Giorgi Quca Rukhadze, copywriter and co-founder at Galileo Strategy, sometimes asks his students to write an ad and then cut every word it can survive without. The assignment begins with a photograph: choose a brand, find an idea and write a line that turns the image into an ad. As the words disappear, the students have to consider what each one was contributing. Occasionally, they reach the logo and realise the idea is still there.
The exercise gets to a question that extends well beyond copy length. Advertising has several ways to communicate at once: an image can establish a situation, a line can change how we understand it, and the audience can make the final connection. Deciding what to leave unsaid means understanding how those elements work together and how much the person encountering them needs to know.
For Rukhadze, the pleasure of discovering an idea is one of advertising’s most valuable qualities. It can make a message feel personal, as though the viewer had a hand in creating its meaning. Yet that pleasure depends on precision. An idea that requires too much effort may never be understood; an explanation that leaves nothing to discover may never be remembered.
In this conversation with Marketer, he discusses the tension between clarity and overexplanation, the importance of recognising a real person behind an audience description, and why even a promising first idea deserves some competition.
M: When we read good copy or watch a good ad, we often understand something that has never been stated directly. How does a copywriter create that extra layer?
We should begin with the idea. Copy has little value on its own unless it expresses a specific thought. The words need to carry the meaning of that idea. Just as an art director uses visual tools to communicate something, a copywriter uses a headline, a script or a voiceover to bring it to the audience.
Often, that involves finding a way to communicate beyond what is already obvious. Techniques such as exaggeration and comparison help us fit more meaning into the work than a straightforward announcement would contain. They allow the audience to engage with what they are seeing, to notice something and make a connection. For me, good copy gives people some enjoyment in the process of receiving the message.
I like creative work that leaves a small part for the audience to complete. We have all seen an ad and had that moment of recognition: “Ah, that’s what it means.” You almost feel as though you have discovered something that was not there until you noticed it, something produced by your own imagination. Achieving that is difficult, but it is also one of the most satisfying things in this work.
Of course, the idea cannot be hidden so deeply that discovering it becomes impossible. People will not set aside a large part of their day to study your copy. But simply listing the product, its price and its benefits can also leave you with very little to engage with. Products often carry associations beyond their practical function: a car can stand for safety or performance, and a pair of sports shoes can mean more to someone than footwear. Copy can help communicate that wider meaning.
M: A brief often contains ten things the client considers essential. How do you decide what to say when one campaign is expected to say everything?
It is a difficult situation, particularly with smaller brands that cannot afford a separate piece of communication for every message. They may have one opportunity to advertise and understandably want to use it to explain as much as possible. We encounter that pressure quite often.
What I try to explain is that the messages can start to obstruct one another. The more you include, the harder it becomes for someone to concentrate on any one of them. That applies whether the ad appears on social media, in a magazine or on television. The person encountering it is not studying it with the interest of the creative team or the brand that commissioned it. We cannot assume they will give every point the attention we gave it while making the work.
My recommendation is usually to reduce the number of messages and identify the most important one for that particular moment. I also try to help the client make that decision. It is easy to ask them to simplify; the more useful contribution is to suggest where the emphasis should go and explain why.
There are creative ways to bring several benefits together. I have worked on communications where a list of advantages sits within one larger idea, perhaps reassurance, excitement or discovery. Each benefit becomes an expression of that central thought. It is possible, although it makes the task more demanding. Still, we have all seen excellent car ads built entirely around the fact that the brakes are good. They do not also tell you how bright the headlights are, how attractive the car looks and how much luggage it holds. They commit to the one thing.
M: Even when the message is specific, it still has to feel like it comes from the same brand. How do you keep that connection?
Whatever feature you are discussing needs to fit the character of the brand. Imagine a car brand associated with energy and performance introducing a model with an unusually large boot. That feature still needs to be communicated in a way that belongs to the same personality. Otherwise, you begin to blur the positioning.
The audience needs to understand what kind of brand this is. If you keep moving between different characters, trying to be sporty, practical, family-oriented and everything else at once, it becomes difficult to form a clear impression. Not everything fits naturally into the same communication, however carefully you try to arrange it.
