Super Bowl Sunday Every Day

Most years I’m not too interested in the Super Bowl. This year was different (Go Saints!), but usually I just watch for the advertisements. That’s strange in itself, because most of the television I watch is recorded on my DVR, so I skip the commercials. If I watch anything live, the commercials are muted.

So why do I buy into watching the commercials on this one day? Because they’re hyped as the most creative, sometimes the most controversial, ads that will be shown all year.

Companies spend millions of dollars to get a few seconds’ eye time, so they know they’d better come up with something interesting to keep viewers from running to the fridge or the bathroom during a time out.

Why Blow it all on One Day?

This year I wasn’t too impressed with most of the commercials, but they did get me thinking about why it is that companies spend so much more time, energy and money to make their ads really creative for this one event, while they largely spend less time and effort on getting people to pay attention to and talk about their ads for the rest of the year.

Every now and then there’s a commercial that breaks through and gets people talking that wasn’t associated with the big game or some other must-watch event, but it doesn’t happen very often. Wouldn’t it be better for a company to introduce a ground-breaking ad, say, in August, when there aren’t a bunch of other fun new ads to talk about?

Write Like it’s Your Super Bowl

This also got me thinking about writing, naturally. Do you write every day like you’re writing for the biggest publications? If not, what’s the difference in your style, your attitude, your level of effort, when you’re writing a blog post compared to an article for a $1 a word glossy magazine?

What difference would it make in your career if you wrote everything with the same level of passion you’d bring to the biggest assignment of your life?

What would it mean to write every day like it’s your Super Bowl?

It might mean you’d take more time and care with some of your writing that you consider as almost a throwaway now. It might mean you’d go the extra mile, call one more source or track down one more statistic. It might mean you’d give that piece one last edit before hitting “send” or “publish,” just to make sure it’s the best you can make it.

I hate business jargon, but the idea of overdelivering is a good one to keep in mind when you’re thinking about writing like it’s your Super Bowl. You want to amaze people with the level of effort and enthusiasm you put into your work.

Your readers will notice when you’re truly engaged with a subject and writing with passion. They won’t know you only got paid 5 cents a word, or that you didn’t get paid at all, when you approach every piece of writing as if you were writing it for an audience of millions.

In time you won’t know the difference either in terms of the level of effort you put out. All of your writing will have more personality and connect better with readers than it ever has before.

And you can bet your editors will notice it, too.