Ben Kay is the Creative Director of Media Arts Lab in London, which is Apple’s own ad agency. He writes the popular advertising blog If This Is A Blog Then What’s Christmas, and is author of the novel Instinct.

1. What is the role of the copywriter?

The copywriters job is to come up with big ideas, it’s conceptual, it’s not just about writing. The concepts are more important than the writing. The point of the job is to come up with the idea first, such as “Good Things Come To Those Who Wait” for Guinness or “The Power of Dreams” for Honda. Your execution may not even involve words but coming up with original ideas is what copywriters do. That’s where your value is.

2. What is the role of the art director?

When I was at Watford, I was told the roles between an art director and copywriter were 90% the same. You both come up with the concept together. The remaining 10%, the art director comes up with visual and the copywriter comes up with copy. But even then, their is still a lot of crossover. A copywriter may make suggestions for visuals and the art director may make suggestions for copy.

3. How does a copywriter break into advertising?

You need to look in the D&AD annuals and find the work you admire, contact the team that produced it and arrange a time to show them your book. The team may like your work immediately or may ask you to make changes. Eventually, if they like your work, you should be able to get a placement hopefully leading to a job. Nevertheless, it’s quite a long process.

4. What should you look for in an art director?

Their art direction skills probably won’t be amazing. Their ability to execute won’t be that great because naturally they won’t have the right photographers or money for post-production. But it does not matter at this stage, they will learn all that on the job.

What you need to do is look for a commonality of outlook, perspective and goals. If you want to absolutely worship at the alter of great advertising and be obsessed about the best advertising you want to be with somebody that also shares the same thirst. You don’t want to be with somebody that wants to knock some ads out, who then wants to be a film director later down the line. Most importantly you want to find somebody that you are happy to spend a lot of time with.

5. What tips do you have for copywriters currently creating their book?

A lot of people have electronic books these days because you can just send links to the creative directors. I prefer to look at a physical book. You get to see the whole thing, the way an ad should be seen, in my opinion. But digital books are popular due to digital campaigns and creative directors like to see that kind of stuff. But personally it’s a shame that more books are not physical.

If the conceptual part of your book is not good, creative directors will not really care about the writing. You are not being hired to produce 300-400 words of copy, that rarely happens today.

6. How polished should the book be?

If you spent a long time polishing a poor concept you will look like an idiot as that time could have been used to think of a better concept. If you know your concepts are good make them as good as possible. But first you have to know that they are good. What you want to do is go for a book crit based on sketches and see which ones the team likes and then start polishing those ones.

7. How do you cut through the noise and get the attention of creative directors?

A lot of it is down to your book. Despite what people think most creative directors will see you. When I was at Watford we went to see John Gorse and Nick Worthington. They were the most awarded team in Europe and no one rang them up because they thought they would be too busy. We rang them up and they agreed to see us. We saw them 3 or 4 times which eventually led to a job with them as they gave our book to the creative director of AMV. You simply need to build relationships with those that you respect and can get you a job.

Somebody once said getting a job in advertising is like trying to park in Covent Garden. You can drive a car round and round and sometimes you will find a spot and sometimes you won’t. But it’s not down to the car or how fast you are driving. You just have to be patient as a lot of people are trying to park in Covent Garden.

Overall find the teams you respect and see them again and again. Listen to what they say and do what they say. They will be flattered by it. The worse thing is to see them and not follow their advice.

8. Any final advice for aspiring copywriters?

You have to stand out but also be yourself. I think your book is a reflection of you. When we did our book we were told it was too laddish. So we started to include things like Mother Care into our book, but it felt fake. If your book is a reflection of you then you will find the teams that you click with and they will like you for being you. Finally, make nothing stop you, let nothing get in your way and don’t be an asshole.