10 Inspirational John Madden Quotes for Copywriting

We're well and through into the NFL season...

The late, great John Madden was one of the most popular figures in the history of the NFL. Not just as a Superbowl winning head coach, but also as a player, a broadcaster on multiple networks, but as the man behind the video game - Madden. His larger-than-life personality resonated for many years across multiple media platforms, and is fondly remembered even two years after his passing. Anyone who grew up and watched NFL football in the 1980s, 1990s and even early 2000s will always have fond memories of Madden, as well as his broadcasting partner, Pat Summerall.

Not only was his personality endearing - he simplified (sounds familiear?) football for casual viewers, helped revolutioniazed how you broadcast the NFL, and wouldn't budge from his values: When they wanted to make the first football game, it was supposed to be a 7 on 7 game. 'Nope,' he said. 'Either 11 on 11, or nothing at all.'

(Side note: John was the brother of Steve, of Steve Madden shoes. Yes, that Steve Madden)

The late Madden, who passed away in 2021, had a lot of great quotes. I picked out a few of them that could be inspirational copywriting quotes...

1) Give something that wasn't expected.

Too many times, people tend to forget that copywriting belongs to the creative department. And as such, your clients/readers/users have tons of content flash before their eyes, everyday. So, you need to give them something that will make them pause and go, 'huh. That's...that's something else.'

2 )The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.

Don't let your creativity get bogged down by rules. Like the famous adage goes, "rules were made to be broken." Or at least, stretched.

3) Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.

Feel you have nothing coherent yet? Just type whatever ideas you have, anything, even the smallest germ of an idea. Pile it on. Sooner or later you'll start connecting the dots, and what appeared to be unrelated will turn into puzzle pieces that will click. It's true in almost any form of writing, from copywriting to content writing to fiction/nofiction writing.

4) "The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer." -

In copywriting and content, as in life, there are no shortcuts, (no matter what some cocky AI guru tries to sell you). And although inspiration can come in a snap, as a general rule, especially when it comes to creative, results take time. It takes work to achieve results. This was true 50 years ago, and it remains true today.

5) "When you have great players, playing great, well that's great football!"

When you have talented copywriters/creative writers/content writers, and let them work, and do what they do best, you'll get the results.

"6) Winning is a great deodorant."

There's nothing like the feeling of seeing a great campaign succeed. It also serves as fuel for the next projects...

7) "The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else."

You can analyze and do A/B testing until the cows come home, but in the end of the day, there's no set formula for success. After all, nobody predicted the success of Home Alone. Or Jaws. Or Star Wars. Or Harry Potter.

"They'll score if they can just get into the endzone."

Understanding the customer's painpoints and/or inserting the benefits/added value in the copywriting is paramount in getting the message across.

8) "Usually, the team that turns the ball over less will hold on to the ball more." - the more information the copywriter has before starting out, the better the results will be.

9) Boom, boom, foom, poom! He just ran right at 'em!

It's nice to get cute with the wordplay, but there are times when you need to be direct with hard, persuasive, time-sensitive sales copy.

10)In order for this team to win the game, the quarterback has to throw the ball.

Don't waste time on nonsense such as 'the T has to be capital here, or the I should be lowercase there. Mistakes have, and always will be, part of the package. The goal is to minimize them as much as possible, of course, but not at the expense of errors in the message. If it makes you feel better, plenty of companies have done mistakes.

Extra point...

"Don't do anything great if you can't handle the congratulations."

Let's play some football! Uh, I mean, copywriting.

Looking for football (or other sports-themed) copywriting or content writing? Drop me a virtual line and let's huddle!