Copywriting Can Put an Eiffel Tower Between the Pyramids

You finally step ashore.

Pure white sand sticks to your dark wet boots.

(If you only knew how much you’d miss the water)

The disembark and journey were miserable, as customary for the period.

And guess what? Your commanders issued mandatory wool uniforms.

Yup…

It’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

I got it. You’re not a nerd.

So I’ll properly brief you.

You are a soldier in Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. 1798.

We’re here to threaten English trade and yada-yada-yada…

You’re here for a copywriting lesson, and I swear there’s one.

Anyway, what you need to know is we’re here to conquer Egypt for France.

And for that we need two things:

1. Defeat the Mamluks.

2. Conquer the hearts and minds of the people.

If you want to know about the first topic, here’s a cool painting:

(Battle of the Pyramids, the Pyramids were never that close though 🙁)

Astounding success!

But today, we only need to elaborate on the second topic.

How to even approach this? How do you persuade people en masse?

(HA! I told you! I told you there’s a lesson here!)

Let me tell you what you absolutely shouldn’t do:

Call the most foul-mouthed, brothel-dwelling merchants to translate your proclamation.

Here, I’ll show how it went down…

This is what Napoleon wanted (Abridged):

Fancy, ain’t it?

But remember: the merchants barely spoke common Arabic…

And most people in the city couldn’t read, and those who could…

Wrote in High, Classical Arabic.

And this is how it read for them:

Needless to say, it was a disaster.

The inability of the French to connect with the population led Cairo to revolt.

And that… Well, it was not good-good to say the least.

(The Revolt of Cairo)

So what have we learned?

For the love of God! DO YOUR RESEARCH!

Napoleon’s translators were not only incapable of writing in the desired brand voice…

But were completely unaware of the people who’d actually read their “copy.”

Do something like that and you’ll probably get your own revolt.

Do you remember that Pepsi ad?

You know the one...

(Live for Now, 2017- is there something half as condescending?)

The parallels baffled me. 

It’s almost as if the “copywriters” in here were totally deaf.

To drive this home, I’ve kept a quote from Mad Men close to my heart.

I don’t remember what season, episode or character, but it went like this:

“Copywriting? That’s a research job.”

Bingo.

Of all the things that can go right or frighteningly wrong.

RESEARCH can explain them.

Put this in your head:

They don’t hire us to write, silly.

A monkey with a typewriter can do that.

They hire us to GET IT RIGHT. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

To hit the prospect right in the heart.

Can you imagine if Napoleon had a Gary Halbert type guy?!

The consequences…

Baguettes and mimics with pyramids in the background.

Perhaps if they kept it for enough decades… 

There would be an Eiffel-like tower between them.

Anyway, one of the (many) things I love about copywriting.

-Ruan B.

"To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself."

-Søren Kierkegaard