CAN YOU EVER CREATE RULE BREAKING COPY IN LARGE COMPANIES?

Sometimes I wonder if in a large corporation if you really can create truly revolutionary and different copy. I think there is no doubt that you can create powerful copy that works within the current rules and category norms, but can you actually change the rules and create something very different.

By its very nature, the brand management structure and process in large companies means that many things, copy included, is a committee affair. There re many stakeholders and many people involved in the process and decisions. Often many bold ideas will be killed further down the line as people try and predict, and are driven, by what they believe their line management would buy – and likes. This means the focus may often be on the management than the consumer. Then there is the raft of action standards and tools that copy need to go through as part of the validation process.

I am a great fan of the tools, but it does mean that certain approaches and formats tend to drive the copy development process as you look at what has worked in the past than what may work in the future. I think that you tend to focus attention on the mechanisms and approaches that worked in the past. There is less incentive to try and break the rules. I know that David Ogilvy argued that the best copy breaks rules, but you need to know what the rules are or will be.

The copy development process in large companies mostly encourages a compliance than an rule breaking approach though. It is safer to work within a more narrow constraint as selling copy that is not within a mould of the past is painful and difficult. It is likely to be more rewarding, less risky personally and more simple to stay within a more limited range and band. The risk being that pushing the boundaries may fail, whereas the more safe route will usually get some response in market.

I think the way to break rules and push boundaries in large companies means that first you need to have a bank of safe and dependable copy that will sell boxes, and once in place then in addition try some real flyers and ideas that are “out there”. Until you have the bankable and safe routes you will not convince people to change. Until the safe routes stop working. This I think tends to happen slowly over time like a wind-up toy slowly losing its energy and power. Once you get there you have the opportunity to wind things up (literally). But until that happens I think the system on most large organizations rewards being more in line with the category and the past than the future.

The issue is not helped by the huge hype that usually follows in the trade press, and sometime consumer press, when boundaries are pushed creatively(like Dove Real Women). There tends to be so much hype and then when it is sound that it does not drive sustainable sales people revert even more into a safe approach. The hype does not help as when they proves less successful than traditional more conservative approaches it encourages less risk taking.

Thoughts?