As I’ve coached, vetted or critiqued copywriters, one of the most common mistakes I see is over-reliance on their “Swipe File.”
For sure, Swipe Files have a purpose. But if every time you’re given an assignment, you immediately default to finding a swipe to try to repurpose, you handicap yourself.
Not only that, but you also make me question your ability to perform the fundamentals of great copywriting.
Customer research. Product research. Market research. Competitor research. Self research (vetting your own pre-concieved notions and forgetting your institutional knowledge), meeting your prospect where they’re at, etc.
All of that is lost if you start with a completely disconnected swipe from 1985.
Different time. Different audience. Different product. Different market awareness. Different market saturation. Different medium. Different political, social, economic climate. Different regulations. The list goes on and on.
Copy/paste an ad that dominated and generated ungodly amounts of money in the 80s on Facebook today, and you’d likely lose money. Or more likely, lose money AND get your ad account suspended because of stricter regulations.
In my humble opinion, swipes are good for study, abstraction, and historical reference, not copying/pasting. And I train my writers to think the same way.
