. Six words on it. Five with lines
55:10through.
55:11Um
55:13All right. Just quickly for the reader,
55:14what I mean by that is in my newsletter,
55:16there's always six things. So, what I'm
55:17trying to say is that five of them are
55:18finished. Intro glares back at me.
55:20That's the only part I haven't wrote.
55:22The five is the final Horcrux. Sip some
55:23tea. Is this any good? In italics. I
55:25don't know. My tea tastes cold.
55:28What Beyond writing something which is
55:30good or not, I I want it to just feel
55:32like it's out the oven. That's what I
55:33want to I It's fresh bread, warm to
55:35touch. That's a quote from somebody I
55:36can't remember, but I love it. So, this
55:39I Is it good or not? I don't know, but
55:40it's it happened. I was I was in in the
55:43Big Smoke meeting in London, some random
55:45office in London at 3:47 with a green
55:47tea questioning whether the words were
55:49any good or not. I looked at my words, I
55:51got is this good? I don't know, but I
55:52got to send it.
55:53There's something here that's showing up
55:55about the stuff just writes itself. You
55:57just need to see what's right in front
55:59of you right now. The hail, the green
56:00tea the fear that you have, the six
56:02lines. All of the stuff is there and
56:05Yeah.
56:05I think what you're saying is a lot of
56:06writers don't see what's right in front
56:08of you.
56:09I I like it cuz it's not it's not
56:10particularly clever like it's it's
56:12actually boring.
56:13What stands out from that example is
56:15that the writing is so simple. Out of
56:17everybody I read, I bet that your
56:19sentences are the shortest sentences.
56:23Number number one shortest.
56:25How do you How do you write simply?
56:26That's That's the question. It's not
56:28easy. I think the first thing which I
56:29learned was that you don't you don't
56:31write it simply straight away.
56:32Writing simply, what we're really
56:34talking about here is rewriting.
56:36You don't You can't write simply. You
56:37can only rewrite simply really. So, how
56:40do you rewrite? Well,
56:42you know, there's a book on writing by
56:43Zinsser, Elements of Eloquence for safe.
56:46Like if you want to get into the weeds,
56:48those books are great. So, I'll give you
56:51maybe a couple of simple things.
56:53Um first one my favorite, Kaplan's Law
56:56of Words. Um
56:58Kaplan's Law of Words
57:00any words that aren't working for you
57:01are working against you.
57:03I I love Kaplan's Law of Words so much,
57:05I invented Harry's Law of Words.
57:08Which is that you aren't taking Kaplan's
57:09Law of Words seriously enough.
57:11Um people people I I have people talk
57:13about writing simply, I'm like your
57:15writing's not simple. You You can cross
57:16stuff out. Kaplan's Law of Words is true
57:19for words, it's also true for ideas.
57:21Same thing. Like it uh the strength of a
57:23of an idea is inversely proportional to
57:26its scope.
57:27This is why the word and
57:29on a landing page is normally never a
57:31good thing. We sell jeans and t-shirts
57:33and socks and
57:35we
57:37we have dressing rooms. I buy jeans from
57:39Hiut Denim.
57:40I've got shirts today, but I buy jeans
57:41from Hiut Denim. We make jeans, that's
57:43it. Do one thing well.
57:45Um
57:45That's our tagline?
57:46Yeah, we make jeans. Meghan Markle I
57:48think gets stuff from there.
57:50You know,
57:50dare I say the name?
57:52Meghan Markle gets
57:53gets stuff from there. Um
57:56the same with album covers. Like you
57:57look at the best album covers, Velvet
57:59Underground
57:59with the banana
58:01by Warhol or uh Dark Side of the Moon,
58:03the prism.
58:04It's exactly what I was thinking of.
58:05You knew Dark Side of the Moon. What
58:06else? Um Bowie's got one of my favorite
58:09of all time with the lightning, Aladdin
58:10Sane. He's also got one of the worst,
58:12Reality, which is like seven disparate
58:14images. Like who knows what they are?
58:16Yeah, that is a weird one.
58:17Um
58:18We talked about simple sentences there.
58:20So, I'd talk about simple paragraphs.
