What I learnt about copywriting when my 5-year-old went viral
Back in 2020, four days before Boris Johnson announced that people “must stay at home” and businesses were closed, my 5-year-old went viral.
An innocent conversation with our neighbour Jean, faithfully recounted by my husband on Twitter (whatever the naysayers over on the /thatHappened Reddit forum think) captured the national mood.
Here it is, for your enjoyment:
The tweet itself garnered almost 26 million views, and over three million engagements. It was retweeted over 80K times, sparked a spin-off hashtag and made it onto a Buzzfeed list of “gloriously sarcastic” pandemic-related tweets.
So are there any copywriting lessons we can discern from this bit of viral content? Well I’m very glad you asked: yes, there are!
Firstly, to get to the point. “Even the 5-year-olds in Yorkshire are plain-speaking,” noted one Twitter user, drily. In a chaotic world of confusing daily government briefings and muchos conflicting advice, many appreciated my son’s straight-talking style. “That’s the News at 10 update I need”, one account replied.
The same is true of most types of copywriting. It’s very rare that a piece of written content can’t be improved by choosing the active voice, making simpler word choices and, most importantly, cutting out the flannel.
Second, we all love a catchphrase. THAT’S NEARLY 70 JEAN really caught the public’s imagination. “Next time someone tells me their age, I’m going to respond “THAT’S NEARLY 70, JEAN” regardless of the actual age or name,” said one user in reply, amassing over 20K likes. It became a hashtag, and ‘Jean’ trended on Twitter for several hours.
Why do catchphrases and slogans work? Well, they boil a complicated idea down into a short, essential-feeling phrase. #THATSNEARLY70JEAN encapsulated so much, from the perception that a certain generation (*cough* baby boomers *cough*) was blaming everyone but themselves for rising Covid cases, to the arbitrariness of 70 as a cut-off point between the vulnerable and not-so-vulnerable. In short, it just worked.
The ultimate copywriting goal? For it to ‘just work’.
And finally, it’s not about you. Would this tweet have gone quite so bananas if my husband had made it more about what HE saw and did? Something along the lines of, “I’ve just heard my son tell our neighbour that she needs to stay inside because of the virus, LOL! He told her she was old - man, I’m cringing!”
No, of course not. It’s my son’s story, and his voice – capital letters highlighting his complete absence of tact – is front and centre. My husband reproduced what our son and Jean said, that’s all. They’re the stars of the show.
It’s a copywriting oldie but it’s a goody that warrants repeating: it really isn’t about you. It’s about the reader: what they’re thinking and what they want.
And what they wanted at this moment, it would seem, was a five year old lightening the public mood by telling it like it is.