Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Mehmed Mahmutović, Copywriter
After I stopped training volleyball I noticed that the brain stretches differently than the body. It’s much more painful, but when an injury happens even the therapists or psychologists can’t help you. You try to heal this crucial part of the body on your own.
In my life, since childhood, after hurting my brain, I became considerably crazier, braver and freer. That injury, to be precise, happened at my birth, in a battered hospital that decided to give my family one more life. And there was no advertising, or selling of something because someone used the famous Hemingway’s line: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.” So I, as the newest child in the family, got the sneakers whose purchase came from that Hemingway’s copy, so I started to follow him as well thanks to those shoes. I wanted to create one day in the direction he was creating.
It all happened in the second year of high school. I was bored and I was reading something about advertising, because I wanted to find out how ads are created, and how to reach those people creating them. Then I started to meet some local people, and after that, luckily, I went a little further. I was, as I have already said, much crazier, braver and more free. I researched and wrote. I was, above all, irresistibly curious and for this reason I decided to gather five thousand people among my friends on Facebook, and that they come from different fields, but after looking at that list of friends I realized that most of the people there were from the worlds of literature and advertising.
I was given a book by Ivan Tokin, from Ivan Tokin, so later, through his life, I reached some other, for me very important lives, and then I decided to go to Belgrade. Thus, Belgrade started to live in me, and then one part of Belgrade started constantly coming to me, and then, in July, I decided to go to Belgrade and stay there for more than a month.
After that stay, and a number of talks about advertising, socializing, a class on copywriting, and conquering a part of the world (both the external and the inner one), it turned out I would go to Radomir Savić, the founder and CEO of the agency that creates music in everything they do, my partner and a member of the family that you choose yourself. I went to Lomina 15 street, and arrived at Trumpet, my first destination in the world of advertising, that offered me more than any other. After our conversations and ideas, it was time to join Marija, a copywriter whose pencil creates music, just like the agency she works for. I was pumped up by Boris Belak’s book “Ma tko samo smišlja te reklame?” and the sentence which says that copywriting, first and foremost, “is closer to our everyday life, closer to our behavioral and thinking patterns than one might think,” and that “good advertising is creative advertising, and is never a lie.” And I also remembered that Godin said that spreading ideas is the most significant product of modern civilization, and the copywriter is the one who spreads those ideas and directly influences our needs, desires and choices. He is the creator, and that is what, deep inside, I always wanted to be. And after a few minutes of sitting next to Marija, and observing how she does her daily task, and after she gave part of that task to me, I drowse off, woke up, started stretching my bran, getting to know the task, the position of the competition, understanding the target group, and then returning to getting to know the task and to start thinking about something that the client would like as a safe option.
It was hard. Because when you have to convince someone in the story, then that story should not be a fake, so I’ve been rummaging through the throve of my knowledge and experience, finding many true and real situations that I linked to their product. We created something that has not been told in the market before, and I hope that we sold it to them as a safe and innovative product.
After that first day, I realized that the life of a creative, just as the life of an artist, is full of challenges, continuous ups and downs. Advertising is an art form of money making, and it’s well known that money in art is paid with everything you have – especially understanding, motivation, finding inspiration when it simply isn’t there, emotions, ideas and effort.
The second day I realized that ideas are created through reality, so it made it even harder to work, because what I lived before coming to Trumpet was all but real. I learned how to simplify my thoughts, myself, my life, and my aspiration to immerse myself in real situations. I have also realized that in the creation of something, it is very important to check if perhaps the brand, the hotel or the shopping center you are creating for have something in the country where they are selling, building, serving. Is there something in the name, or in the already created logo? After that, it was much easier not only to work, but to live – in myself, in Belgrade, at Vračar. In addition, I had tremendous help from my best friend, who wanted me to communicate with people in a simpler way, so every day I was supposed to say three simple sentences, and we know how important simple communication is in advertising. It was obvious – I was living among the people who wanted to get only the best out of me. Who wanted to shape me better.
And then I went onwards, in simpler steps and simpler words.
