"Best of all, it's completely free to try it."
This was the call to action in an ad for AI powered copywriting software.
It was, according to the introduction
“…a groundbreaking new tool that uses AI to write high performing marketing copy for your business.”
The ad claimed the copy was written entirely by AI. I believed them.
Now call me an old fashioned, fuddy-duddy, pernickety pedant of a (human) copywriter, but the line; “Best of all, it's completely free to try it.” really rubbed me up the wrong way. Although it may have been because it was a Tuesday and it was raining.
Whatever it was, my wrong way was well and truly rubbed.
“Who”, I wondered, “would allow an ad to run, especially for an all-singing, all-dancing, sparkly, new fangled piece of copywriting software, that showed such little respect, not only for the English language, but for their target market as well?”
So I responded.
I think I was polite, (but let me now if you think differently). I pointed out that any worthwhile human copywriter would have realised the "it" at the end of the sentence was completely redundant. I talked about human speech patterns. About the interrupted natural flow and the very high probability there was a better call to action about 30secs after this one had been generated.
I also mentioned something about software generated word diarrhoea.
My post was liked a lot.
I even offered to write more creative and persuasive ad copy for them. For free.
I got no reply. Natch.
I did notice they changed the copy for that ad.
From, "Best of all, it's completely free to try it.” they wrote a much better line. “Get started for free now.”
But did anyone, other than the software engineers, actually read the original copy? I assume someone approved the ad to run. Surely they read what their AI had written? Maybe not.
So copywriters, please, please read what you’ve written. Unless you can’t actually read.
Let me know what you think. Is the explosion of copywriting software the end of copywriting as we know it? Or the brave new dawn of entirely emotionless gobbledygook designed to remove the human from the interaction of marketing?