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Up close and personal
Simon Townley
Have you always planned on being a copywriter?
Not a chance! My first job was working in a dairy. Then on a French campsite, then a pub, another pub, a sheepskin tannery, a grape picking farm… shall I go on? I did actually start professional writing as a copywriter in a recruitment-advertising agency. Later I trained as a journalist and worked on local papers and within a press agency. I also worked as a stringer in Norway for a while.
What’s the strangest copy you’ve written?
The strangest bit of copy I've done was possibly the SAP "Little Book of Calm," which was designed to teach IT managers relaxation techniques while also selling the benefits of SAP enterprise solution software. Then there was the press advert for Adobe where the designers had already decided they were going to use the image of a leather clad woman with a whip – and the copy had to somehow justify this.
What appeals to you the most about copywriting?
I suppose what I enjoy the most is the challenge of learning about a whole new company, group of people, technology, product – and then turning the information into a really clear bit of copy that sounds so simple and obvious, that you wouldn't ever have thought a copywriter could possibly have been needed.
What do you like to do besides write? Do you have any hobbies that you’d consider making a career out of?
My main hobby is playing tennis – but I think I'm a little too old to turn professional. My other hobbies are watching cricket, tennis and football on the television, ideally while drinking beer. I don't know how many career opportunities there are in that line of work – though if you hear of any, please let me know. On a serious note, I'm planning to branch out into blogging and Internet publishing – and some of this will be on subjects such as tennis.
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