Meanwhile, I met a friend of my friends, Anja Radulović, creative director at Leo Burnett, who has won several fantastic international awards. Now she was my friend, and I believe she is definitely one of the most interesting, most relaxed, and coolest people in advertising. At one point she decided to take me to meet Leo Burnett, the agency, the team, to talk about projects, to show me the new campaigns they were working on, but also the creative solution for one cool place. That day I met Anđelko Trpković, CEO, who gave me some very useful things with the mark of Leo, and an interesting, short story about the founder. I felt as if I’m in my own turf. It felt like a movie – a movie in which my dreams come true, so I have to constantly wonder if it’s really my life!?
I thought how big and important clients are, but, how much bigger should we who create for them be, to sell them the ideas that they could never even imagine. The real thing is to be creative and intelligent. If there is something missing from us, then we have to find someone who will fill the gap in our creative process and go together to drain the pens, smash the keyboard, roll the mouse, stretch the brain and create something new and different.
If the true leaders eat the last, then such a process is being carried out by copywriters as well. Because when you are creating, you have to forget about what your physical physiognomy needs, and to set that aside until you finish what you are paid for, what you are creating and what needs to attract others to pay. In the process, you bring new clients to your agency with your art and quality, and together you create a new image of the agency. Use your skills, be an artist, be a boss, be a worker, be a psychologist. Give priority to ideas, be part of a group, but know that sometimes it is necessary to seek solitude, to admire the successes of others, to be better, to have fun, to be fearless and kind. Use your fame. Good reputation is capital.
The copywriter should be his own person, using the weapons he possesses: acquaintances, tireless creative pace, craziness, desire to play and score goals, reason, intuition, charm, art of communication … Of course, this cannot be used immediately as a bullseye in the business world, but I am confident that it can be fitted in and exploited through learning and effort. Copywriter is not just someone who devises fun and exciting ads, they are a friend, a colleague, a former boyfriend, a psychologist – someone who creates a song while leaving the car, and ads when they enter the agency. They know clients and buyers, or they at least try to get to know them. They need to know what they are interested in and they need to create something concrete. No easy job, but very interesting, fun and exhausting. Nick Usborne said that for a copywriter the first and foremost is to love and understand people. They should not be a cynic, and they should understand human desires, needs and dreams. They have to be a good marketer. And I, thanks to circumstances, with studies in economics, with an interest in marketing and with (hopefully) talent for copywriting, have already entered the world of advertising, and am now waiting for new adventures, people, clients, calls for action, stressful situations, that closeness when a problem is solved, and the celebration when you score a flawless goal.
The good feels come after you solve a problem. And the problem is solved when you set yourself a goal for the first time in your life at twenty-one years of age. We’ll be seeing each other again.
Many wondered why I love Belgrade so much, and why I like advertising. Both Belgrade and people in it, and advertising and people in it, allow me new discoveries, about the world, about other people, plants and animals, about the market, the importance of money, which I have constantly neglected and dealt with the things of the soul, and even discoveries about myself. They have taught me to continue being active on social networks, because a whole new world is born there, separate from the private one – a life that I like almost as the one I’m in when I turn off my smartphone and laptop. New technologies and new media enable us to get information, meet people, and get ideas faster and easier than ever before. Proper use of the internet and a little bit of luck also explain the blooming of dreams about Belgrade, people, agencies, hugs, interesting topics, intellectual and spiritual ascend.
About Belgrade, about the people you love there, and who are your family, you write songs – so as I was drinking coffee today, I was writing the verses in which first and foremost I was speaking to the city, telling him that it woke me with its touch, that it allowed me to be everything I am, and that people now see me exactly as I am, with everything I am, in my full form. A boy of a fragile soul, a poet, a thinker, a lover of people, nature and art, and, well, I had the chance to work a bit as copywriter, but I don’t want things to stop there. A lot can be done. When you know human nature or when you are at least trying, it makes you to be a lot of things. In short, it’s ridiculous to expect a copywriter to be just a copywriter. Hold on to ones you have right now, because when they decide to be something else, they will become something else. Crazy people those copywriters. A bulk of our decisions today are based on them, and they create our differentiation between brands, whether we like it or not.
Walt Disney said the future is created first in mind and will, and then in action. And, if I was to say something about the future for the end, then I will say that in a certain time it will be directed towards advertising, and you already know towards whom and what. After that, until the next trip, until the next visit to Belgrade… cheers! I hope you enjoyed reading this text, and that you found something for yourself.