You’ve spent the last seven years of your life hearing about how carbs are the worst thing for you since sliced bread.
We’re here to remind you that before the days of gluten-free and keto diets, there was bread. Guilt-free bread. And it was the bearer of all things good and joyful in life.
Specifically, sourdough. She is the great-great-grandmother of breads everywhere—even those fluffy, white, tasteless Wonder loaves you find in the grocery store today.
Lots has changed since her time in the spotlight.
When sourdough was queen, all was right in the world. She is more versatile, hardy, and flavorful than anything made with yeast can compare to.
She helps pre-digest bread for people so their digestive systems don’t have to do all the heavy lifting. She has more natural culture in one batch of starter than entire towns develop over years.
You can put sourdough starter in the fridge for months, utterly neglect it, and yet it wakes and grows as soon as you start feeding it regularly.
Can’t say that much for your kids now can you?
You can substitute sourdough starter in almost any recipe you can imagine: Pancakes? Yep. Waffles? Yep. Pizza dough? Yep.
Not only that, but its strength and adhesive powers are inferior to none. It immediately binds to bowls, spatulas, clothing—anything it comes into contact with. Run out of mortar for the brick wall you’re building? Sourdough starter comes to the rescue.
So the only question left is which kind of carbs you need more in your life?
Incredibly accessible-and-inexpensive carbs. Yeasted loaves.
Incredibly super-power-filled carbs. Sourdough loaves.
Bukovina Bakery, your local carb dealers, are bready for action in helping you determine which choice is most appropriate for you.
They can even help you get exclusive access to specialty loaves that the rest of town will be drooling over. All you have to do is qualify for The Weekly Loaf, a subscription service that has no required qualifications.
As long as you’re not on a low-carb diet and haven’t protested gluten recently, you’ll be able to sign up.
In about the time it takes to eat half a loaf of bread.
Confused yet? I’d hope so.
If you’ve been around long enough, you might’ve seen this popular ad float by back in the day:
The reason I bring up this random Apple ad from 1984 is because this week I had a challenge. I was to identify something that had compelling copy, break it down into a formula, and then re-write the same ad using the formula, but for a different product.
Hence, the first part of this post.
That was my attempt at taking this ad originally written for computers (or a credit card?), and re-writing it into an ad for sourdough (or a bread subscription).
This challenge was so much harder than I initially thought it was going to be. So. Much. Harder. And, to be honest, I’m not even sure why. Other than the fact that I’ve never done anything like that before in my entire life, so maybe it was just unfamiliarity-based uncomfortability.
Here’s a quick run-down of what this process looked like:
1. Spent hours trying to choose an ad.
This was the worst part.
How am I supposed to decide what’s “good” copy or not? Isn’t it totally subjective?
Good copy to one person might be totally off-putting to another. And doing research online only cemented that impression: lots of people have ideas of what makes great copy great, but a lot of them felt gimick-y and insincere (which is the opposite of good copy, in my opinion).
I finally decided on using the Apple ad from 30 years ago because it was funny and seemed replicate-able.
Little did I know.
2. Broke down ad into a formula.
This was my first draft of the formula:
Pretty insightful, is it not?
If this doesn’t give you a look into The Mind Of Dana, I don’t know what will.
Anyway, I broke down the post and highlighted what I thought were the main points they were making, along with the tone.
3. Re-wrote ad using formula, but about bread (or carbs) (or something).
So, after giving this part of the exercise a shot, I started to understand why top copywriters are paid so much.
This is not lazy stuff.
Good copy demands strategy, intentionality, and deep understanding of what you’re trying to say and who you’re trying to say it to. Every single word and punctuation mark plays a vital role in the overarching message that is conveyed to the reader.
I realized about halfway through mine that I didn’t even understand the message I was trying to convey. After re-writing it a half a dozen times it made more sense than it did initially, but it’s still not something I’d pay someone else to write for me if I was a business owner.
This is a really good thing though. It’s given me a tangible example of where I’m at right now in terms of writing copy using a style and format that’s not natural to me. That means I can work really hard at becoming significantly more proficient at it, and have a great, ready-made before/after example waiting for me!
If you are a writer who’s wanting to improve technique in a certain area, I would highly recommend this kind of an exercise. It totally gets you outside your comfort zone and makes you really think about what you’re writing—as opposed to just letting your fingers do the thinking.
Let me know how it goes for you! Successes, failures, insight, lessons that are applicable to life in a larger way—I want to hear it all!