Yes I know Belgium has produced some celebrated individuals.
Eddy Merckx the bicycle rider.
Adolphe Sax, without whom there might have been no Charlie Parker or Stan Getz.
Georges Remi, who cleverly transposed his initials and became RG (see what he did there?) before creating chipper-quiffed cartoon detective Tintin.
Audrey Hepburn.
(Always a surprise, that one.)
Plastic Bertrand, two painters in Rubens and Magritte, and the bloke who invented Bakelite: Ted Bakelite.
There are some more, but apart from digitally-challenged strummer Django Reinhardt and The Singing Nun, most of them aren't in the same league as the aforementioned.
Of course, theres also Herman Van Rompuy, the new President of Europe. Who could forget him?
(Well, most of us actually, now we've stopped sniggering.)
Belgium is also home to the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO, those twin pleasure domes of risk and vision.
The two main ethnic groups are the unfortunately named Phlegms (yes, I know) and Walloons.
And its most notable culinary gift to the world is the Waffle.
Because of its political significance and the access required by all those high-powered European movers and shakers, the country boasts a transport system that makes it one of the easiest in the world to get into.
And out of.
For Belgium, read online marketing.
Trying really hard to appear vital and of the moment but fundamentally dull and with precious little to offer in the way of creativity or imagination.
Copify, it seems, wants to make matters worse.
Not in Belgium of course, but in online communications.
On their website, Copify describe themselves as a platform for publishers to meet writers.
And it suggests that writers can get paid for writing on the subjects [they] love. Depending on the standard of [their] work and experience [they] will be paid between £0.02 and £0.08 per word for [their] work!
It tells clients, should they need words by the foot for their marcomms, that, by using our site, you can ensure that your job will be delivered on time and on budget. With (sic) Copify, we have hundreds of writers who are waiting to receive your order. Your job can be completed within hours of being placed!
Brilliant.
Don't worry about trying to gain even a cursory understanding of the subject.
Who needs to spend time interrogating the market?
Carefully examining the product or service?
Who needs to bother writing thoughtfully or empathetically?
Producing several drafts to achieve the most appropriate tone?
Never mind relevance or accuracy.
For any old bit of magnolia text, go to Copify.
£0.02 gets you an inexperienced hack.
£0.08 gets you an experienced one.
Space to fill? We know some words.
They're real words as well.
They're in the dictionary and that.
So tell us what hole you want us to shovel your content into and Bob's your uncle.
Content, you see.
Not real copy like what real copywriters write.
Content.
Like what forensic pathologists examine in the stomach of a corpse to help determine the cause of death.
Like what shifts in your bowel during defecation.
And that's half the problem.
The real art of copywriting has most certainly been devalued since the revolution, in the rush to get SEO'd or whatever.
Anyone with a GCSE in English can buy a computer and set himself up as a professional writer.
Whack CS6 on it and bingo!
You're an art director or a designer too.
Need a website? It's this button here, I think.
So online marketing may not be the most exciting area for the quality-conscious copywriter (or art director) striving to produce a job that is gratefully received, stimulates interest and creates a positive response.
Creatively.
After all, there are zillions of pages needing zillions of tons of flim-flam churned out to fill 'em up.
And someone's got to do it.
But a bunch of never-mind-the-quality, dime-a-dozen (pretty much the exact average cost, actually) text grinders is surely going to dull down an already terminally dreary, stimulation-free environment beyond the acceptable limit.
Think of Belgium.
When its half-day closing.
