What Body Wash Taught Me About Writing the Common App Essay

I began my career in advertising. I wrote copy for print ads, radio spots, and television commercials, and eventually I oversaw all creative development for one of my agency’s flagship clients, Dove soap. (It’s actually not a soap; it’s a beauty bar. But I digress.)

During my tenure as Associate Creative Director of the account, the brand had developed this swank new body wash – Dove Nutrium – that had enhanced moisturizing power because it came in dual-chamber packaging. The product engineers had devised this special container that kept the cleanser part of the body wash separate from the moisturizing part, which kept the enzymes “pure” (or some scientific mumbo jumbo that I never fully understood.) Keeping these two ingredients separate supposedly made the moisturizing part even more powerful.

The brand managers were *very* excited about this packaging and wanted us to shoot a commercial that focused on these two chambers (one side was pink, the other white!) with slow-motion, soft-focused camera work highlighting the two-toned container and product. It was really exciting! For the brand managers.

For the consumer, herself? Meh. The commercial was 30 seconds of artfully-lit water and suds dripping down a plastic container, interspersed with a close up of individual pink and white streams of body wash being squirted, side-by-side, onto a loofah. The music began tonbbb hgngjrnzzzz … (Sorry! I fell asleep for a minute.) 

You can see where I’m going with this, right? The brand managers were so excited about the body wash’s scientific breakthroughs, its packaging, its product features – they couldn’t wait to showcase all of their hard work and marketing genius in a commercial! The consumer, meanwhile, just wanted to know how it would make her skin feel. Where the brand managers wanted to brag about the virtues of their product, the consumer just wanted five measly minutes when she could feel a little bit feminine.

“What’s in it for them?” This is what I learned to think about each time I sat down to craft a marketing message. What does the consumer want? What matters most to them? What emotions will I evoke when they read whatever it is I have written?

And this is what I encourage my students to think about as well. They are the “product,” and they have worked SO incredibly hard to be the very best version of a high school student that exists. They’ve gotten good grades and volunteered and joined clubs and held leadership positions. They’ve cultivated hobbies and held jobs, and and and … But what’s in it for the admissions officer? What do they want?

They’re reading tens of thousands of essays. They don’t want to be marketed to; they want to be moved. They want to read your essay and think, “Gawd, I’d love to be their roommate, chatting until 3am.” Or “They’d ask the *best* questions in a seminar class.” 

So don’t write an essay that brags about all of your virtues. Tell a story that makes your reader see something ordinary in a new way. Send a letter from one human being to another. Write something that only you can write, and that touches the admissions officer’s heart.