58:22A good paragraph
58:25is like a maybe like a bro- I say like a
58:26burrito. Like you feel the you should
58:28you feel the fro- I should be able to I
58:30write a paragraph, right? I should be
58:31able to throw it to you and you should
58:32be able to catch it and it shouldn't
58:34come apart in the air. What I'm talking
58:36about here is sentences that don't look
58:38awkwardly at each other, but that add to
58:40more than the sum of their parts. So, a
58:44test for this, right? Is you got a you
58:45got a paragraph. You pull one sentence
58:47out.
58:48A good paragraph should like be broken.
58:50You should break it. If you could pull a
58:51sentence out and it still works, the
58:53sentence probably shouldn't have been in
58:54there in the first place. Refer you to
58:56Caplin's law of words.
58:58Third thing I I talk about when I'm
59:00talking about writing simply,
59:01um I don't think it's me going to I do,
59:03but I'll write a sentence or a paragraph
59:06um
59:06for headline or whatever and I'll
59:09I'll copy and paste. I'll write it
59:10again. I'll try and tweak something.
59:12I'll copy and paste. I'll write it
59:13again.
59:14I'll copy and paste. I'll write it again
59:15a different way. I'll end up with like
59:16four or five different versions of the
59:18of the same paragraph in the editing
59:20editing phase. And I wouldn't not sure
59:22I'd recommend this cuz it's caused me a
59:23lot of turmoil over the years, but I
59:25like it for a couple of reasons.
59:27Firstly, it just allows me to refine
59:28each time, but more importantly, it
59:30allows me to be kind of terrible. Like a
59:33lot of those rewrites I will do are not
59:35good. But funnily enough,
59:38the the freedom to do it wrong
59:40allows me to like actually be a bit
59:42different, try my own way, and do it
59:43right.
59:44When I show it to my brother, he edits
59:46all my stuff. I'll show this stuff to my
59:47brother,
59:49and um
59:50um I
59:51originally I'd give him one paragraph to
59:53like look at. He'll just look at the one
59:55paragraph. And his feedback would be
59:56like, "I like it." or "I don't like it."
59:57It was hard to get anything more than
59:58that. But when I show him, I can show
59:59him three things. Show him three
1:00:01paragraphs now, and he can say, "That
1:00:02one's the best. That sentence is the
1:00:04best. Use that sentence, but put it in
1:00:05that one." I get so much better feedback
1:00:07when I can show people versions of
1:00:10stuff. That's written simply. One of the
1:00:12things I've noticed in our conversation
1:00:15so far is you're very good at dividing
1:00:18things into one, two, three, four. Like,
1:00:21really good at structuring. Is that
1:00:23something that you're pretty intentional
1:00:24about?
1:00:24We've talked about this. You love You
1:00:26love structure.
1:00:27I love structure.
1:00:28structure.
1:00:29How do I Yeah, I I
1:00:31I I How do I I structure things, all
1:00:33right? How I do that would be
1:00:34structuring is just dividing lines and
1:00:36parallelism. So, we talked about
1:00:38copywriting at the start.
1:00:40How can I divide copywriting into
1:00:41something which was a bit more easier to
1:00:42understand? Copywriting is big. It's
1:00:44kind of scary. All right, who are you
1:00:46talking to? What are you saying here,
1:00:48and how are you saying it? Those Those
1:00:49are the three buckets. I remember I I
1:00:51did a an S like a little essay for you a
1:00:54couple of months ago.
1:00:55Yes.
1:00:55It was um
1:00:57seven steps to 10,000 readers or
1:00:59something like that. So, I was like,
1:01:00"How can I break this essay down into
1:01:02structure? How can I get structure?" And
1:01:04I wrote the line that the first step in
1:01:06getting 10,000 people to read your work
1:01:09is to get 100 people to read your work.
1:01:11And I thought, "That's the structure."
1:01:13Part one,
1:01:14things that don't scale, 100 readers.
1:01:17Part two, momentum, next 9,900. That's
1:01:20it, part one, part two. Dividing lines
1:01:22and parallelism. There's a paper
1:01:26that was published in 1971. It's called
1:01:27That's Interesting. And the whole paper
1:01:30is just a formula for
1:01:33different ways to frame an idea to make
1:01:35it interesting. And the
1:01:39structure that stuck with me was take
1:01:41multiple things, take two things that
1:01:42people think are different, actually
1:01:44show how they're one. Take one thing and
1:01:46actually show how they're two. And a lot
1:01:48of what you're doing with structure,
1:01:49where you just did there is, okay, you
1:01:51want to get some readers? Well,
1:01:52actually, you think that's one thing.
