A one-day copywriting workshop · Phnom Penh
Surprising copy —
from brief to headline.
Weekly from July 2026
12–16 participants per session
USD 325 per participant
Phnom Penh · In-person · One day
The day at a glance
The belief
The best pieces of copy are the ones I have spent a lot of time on.
— David Abbott
The Copy Shop is built on a single conviction: the best copy isn’t the cleverest. It’s the most honest. The most surprising copy comes not from a bigger vocabulary but from a more careful relationship with the truth of what you’re trying to say.
Participants arrive with a real brief. They leave with a headline, a paragraph, and a clearer understanding of what it means to write for a reader they actually respect. Thirteen exercises. One day. Work that is noticeably better than the work they arrived with.
Not because they’ve learned new tricks. Because they’ve spent the day being honest about the problem — and the reader — in a way that Monday morning rarely allows.
The thirteen exercises
The full curriculum — every exercise, every prompt, every reading — is shared with participants on registration. What follows is the shape of the day.
The morning is about decision and discipline. Participants arrive with a real brief and spend the first three hours making decisions about audience, intent, and the question worth answering — before a single line of copy is written. The room then moves into generation. Work alternates between private writing and structured group sharing. Volume comes before judgement; the first three ideas anyone writes are the brain clearing its throat.
A long lunch. Eat properly. Talk about anything except the brief.
The afternoon is about craft. Drafts are presented to the room in a structured format, critiqued through a protocol designed to protect both writer and work, then rewritten. Pairs swap work; everyone is responsible for the kindness, specificity, and usefulness of their feedback. Each writer leaves with one revision they are committed to make.
The day ends with each participant writing one quiet promise to themselves about what they will do differently the following week. Then one sentence each around the room. Then we go.
The principles behind the day
Honesty over cleverness.The cleverest line that misreads the reader is worse than a plain line that respects them.
Volume before judgement.The quickest way to a good idea is through eight bad ones, written without permission to stop.
The reader is not stupid.Write as if you respect them. Not down to. Not over. Across.
Feedback is a structure.The feedback protocol used in the room is not a niceness. It is a discipline that protects both the writer and the work.
Monday is the test.If the work doesn’t change next week’s writing, the day was a nice afternoon. We aim higher than that.
Who this is for
The Copy Shop is not remedial training. It is not a course for people who can’t write. It is a workshop for people who already write — and know their writing could be more honest, more surprising, more useful to the reader than it currently is.
Every participant works from the same real brief. The brief is chosen in advance by the facilitator — a real product, a real audience, a real problem worth solving. The work they produce is real work. Not exercises. Not examples. Work they can actually use.
The Copy Shop runs weekly from July 2026. Sessions are capped at 16 participants to preserve the quality of the feedback. Agency teams can book a session exclusively for their own people. Individuals can join a mixed session with practitioners from across industries.
Book a session
Sessions run weekly from July 2026 in Phnom Penh. Individual bookings and exclusive team sessions are both available. All the detail you need is to the right.
If you have a question before committing — about the brief, the format, whether this is right for your team — send us an enquiry below. The conversation starts before the commitment.
The Copy Shop is a product of Phnom Penh Ad School. For information on the school’s other programmes — The Creativity Barn and The Creative Bento™ — visit the school site.
Sessions close when the cohort is full. Team bookings require a minimum of 12 participants and must be confirmed at least two weeks in advance.
Enquire
Whether you’re booking a seat, asking about a team session, or simply curious whether this is right for your people — write to us. No pitch from our end either.