But the longer I work, the more cautious I become about universal rules. Advertising changes, and the boundaries between approaches become less fixed. I might say that an announcement is usually an uninteresting way to advertise, then discover tomorrow that a plain announcement is the strongest creative response to a particular brief. The task and the circumstances have to guide the decision.
M: How do you learn from established creative principles without allowing them to limit your judgement?
When I studied at a theatre institute, we were taught classical approaches to editing and structuring a film. Later, when I watched Quentin Tarantino’s work with that training in mind, I could see how much he overturned: the dramatic structure, the editing, the development of characters. Those departures were part of what made the films distinctive.
We cannot conclude that breaking an established rule automatically makes something worse. Knowledge gives us a basis for understanding what a convention does and what might happen if we change it. The films we watch, the work we study and the references we build all contribute to that judgement. Something we consider banal in one context can become a very effective creative choice in another.
Food advertising offers a good example. An enormous amount of work goes into making food look appetising. There are specialists, particular production techniques and very deliberate decisions about how the product is photographed. Then you see Burger King’s mouldy burger, which I consider an exceptional piece of work. It overturns the expectation that the food must look immediately desirable because that reversal serves the idea.
That is why I hesitate to make absolute statements about what advertising should or should not do. A technique has to be judged against the problem it is solving. The right response to one brief may be precisely the thing you would advise against in another.
M: The writer knows the idea from the inside. The audience does not. How do you check whether you have left an interesting gap or simply omitted something people need?
When I am working on a product and the target audience is clearly described, I try to think of one specific person I know who fits that description. I am fortunate to know a broad range of people, so I can usually bring a real person to mind. Then I address the communication to them.
You need to understand the product thoroughly, regardless of whether you like it or have used it. You have to get to the bottom of what it is. It is just as important, perhaps more important, to understand the person it is intended for. That knowledge helps you judge what needs explaining, what will feel familiar and how to make the message relevant.
I think of a copywriter as a translator. We take something that needs to be said and translate it for the recipient. We should not assume that person already speaks the language we are working in. In that sense, it is like explaining something in Georgian to a French person who does not know a word of Georgian: you have to find a way for the meaning to reach them. I am talking about intelligibility, about understanding why we are speaking to them in the first place.
I have never owned a car and do not intend to, yet I receive calls offering me winter tyres. Somewhere in that process, the connection has failed. The offer has no relevance to me. A call like that wastes a little time on both sides, but an entire campaign can make the same mistake after absorbing considerable money, effort and resources. You can work very hard on the communication and still send it to someone for whom it means nothing.
M: Once people begin drawing their own conclusions, how closely should those conclusions match the writer’s intention?
I welcome interpretation, provided the central meaning does not change. If I want to communicate a particular thing, that thing needs to reach the audience. If they also discover another layer, connect it to something in their own lives or feel they have found more in the work, I am happy about that.
It is fascinating to see ten people look at the same thing from different angles. If advertising can allow those different discoveries while keeping its main idea intact, that is an ideal outcome. You do not have to close down every possible reading to communicate something clearly.
But interpretation is also influenced by the relationship people already have with a brand. They bring affection, scepticism, expectations or loyalty to what they see. I think of the goodwill around John Lewis’s Christmas advertising: even when someone feels an earlier ad was better, there can still be warmth in the way they receive the new one. Other brands face an audience that is almost waiting to find something to criticise.
You see similar dynamics around rival brands and their customers. One person greets an update with enthusiasm; another dismisses it immediately. The communication is being received through an existing attitude. That goodwill takes time and many encounters to build, and it helps shape what people are willing to see in the work.
M: Subtle references can easily become private jokes for the people making the ad. How do you make sure the audience has a way in?
Insight is the key. It helps you find the idea and helps the audience recognise it. For me, an insight brings a familiar emotion or experience to the surface. People give you their attention because something in the work belongs to their own lives.
George Carlin has a routine about the things people have in common despite all the ways we differ. One observation is about looking at your watch and then realising you still do not know what time it is. When you hear that, you recognise the experience immediately. The humour works because he has noticed something familiar and given it back to you.
The same principle matters in advertising. You need to understand which experiences, references and feelings your audience shares. A particular style of British humour might work very well for a small group who enjoy it. If you are selling a specialist product to twenty people, you may be able to identify those twenty people and speak directly to their tastes.
