Copywriters on the rack #35: Matt Drzymala
Hello and welcome to Copywriters on the Rack. You’re smiling now, but…
Who are you and what do you do to pay the bills?
I’m Matt and I’m a chatty tone copywriter and brand voice consultant at Indelible Think.
What was your career path to get to where you are now?
Very strange, I worked in a ladies’ wedding hat wholesaler when I first started work and then had spells in a hotel and a warehouse before somehow ending up in payroll for twelve years.
And I was rubbish.
I winged it for twelve years and have retained none of it.
The scariest thing was that I was better at it than some people who chose it as a career.
What’s the best thing about your job?
Working for myself and having no boss. I’ve worked in some toxic workplaces that left me traumatised to the point of needing therapy.
So, I don’t miss working for others whatsoever.
What’s the worst?
It’s probably the famine times. I don’t mind working alone; I can jump on coworking calls, work at my friend’s house 30 seconds away, or work in a cafe. I think the hardest thing is just having quiet times when you have nothing coming in.
How do you fill the gaps when you’re not doing the day job?
I do jigsaws, go swimming and yoga and generally just f*** about watching TV and stuff.
The usual.
Now we’ve got the formalities out of the way, let’s go rogue:
You’re locked in a cell with 2-foot thick stone walls and no windows. Outside the solid steel door, two fully tooled-up guards keep watch in shifts, 24 hours a day. Armed with only a pack of playing cards, half a pound of butter and a can opener, what’s your escape plan?
I’d lure the guards in with the promise that if they win in a game of poker, they can kick ten bells out of me. However, having smeared the floor with butter, the first one in will slip as he enters, knocking the other one flying.
With them both spark out, I’ll take their keys, lock the door and escape.
I could take their guns, but I don’t need them. I have a tin opener that I’ll sell at the antiques shop just down the road from where I’m being held prisoner. I’ll tell the dealer it was once owned by Queen Elizabeth II, who used it to open cans of Pedigree Chum for her corgis.
With wedges of cash in hand due to my dead impressive storytelling/lies I’ll make my escape with a new identity to Brazil.
Write me a poem about vegan bacon.
Vegan Bacon tastes like shoes
It sends you running to the loos
And with arse leaking like a tap
You’ll see why Vegan Bacon’s crap
Write me three straplines for:
1) Instant Gravitas Stick-on Wrinkles – Look your age, even if you don’t act like it.
2) Teleportation underpants brand, ANYWEAR – Any place. Any time. Any bedroom floor.
3) Genetipets’ new range of hybrid animals (elegator, girrampanzee, hipponoceros…, etc.)
Alone, they’re vulnerable. Together, they’re unstoppable — let’s go kill some hunters.
Explain the sound of silence to an alien.
It’s a lovely, melodic tune by Simon & Garfunkel. It has to be heard to be fully appreciated, so I’m not explaining a thing. Give it a listen, and tell me what you think.
Stop being lazy, you silly, little alien.
Draw me a picture of 2 frogs doing Kung Fu (yes I know you’re a writer, but do it anyway).
You know, considering how bad I am at drawing, I’m pretty happy with this, especially the one on the right.
Copywriting is like osteopathy, discuss.
Like muscles and joints, everything in copywriting connects to something bigger than the sum of its parts. When everything works, it’s seamless, but when it goes wrong, it’s a pain in the neck.
Make my skin crawl.
C’mon, skin, get off Jonathan’s body and crawl on the floor. Do it. Do it now. If you do, I’ll give you a bag of jelly babies, four Turkey Twizzlers and a pair of Wellington boots.
Did it work?
No, but Egor’s oiling the flail as we speak, so brace yourself. Now, make my heart melt.
You’re a handsome chap.
“Egor, you can put that flail back!” What is love?
If you don’t know, I’m not telling.
“Egor, ignore that last order!” Who would be the guests at your nightmare dinner party and what would you serve to make it even worse?
Amanda Holden.
Just Amanda Holden.
Utterly talentless s*** house.
We’d have to be served dog dirt in horseradish sauce, washed down with a bucket of spit served up by the farming and gymnastics-obsessed Matt Baker, who’d be the butler for the evening.
I’m impressed. Ever thought about getting into the torture business? Anyway, pick a random pic from your camera roll and tell us about it.
I’m wearing Beano underpants on my head with a gonk sitting on my shoulder. When I’m on calls, either with a client or coworking, you’ll see me without these. But, as soon as the camera goes off, Lars jumps onto my shoulder, shoves a pair of undercrackers on my bonce, and we have a merry ol’ time writing copy for clients.
Lars’ breath stinks of chips and Vodka.
Write me a very short story featuring John Travolta with an angry-looking rash, a kangaroo with a shotgun, and a policeman with a lazy eye and pockets full of pickled gherkins.
John Travolta looked down at the rather angry-looking rash. He’d always been allergic to gherkins, and here was the proof.
To be force-fed pickled gherkins by a police officer with a lazy eye after being arrested was certainly a low point, but not his lowest, that had been Battlefield Earth, which still pipped his second lowest point of his life – the thing he’d been arrested for – simulating sex with a shotgun as a rather bemused Kangeroo looked on.
“Ah, well”, John said to himself, “At least I never appeared in Grease 2.”
You’re feeling down in the dumps. What do you need to perk yourself up again?
Stick I’m Alan Partridge on. It’s guaranteed to make me laugh just as much as I did the first time I saw it.
Write me dictionary definition entries for ‘Wilcock’s Lexicofantabulous Compendium of Oddities and Soddities’:
1) Stupophone – A mobile phone device that screams, ‘Get off your phone and get a life, stupid!’ at you every time you pick it up.
2) Andadandand – The original noise considered for the end of EastEnders before the ‘duff duffs’ were chosen.
3) Knimm’s Knee Knockers – Rare affliction where breasts grow from your knees. Named after Norman Knimm of Knightsbridge.
If you were alone on a desert island for a month, what 6 items would you take with you? (they have to fit in a Morrison’s bag for life and yes, you can keep the bag).
1. Sunglasses
2. Cap
3. Suncream (I’m not burning to death, so the first three are vital)
4. Swimming Goggles (I could get a lot of practice in and as I’m bloody blind as a bat, my prescription Goggles are a must if I want to see the marine life as I swim about)
5. Book (I’m going to glue the three Alan Partridge books together, I, Partridge, Nomad and Big Beacon, so it makes one big long giant book)
6. Danny DeVito (I’m reliably informed he fits in a Morrison’s bag for life)
Make up your own question and tell me whatever you want to get off your chest.
Do you clean bird shit off your window when one plops on it or do you just leave it for the window cleaner or the rain to do its job?
Give me three reasons why I should let you go.
1) I made up the Smiley Faces song
2) My wife, Elaine, will miss me
3) I’ve just let go an eggy pump that’ll linger for four weeks, and if you try to escape, the door handle will magically fall off, trapping you in here with me.
And before I remove the shackles, tell us where we can find you online.
Right, shove off and take that eggy whiff with you!
Got the stomach for more? Check this out – Copywriters on the rack #12: Emma Cownley