1:01:54No, it's actually two things. First, you
1:01:57need to get your first 100 readers, then
1:01:59you got to get the rest of your readers.
1:02:00Now, you have structure.
1:02:01It's like a book without chapters.
1:02:03Imagine without it. It's long, it's
1:02:04heavy. Like chapters are the structure
1:02:05of the book. Same with the course. You
1:02:07take 17 videos, it's like how do these
1:02:09how do these link together? Give me
1:02:10something cohesive. Give me something I
1:02:11can hold onto.
1:02:13That's structure.
1:02:14Another hairy rule, and this is
1:02:16something that I value, too. Many years
1:02:19ago, I had lunch with a mentor,
1:02:22multi-billionaire, and he basically
1:02:23looked at me and he said, "David,
1:02:25there's two things that if you do, you
1:02:29will be insanely successful." He said,
1:02:31"The first thing is learn how to have a
1:02:33high-quality bar. And the second thing
1:02:35is never let the high-quality bar fall."
1:02:38And he said that sounds so simple, and
1:02:39we're sitting at lunch right now, you're
1:02:40like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's going to
1:02:42be good." He's like, "No, it's going to
1:02:43be hard. There's going to be people who
1:02:44are angry, there's going to be people
1:02:45who are anxious, there's going to be
1:02:46people who are pissed off. There will be
1:02:47people who stop working with you because
1:02:50of this.
1:02:51But if you have a high-quality bar and
1:02:54you maintain it,
1:02:55great things will happen for you." And I
1:02:58see a lot of the same thing that happens
1:02:59in your work with with standards. Like
1:03:01you have these supremely high standards
1:03:05in everything that you do. Where did
1:03:06that come from?
1:03:08I love what the mentor said. I think
1:03:11your standards are your work.
1:03:14I think that's a really
1:03:15simple line, but a really true one.
1:03:17your work is nothing but your standards.
1:03:19Nine out of 10 plus, it goes out. If
1:03:21not, you won't see it.
1:03:23Tell me about something you said a few
1:03:25minutes ago about knowing what good
1:03:27looks like. What is that feeling like
1:03:30when you're in the presence of something
1:03:31of quality that you've created? How do
1:03:33you know?
1:03:34I think it's when you you go for a walk
1:03:37around the garden.
1:03:39You go you take a walk around the
1:03:40garden. You come back and you're like, I
1:03:41can't take anything away from that.
1:03:43Like, that's as clean as it's ever going
1:03:44to get. It works. And you just sort of
1:03:46smile. Like, I got it.
1:03:48Um
1:03:49Yeah, it's mainly when when it just I I
1:03:51read it. It's one line flows to the
1:03:53next. I can't remove anything. It's
1:03:54good.
1:03:55Um
1:03:56Like, worn by supermodels in London,
1:03:59dad's in Ohio. You can't add a word to
1:04:01that and make it any better. You can't
1:04:02take away a word and make it any better.
1:04:04It just is.
1:04:07Tell me more about the conflict. How
1:04:09when you're writing, how do you create
1:04:11conflict? What are the things to avoid?
1:04:13What are the things to go for?
1:04:15I'm looking I'm I'm basically trying to
1:04:16hinge something around the word but in
1:04:18in a story without actually writing the
1:04:19word but.
1:04:20So, you don't want to keep going, but
1:04:21this happened, but this happened. It
1:04:22wants to be like, you know, natural. So,
1:04:25I don't know. Let me go off the top of
1:04:26my head. I
1:04:27I'll tell you that how I got here today
1:04:29with some buts in it.
1:04:31How I got here today, I you know, I'm
1:04:32telling it boringly. I got on the train.
1:04:34I got the train here and I had a coffee
1:04:36and we started talking.
1:04:37But, you know, the conflict. I'd say I
1:04:40woke up at 8:52 a.m.
1:04:43And um I started looking for clothes to
1:04:45wear today.
1:04:47And then my mom runs up the stairs and
1:04:48she tells me, "Harry, you can't you
1:04:49cannot do this interview in little blue
1:04:51in those blue shorts you you had
1:04:52[laughter]
1:04:52at the start."
1:04:54And I'd say, "Mom, just I'm stressed,
1:04:56all right? I'm doing this thing. I want
1:04:57to you know, practice." And she's like,
1:04:58"You I'm not letting you get out the
1:04:59house unless you
1:05:01change shorts." I've got these on now.
