The grey skies and drizzle on the morning of CopyCon 2025 did little to dampen our anticipation for the event which, this year, was held at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. With different speakers covering different aspects of the job, one thread ran through the entire day, and that is how copywriting is evolving at a time of considerable change.
The conference sparked conversation and encouraged new ways of thinking through the topics covered, from storytelling and strategy to brand voice and those two letters on everyone’s lips: AI.
Read on to find out our five key takeaways from CopyCon 2025 that have inspired, educated and encouraged us to learn more.
Use flashtags for feedback
Adorned in a wig and gown, ex-civil law barrister Kate Redfern is very familiar with the mastery of language and persuasion. In her talk, she covered ‘feedback prioritisation’, adopting the catchy term #flashtags to describe the way feedback is given by clients on work. She used the ‘hill dying status’ to refer to a person’s level of commitment to the feedback they are providing; do they feel so strongly about the comments that it’s a hill they’re willing to die on?
In line with this, her #flashtags system provides clients with four different options when reading through a piece of copy:
- #TOL - thinking out loud
- #Suggestion - a consideration
- #StrongSuggestion - something felt very strongly, not to be ignored
- #Plea - this needs to be done
Kate touched upon the HiPPO effect, explaining that the highest-paid person at a business might not know the context of the copy being written, which is where the #flashtags have helped to aid collaboration and align expectations.
Treat projects like an expedition
Gilmar Wendt’s talk covered ‘Change Journey Mapping’ and how we can work together with our clients, colleagues or teams in a productive, effective way. For this, he laid out the three core principles:
- Treat your project like an expedition. Gilmar discussed the different dimensions of change to consider when journeying through a project. This will ensure there is clarity on what the goal of the project is and keep everyone engaged at all levels.
- Surface the unspoken story. For this, Gilmar highlighted a systematic issue at Ford, where they experienced a $17 billion loss despite all tasks being marked as ‘green’. This brought to light the unspoken story that employees were too afraid of failure to report problems, for fear of losing their jobs.
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, so it’s worth laying all the cards out on the table in the early stages to prevent any issues from escalating.
- Make it feel different from the start. “Create the campfire moment” so people can drop their guard and open up an honest line of communication, ensuring they’re all on the same page and working together collaboratively.
Adopting these three principles provides a way to ask questions behind the brief for the most fruitful output, enabling us to safely find our way to Gilmar’s Bay of Brilliance!
Flip the script on AI conversations
Of course, no conference in digital marketing right now can overlook the importance of AI. However, Neil Simpson, in his talk titled ‘The Humanity Advantage’, offered us the tactic of flipping the script on AI.
“Get AI to ask you the questions”, was Neil’s advice, which is a smart way of getting the best from large language models in any space. By giving the AI a role or persona to play out, you can explore what a typical customer might ask and the types of concerns they might have. The idea is that you find new avenues to follow that you may not have thought about.
Through this technique, you’re essentially getting endless trial conversations with a whole host of potential customers.
Drench your business in your brand voice
In Bethany Joy’s presentation, the experienced brand strategist gave us seven ways to help brand voice stick with clients. All the advice was eye-opening, but one piece that really stood out to us was her call to “drench people in it”.
What this means, in practical terms, is that for a brand voice to really take hold, it has to be everywhere in an organisation. That means even the sign to say that the coffee machine is out of order should be written in the tone you want to adopt.
The more people in your organisation can see practical, day-to-day examples of how to apply the tone of voice, the easier it will be to emulate and own.
Copywriters wear many hats
As she took us through a whistle-stop tour of her journey to becoming a copywriter, Ashley Johnson touched upon an important point for everyone in the profession: we wear many hats.
While we’ve all likely had different jobs and experiences in formative years, the profession of copywriting means we have to draw on a variety of characters.
- You have to be a clown, taking risks to make people feel something
- You need to be a funeral director, managing the death of work sensitively, be it your own or a brand’s existing work
- You have to have the confidence and self-assurance of a drama teacher to choreograph pieces and involve clients
- You need to be a spy who can speak the client's language and infiltrate the industry
- And finally, be a journalist, someone who asks the right questions to get to the truth
This especially rings true for the copywriters here at Adtrak, as we navigate our way through a variety of sectors on a daily basis to help produce the best possible content for our clients.
There was so much to take in this year, and we’re already excited about next year’s conference, but we hope you find some inspiration in these takeaways. If you’re looking for expert digital copywriting services, then don’t hesitate to get in touch to ask about how our writers can help you find the right voice for your brand.