If you want to reach a million people, you cannot assume that the same reference will connect in the same way. It should not be a surprise when an audience does not respond to something that was never rooted in their experience. The insight needs to connect the brand’s message, the idea and the person receiving it.
M: When words and images work together, how do you decide what each should contribute?
It helps to consider two familiar formats: a film and a print ad. A film can use voiceover, dialogue or text on screen alongside the images. In print, we often have an image, a main line and perhaps a small amount of supporting copy. In either case, I generally want the elements to complement one another.
Repetition can be the right choice in a particular execution, and I have used it myself. But a voiceover that simply describes everything already visible in the frame often adds very little. People may begin watching a video with the sound off. If they turn it on, I would like them to hear something that enriches what they are seeing, something that brings more interest, energy or originality to the experience.
I think of words and images as a duet. Sometimes the image leads and the voice supports it. Sometimes the voiceover carries the central idea and the pictures support that. There are also executions where the two have equal weight. The important thing is that each has a role within the whole.
A print ad can contain an entire story through the relationship between a few words and one image. I remember an Audi execution showing bank robbers waiting outside after a robbery. They have their bags of money, one is looking at his watch, and the getaway driver is missing. The line is “Can’t stop driving.” Those few words allow you to understand what has happened: the driver is enjoying the car so much that he has not returned for them.
You could develop that situation into a film, yet the story fits into one static image. The line matters because it explains the absence without narrating the whole sequence. The logo alone would not necessarily give you the same understanding. In other executions, however, the image and the logo can be enough. You have to establish what the words are actually doing.
M: How do you teach someone to recognise when the words have become unnecessary?
I give students photographs and ask them to turn those photographs into print advertisements. They choose an appropriate brand and write a slogan. Then I ask them to remove every word they can take out without losing the idea.
Sometimes they arrive at the logo. Every word has gone, yet the communication still works. That discovery is useful because it forces them to reconsider the role of the copy. They began by assuming the ad needed a line, then found that the image was already doing the work.
There are also visual ideas that communicate through a familiar reference. I think of a LEGO execution recreating the well-known image of construction workers sitting together high above the city. The connection between the workers and the LEGO figures carries the thought about building. There is very little left for a line to explain.
Copy should make an important contribution to the piece. We should not add words simply because there is space for them or because an ad is expected to have a headline. The same principle applies to a Facebook post: there needs to be an idea, a context and a reason for that brand to be saying that particular thing. Producing a post merely to have a post is not enough.
M: Clients often ask for more explanation because they are afraid people will not understand. How do you defend the part you have deliberately left unsaid?
You have to make the case for trusting the audience. We should give people some credit for their intelligence, their perception and their ability to work out what something means. That can involve a difficult conversation with the client, but it is an important one.
Communication that spells out every detail may be understandable while having very little emotional effect. For me to choose a brand, that emotional connection matters. It does not have to be enormous. Something might make me smile, make me sad, surprise me or simply interest me. It has done something beyond telling me that a product is available.
The repeated objection that “people won’t understand” can become a very limiting position. If every possible uncertainty is removed, you risk removing the discovery as well. An ad constructed to guarantee that absolutely everyone understands everything can become uninteresting.
There needs to be something to notice, something to find or something that makes you react. We should trust people enough to let them take part in that process. Otherwise, the communication can end up saying very little beyond “we have this, and you should buy it.”
M: In your own creative process, how much do you trust the first thought?
It depends on the task. Sometimes I trust intuition, sometimes experience, and sometimes what I have learnt by observing people. But one thing we have always told juniors and interns is that the first idea should have at least one other idea to compete with.
The first idea can be good, particularly as you gain experience. To be confident in it, though, you need something to compare it with. If it is the only idea you have, you have not yet established that it is the strongest. You have simply established that it exists.
I like the distinction between “first” and “only”. For an idea to win, there needs to be another contender. Giving yourself that comparison is a way of challenging your initial confidence and seeing whether the thought still holds up.
Ultimately, the thing I trust most is a deep understanding of the audience. You need to know the person you are addressing, how they would like to be told something and what would make the communication enjoyable or meaningful for them. Whatever route you take to the idea, they are the ones who will make the decision.