1:05:03Like,
1:05:04I get here to do the interview and you
1:05:06say, "Harry, why can you can you Why
1:05:07have you got longer trousers on?"
1:05:09Like, give me some trousers. Like, I
1:05:10haven't brought trousers with me. You
1:05:12You can could just You could put in
1:05:13little You know, that's how you create
1:05:14conflict. You just go butt butt butt.
1:05:16What went wrong? That's a butt. That's
1:05:17conflict.
1:05:19I got to ask, how does AI show up in all
1:05:22of this for you? Is AI part of your
1:05:24writing and
1:05:26the thing that we've spoken about is
1:05:28that
1:05:30AI or not, what matters is having really
1:05:32good taste.
1:05:33Yeah, I I John Long great quote,
1:05:36switching from
1:05:38um pens to typewriters didn't make the
1:05:40work better. Switching from typewriters
1:05:41to laptops didn't make the work better.
1:05:44Switching from film to digital didn't
1:05:46make the work better. AI's a tool.
1:05:48It's a tool. It's only as good as your
1:05:49taste. I saw somebody on Twitter the
1:05:53other day, Photoshop's got this new
1:05:54thing like generative fill.
1:05:56Basically, you take a picture and you
1:05:57can like zoom out and it will generate
1:05:59the background. And talking about album
1:06:01covers, Beatles Abbey Road, the four
1:06:04guys walking along the zebra crossing.
1:06:07Someone zooms out of this picture,
1:06:09generative fills it, and it's got like a
1:06:11you know, a big balloon in the air now,
1:06:12and there's loads more trees, and it's
1:06:14completely not cropped. And they write,
1:06:16um
1:06:17AI revolutionizing the photography
1:06:20process. And I'm thinking, God, like God
1:06:21help you. Ogilvy uh ad uh
1:06:25at 60 mph
1:06:27the loudest noise coming from the
1:06:30Rolls-Royce is the sound of an electric
1:06:32clock.
1:06:33He pulls that out of the motor magazine.
1:06:36Increased Rolls-Royce sales by 50%. Why
1:06:39does he pull it out of the motor
1:06:39magazine? He's got taste. He puts this
1:06:41as the headline. That's conviction.
1:06:43Another thing AI doesn't have. It it
1:06:45can't it doesn't believe something.
1:06:47And And also experience. Why can Why can
1:06:49Ogilvy write that? It's cuz he sat in
1:06:51the car. Or the motor magazine
1:06:54individual sat in the car. They drove it
1:06:56at 60 mph, and the loudest noise you
1:06:58could hear was the electric clock.
1:07:00Taste, conviction, experience. Bukowski
1:07:02worked as a postman
1:07:04for 20 years, and he wrote Post Office.
1:07:06Jack Kerouac lived on the road for
1:07:09um 7 years and he wrote On the Road in 3
1:07:11weeks.
1:07:11Michael Lewis spent forever working on
1:07:14Wall Street, waited and waited and then
1:07:17was able to write The Big Short.
1:07:20I don't think that it's not a
1:07:21coincidence, is it? Sylvia Plath, I
1:07:23mentioned her a few times today.
1:07:25Um she worked as an intern at a New York
1:07:27fashion magazine. Her character, Esther
1:07:29Greenwood, guess what?
1:07:30Disillusioned intern at a New York
1:07:32fashion magazine. If you asked me to
1:07:34write about New York City,
1:07:36um
1:07:38I've never been. So I would just say uh
1:07:41yellow taxis, city that never sleeps.
1:07:43I'm gumming together long strips of
1:07:45words already set in order by somebody
1:07:47else.
1:07:48And unfortunately, that's quite
1:07:50literally what what what AI does. It's
1:07:51predictive.
1:07:53It's predictive.
1:07:55You're making a few points with
1:07:56experience. The first point that you're
1:07:58making is the David Ogilvy, which is go
1:08:00out and do things and do things and be
1:08:02aware. And it is out of that awareness
1:08:05that you're going to notice things. And
1:08:06the things that you notice, those will
1:08:07lead to good writing. So you're talking
1:08:09about the car that's going fast. The
1:08:10loudest thing you can hear is the
1:08:11ticking clock. That is the first kind of
1:08:13experience that you're talking about.
