Less copy is almost always better than more copy.
(I don’t mean short- vs. long-form copy. I mean concise vs. verbose copy.)
But sometimes an ad doesn’t need ANY words at all to be effective. It only needs a good idea, a compelling idea.
In copywriting, words are just a means to an end, a means to evoke emotions that compel action. But of course you can tell stories and conjure feelings without words, too. Of course you can.
Just look at this brilliant LEGO campaign:
A copywriter — a “word person” — helped conceptualize it, you know. And yet there’s no headline, no tagline, no words at all.
Copywriting is actually more about ideas than writing.
So don’t fetishize the presence of words in your marketing. If you can tell your story without them, you should.
I think copywriter David Abbott said it best when he said:
“Sometimes the best copy is no copy.”
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Hey there, thanks for reading. :)
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Eddie Shleyner
VeryGoodCopy, founder
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