Posted by:
elderolddog
(
)
Date: November 27, 2015 02:04PM
I took a class from Bob Welti at the Y in 1969. I didn't dislike him, but I certainly didn't think he was anything special.
The class was Copywriting. You can teach some things about copywriting, but you can't teach the state of mind, or the condition, that allows someone to put words together that will accomplish the aims of he who ordered the copy written.
I was as immature, cocky (read 'dickhead') and opinionated then as I am now. He hated how I tried to make a joke out of everything, how I always went for a laugh in what I was writing. Sure, I understood his point about some copy needing to be serious, but it made sense to me that if I was going to make it as a copywriter (which was my goal then), that I needed a strong point. And obviously, it was humor!
Just before Xmas break, he gave us an assignment to write copy for a local radio station. We were to drive out to the station, be given an advertiser, write some radio ads for the advertiser, and turn in copies to him of what we'd written.
I went out to the station and was assigned to write 30 second ads for that burger joint that was in that triangle space right at the entrance to the Y, on University, just across from Provo High. Naturally I wrote silly, sexually themed ads involving an RM who was more horny for the burgers than for the sweet young thing he was with...
I turned in copies to Welti and left for Vegas for Christmas.
First class back he calls my name and begins to lecture me about how I'd wasted my time, and the stations time, but churning out silly, adolescent, puerile 'garbage' that had absolutely no chance of ever making it on the air.
Naturally, this aroused a modicum of interest in my classmates, if only to give them the chance to make sport of me. Someone asked him to read my copy, so Welti did, doing the voices, male and female, and emphasizing the silliness.
There was laughter, and then there was clearing of voices... Welti could see that he wasn't winning them over to his side. And so he began to talk about a moral responsibility copywriters had and that writing stuff that would never air was irresponsible. A couple of people were still giggling and he turned his growing wrath on them. Only to be told that ALL of my ads had run over the Xmas break. ALL OF THEM!
Bro. Welti was completely deflated by that news.
I, on the other hand, got a hard on...