1:08:14The second kind is the Bukowski
1:08:17kind, where you work in something for a
1:08:19long time and you're building experience
1:08:22that is a kind of expertise year after
1:08:24year after year after year. And those
1:08:26are
1:08:27very different kinds of experience.
1:08:29What's writing? You see something, you
1:08:32believe something, you write about it.
1:08:34Um
1:08:35any any kind of robot can't see
1:08:37anything. And it doesn't believe in
1:08:39anything. You ask AI what what what do
1:08:40you believe? It says, "I'm a robot. I
1:08:42don't believe I don't believe anything."
1:08:44So how are you going to tell me
1:08:44something surprising? A good writer
1:08:46arranges words and ideas in a way that
1:08:48haven't been laid out before.
1:08:50Any kind of robot lays them out in a
1:08:52fashion which is quite literally from
1:08:53all the stuff which has been laid out
1:08:55before. And I'm not saying it's not it's
1:08:56not useful. Like it's a it's a great
1:08:58research tool and we don't know what's
1:09:00going to happen. But I think if you
1:09:01think it will take your job or you think
1:09:03it's going to do a better job than you,
1:09:04it probably will. But, I don't think it
1:09:06will. I don't think it can do what I do.
1:09:08It seems like a lot of what you're
1:09:10trying to do is collect excellence,
1:09:13surround yourself with all different
1:09:14kinds of excellence,
1:09:16and
1:09:17then use those inspirations to basically
1:09:20set the standard for the work that you
1:09:22produce.
1:09:23Um it's like it's in the everyday. Like
1:09:26I don't know. You get up, you read you
1:09:27you you get up, you're on TikTok, you
1:09:29get that whole
1:09:30video after video, it slows you down.
1:09:32You wake up, you sit in a bit of
1:09:34silence, you don't talk to people, you
1:09:36collect your thoughts. Silence and
1:09:37action.
1:09:38That's what I run on.
1:09:39Okay, you do these writing retreats with
1:09:41Cultural Tutor, and you don't even talk
1:09:43till dinner, right?
1:09:44think it's so funny when people call him
1:09:45Cultural Tutor. The way that I I've been
1:09:47That's his name. He's the Cultural
1:09:48Tutor. His name is Naths His name is The
1:09:49Cultural Tutor on his British birth
1:09:52certificate. That's his name.
1:09:53his face as well.
1:09:54call him CT. Even I call him Cultural
1:09:56Tutor, too.
1:09:57Yeah, then we go we go we had Our last
1:09:59one was in Cornwall,
1:10:00and he was trying to finish his book.
1:10:01And you wake up.
1:10:03Thing is that we used to do these and
1:10:04we'd talk um on these and I'd be like,
1:10:07"Look, man, do you want a coffee?"
1:10:09And she'd be like, "Oh, you know, he's
1:10:10putting on his Maybe maybe not. You
1:10:11know, I'll come with you." He's talking
1:10:12about his girlfriend. He's talking about
1:10:14his favorites. I'm like I'm like I've
1:10:16I've lost my flow here.
1:10:18And [laughter] when we sit we don't talk
1:10:19till 5:00 or 6:00 when we have dinner.
1:10:21And there's an intensity to it. There's
1:10:23a real like, "God, I'm doing something
1:10:24here." If I'm if I wake up and I'm on
1:10:27TikTok, which I do a lot, first thing in
1:10:28the morning or Instagram, whatever it
1:10:30is,
1:10:30my day's drudge. It's slow. I'm not up
1:10:33for it. If I wake up, I'm like, "God,
1:10:35I'm not talking to anyone today. I'm
1:10:36going to write something brilliant
1:10:37today." Take a walk around the park in
1:10:38silence, no earphones on.
1:10:41I give myself a better shot.
1:10:42Um I think I'm I don't know. I said what
1:10:45I said, David. I've said what I said.
1:10:47It was a pleasure.
1:10:48You said what you said.
1:10:49I've said what I said. I'm a huge fan of
1:10:50the show, and genuinely I should say
1:10:52it's really um
1:10:53genuinely a privilege to come on. I've
1:10:55listened to pretty much every episode.
1:10:57Thanks, man. I'm a big fan.
1:10:58Um
1:10:59There you go.
1:11:00That was fun.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Learn Copywriting in 76 Minutes – Harry Dry by David Perell, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 15,171 words across 2,361 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.