"A copywriter should be able to write good jokes, but don't become a joke writer" | Creative people say

“Finding connections between unrelated things and building new cognitive fields is the most enviable ability for advertisers.”

“Only those things that are imaginative, original and fresh can make you interesting.” Bill Bernbach, known as a giant in the history of advertising, has created many classics, such as “Diamonds are forever.” He believes that an idea that cannot be communicated effectively is no different from having no idea at all.

The "Party B Daily" column of "Curiosity Daily" will launch interviews with advertising creatives to see how they understand the industry, people, and the world.

Zhang Yifan, Associate Creative Director of McCann-Erickson Advertising, calls himself "Huaihai International Guo Degang" and is also teased as a "joker" within the company.

I studied logistics in college and later joined an advertising company, where I worked as an account executive and copywriter.

Q: I heard that you are a famous joke teller in the company. Do you prefer to be called a joke teller or a copywriter?

Zhang Yifan: I think it should be the copywriting. Actually, I am not a joke teller. What I have been thinking about is the difference between joke tellers and copywriters. I think jokes are a form of text consumption in this era, just like we learned Tang and Song poems, Ming and Qing novels, and the new poetry of the Republic of China a long time ago. Jokes are actually a way that people write texts nowadays. Since it involves text, copywriters should master them. Copywriters should try their best to write good jokes, but they should not become joke writers.

Q: If you have to give yourself a label, what would it be besides copywriter?

Zhang Yifan: I think it is a bit like the broker in politics, who builds relationships between people and facilitates the completion of transactions. We are brokers for clients and consumers.

Q: What was the last time you felt scared?

Zhang Yifan: Recently, many female colleagues have said that I am a veteran driver. What scares me is not these rumors, but the fact that I not only did not argue with them, but instead felt a little inexplicably proud in my heart.

Q: If you could give yourself a slogan, what would it be?

Zhang Yifan: Drivers get old, but the tricks are always new.

Q: How do you imagine your consumers?

Zhang Yifan: It’s a bit like acting in a drama. Memorize the consumer research data like a script, then imagine the lights turning on, the music starting, and you walking onto the stage, letting their souls take over your body.

Q: When you were 22, how did you imagine yourself in the future?

Zhang Yifan: I just entered the advertising industry at the age of 22, and my dream was to live a life of debauchery as soon as possible. Now the last two words have been basically realized.

Q: Who was the last person you envied? It doesn't matter whether you are alive or dead.

Zhang Yifan: In my life, I have only envied one person, a 17-year-old freshman boy. He would practice Yan Zhenqing's poems on old newspapers every morning after getting up, practice fadeaway jump shots under the scorching sun all afternoon, and post on the poetry forum BBS in the evening, determined to become a poor poet in the future. At that time, he had never failed a test, had never experienced the bitterness of a broken heart, and had not experienced the crazy housing prices in Shanghai over the past thirteen years. He died during the summer vacation of my sophomore year and was buried in the mass grave of my youthful memories.

Q: Where do you get new knowledge and new perspectives?

Zhang Yifan: In fact, I will deliberately avoid some new knowledge and new ideas, because I don’t want to be overwhelmed by various information every day. Just like I always see others forwarding articles from Curiosity Daily but never read them. Actually, I have collected them all, I'm just waiting for the mood to open them.

Q: When or where do you feel like you’re falling behind?

Zhang Yifan: I always feel that I am out of date, and I also enjoy this feeling. It’s best to be the last one in line so that you can see everyone’s backs and see things more clearly.

Q: Who do you most want to be in this industry?

Zhang Yifan: I have known a person for a long time. He insists on riding a bicycle to work so as not to add reimbursement pressure to the company. Stick to renting a house and don't fuel the real estate bubble for the national economy. Stick to being single and having few desires, and don't give the majority of literary and artistic young women the opportunity to waste their youth on beautiful things. I often see this fat guy riding a bicycle on the road late at night with a playboy look in his eyes. He (me) is the most lovely person in this worst era.

Q: If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing now?

Zhang Yifan: I might be a psychological counselor or a midnight radio DJ. I used to listen to "Stay Together Until Dawn" often. I think it's very warm to be able to say something that people are willing to hear when they don't want to go to sleep.

