In a digital age where visuals reign king, the importance of strong writing is often overlooked. But not at Pocket Hercules, where great copy is considered the pulse of a brand’s messaging.
Minnetonka, Minnesota – When is the last time you laughed so hard you cried? The last time you yelled ‘yuup’ at your TV screen? How about the last time a piece of media made you feel bold, seen, or assured?
What elicited that reaction? Was it a great line of poetry? Was it a video of a puppy sneezing? An Instagram caption so repulsive that you almost wish there was an anonymous ‘dislike’ feature on the app? Maybe it was a mostly stupid photo with two expertly placed words that dug meaning up from the funniest, most automatic corners of your brain to make the corner of your mouth turn upwards in sly understanding.
Whatever it was, it likely had a special sauce you couldn’t quite name. This dance of audio, visual, language, pace, and tone, is a delicate one with fierce results. When it goes wrong, it goes way wrong. But when it goes right? Pardon our language, but that’s the sh*t.
The pillar of any great idea is language.
If design is the fresco on the ceiling, copy is the rebar holding it in the sky instead of crashing onto our not-so-clever skulls. With the syllables that our fingers press into keyboards, branded notepads, or stray napkins, we bring to the surface much more than the sum of a headline’s parts. There’s no reverb without the bang of a gong.
So, yes. Stellar copy is important. Jason Smith, co-founder and creative director at Pocket Hercules, a Minnetonka, Minnesota-based creative services agency, knows this well.
“If you can bring good writing to a campaign, that client is going to stick with you, and that client is going to recommend you,” said Smith. “Art direction has always been the ante, but copywriting gets the referral.”
At Pocket Hercules, copy is king. With a reputation that stands on quality and deep emotional resonance, the agency invests ample time in brainstorming and drafting to deliver the wittiest and hardest punches in the advertising industry. The agency’s copywriters pursue the craft relentlessly, something that’s meant the difference between achieving initial campaign success and building upon that success time and time again.
Smith challenges those in the advertising world, everyone from CMOs to clients, to question their own mindset. Why has the industry developed a fixation on data and analytics when it all starts with producing engaging content?
“Our philosophy is to put a ton of focus on what’s in the little box people are clicking on. If you put more effort into that, you’ll see the metrics outperform on a whole new level,” said Smith. “There’s a lack of industry understanding at play here. We need to hold creatives to a higher standard because that’s what’s going to result in the performance we want for every creative campaign.”
From the Mind’s Eye to the Page
When Jason Smith and Tom Camp co-founded Pocket Hercules in 2005, they did so in the middle of a shifting creative landscape. (Click here to read the founding story of the agency.) Any previous understanding of the inner workings of the industry was turned on its head, and new values about creative work were introduced, but at a disservice to creatives.
“In the 2000s era, the digital agency concept was born. Art directors and designers started building up their digital art skills, and strategy teams were figuring out how websites worked,” said Smith. “What was forgotten in that process was the writing. Digital agencies embraced art directors, designers, strategy people, and account people, but they forgot about the skills of a short-form copywriter. That’s when the true craft of copywriting started to die.”
Those at Pocket Hercules believe short-form copy is the real art form at play in the advertising world. It’s the lasting source of real, measured success that can’t be ignored or overlooked, and with rising costs for digital work, the pendulum may be swinging back. While other agencies will likely start valuing short-form copy once again, Pocket Hercules is already there.
In fact, it never left.
“The copywriters on this team know what a good line is, and every time we set out to write, we leave everything we’ve got on the court,” said Ryan Burk, writer at Pocket Hercules. “We know the standard we’ve set, and we don’t stop until we achieve it.”
In a digital era, technology has become a heavy cornerstone for agencies to rely on. Its overbearing shadow threatens to shade the craft of copywriting, and yet, this never stopped Pocket Hercules. The agency decided not to compromise on quality – not when better, more powerful work could be done. It stuck to the roots of the industry, maximizing every campaign’s potential by showing clients the value of traditional copywriting.
With a relentless, contagious energy that propels the team forward, “The Pocket” insists on making a splash in the creative realm every time.
Pocket Hercules: Marking a Path Forward
To learn more about Pocket Hercules, visit this page or look at samples of our work.
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