COPYWRITING is a spectrum skill; within a discrete, discernible discipline – the presentation of English – there are nuances that make a given piece appropriate or inappropriate. The paragraph you are reading would be inappropriate for, say, a pithy strapline or a sentence aimed at hooking Z3 attentivity markets; but as a piece of made-up guff designed to look like we know the science behind our randomly gifted talent, it probably fits the bill.
SO how do copywriters engage with the creative process? We can be dropped into the zone at any stage. We can accompany creative concerns to presentations and client meetings; we can wait until you've had a formal brief and take it from there; or we can be called with a few hours until the Arbitrary Moment of Doom (the deadline) to translate a few paras of lorem ipsum that someone forgot about.
SOMETIMES copy influences the visuals; sometimes it's the other way round. A headline might inspire an image; a look and feel can generate copy. Whatever works for you, for your project, it's good for us.
WE'RE pretty good brainstormers, too. As naturally lateral thinkers we can bring a lot to scamps, thinking things non-thinkers non-think.
WHEN a brief is very tight, with a client whose style bible trumps all else, we'll get down on our knees and flagellate in honour of its wisdom. Never is the phrase about customers always being right truer than in the design process. We know how great ideas that have taken hours to fruit can be tossed aside on a whim by marketing managers and sales teams. It hurts. But so does being a marketing manager.
AND when we're allowed, we can produce dazzling, off-the-page jumpfests.
BUT most of the time we're trying to get as much creativity as we can for the brief. What more could you ask for?