Q: What kind of talent do you most wish to have?

Zhang Yifan: In fact, you have all the talents you want, but you just don’t realize it or don’t have time to develop them. For me, I just want to have more time to practice the saxophone that has been hidden in the closet for more than ten years.

Q: What do you think can best enrich creativity? What kills creativity the most?

Zhang Yifan: The thing that can best inspire creativity is listening to music, and the thing that can most kill creativity is playing one song on repeat (addition: "It's actually a routine").

Q: What do you most don’t understand about the current advertising industry?

Zhang Yifan: What I don’t understand the most is why interns’ salaries are generally so low, even though I would rather pay for myself to be an intern at a 4A university.

Q: What common misconceptions do you think people have about the industry?

Zhang Yifan: The biggest misunderstanding about the advertising industry comes from advertisers. Advertisers generally feel aggrieved that their relatives and friends always think they are the ones making light boxes on the street or handing out cards in the subway. Actually, what do you have to feel aggrieved about? Do you really want them to know that you work overtime every day to the point of vomiting blood, and that your time is filled but your body is drained?

Q: What do you think is the most enviable thing about this industry?

Zhang Yifan: Finding connections between unrelated things and building new cognitive fields is the most enviable ability for advertisers. As a copywriter, you need to find this connection, and sometimes you can make it clear in just a few words.

Q: How to grasp the relationship between things and draw a mind map?

Zhang Yifan: I used mind maps before, but I haven’t used them for a long time. I think when it comes to the whole connection, I think the first thing is that he must have feelings, that is, whether your feelings are strong enough. Be able to stand a little higher than others and see a little farther than others.

Q: How do you think one can “stand high and see far” or “have feelings”?

Zhang Yifan: When it comes to matters of sentiment, I think you should read more. Then you will see some things that make you feel that some of the cool things in modern life actually existed in ancient times, and some of the not-so-cool things in modern life actually reflect a truth of this era.

Q: There are many variables in this industry, including your boss, clients, and consumers are all changing. Are you more calm about the variables now?

Zhang Yifan: Variables can be divided into big changes and small changes. I think I've let it go. I've done my best and not left it to fate. That is to say, if the client wanted to change the brief, I would write to him on WeChat to scold him. There was no WeChat at that time, so I wrote on Weibo. I @ed the client and posted for about an hour, then hundreds of people forwarded it and thousands of people commented, all helping me to scold that client - they are all a bunch of idle bastards in the advertising circle who just want to create chaos.

I was young at that time, and I often couldn’t see things clearly. Three words kept popping up in my mind all day long: Why? I have been working on this TVC for a year, and finally you said you don’t want to shoot it anymore. What’s your reason? I will make you pay the price, I will make you discredit me. At that time, I had a strong desire for revenge, but now I am getting older, I have become more tactful. I don’t mean to say I have become tactful, but you can understand now. Including the customer whom I scolded at, we shook hands and made peace later. Nothing serious happened. We all understood each other.

Q: Do you agree with this statement: Does advertising require talent, or do you think creativity can be acquired?

Zhang Yifan: Many times, you don’t actually know whether you have talent or not. You will only know after you have worked hard. But I think there is one thing about the advertising industry: it depends on what your goals are. There are no standards in this industry. If you want to create some good works to be released, you should study various cases every day, and finally you can create something that meets the marketing needs of your clients. But if you want to do some great work, I think it's quite difficult. The first point is talent, and the second point is opportunity.

Q: Advertising people always call themselves “overtime dogs”. What do you think about overtime?

Zhang Yifan: I think overtime is necessary. I have always had an idea that the client could have found a better copywriter than you, but he didn't, so he came to you. If you can't give him the best work you can do, you will actually feel guilty, because I think there are a lot of good advertisements in the world, so why can't you bring these good advertisements to your customers?

I am the kind of person who can't get over my own hurdle. Of course, these thoughts were when I was young. As I get older, I have less physical strength, for example, I still have to sleep when I need to.

But I think there are too many experts in this industry, so sometimes if you don’t push yourself, you will probably be overwhelmed. I may be different from some students who studied advertising in college. No one forced me to do advertising. It was my own choice. I could have been an engineer, but I chose to be an advertiser. Because no one forced me to do it, I wanted to do it well.

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