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filler@godaddy.com
Sometimes you may have a problem that can be satisfied without a team of creatives. When I worked in agencies if you said big is not always better, I would have said 'whatever', but in today's world there sometimes can be many advantages to a personal, flexible and responsive option.
You don't have to wear the black T and the white pumps
Sometimes you may have a problem that can be satisfied without a team of creatives. When I worked in agencies if you said big is not always better, I would have said 'whatever', but in today's world there sometimes can be many advantages to a personal, flexible and responsive option.
You don't have to wear the black T and the white pumps to be a creative. What you do have to wear is a humility, a sense of humour, a love of logic and an understanding that the creative task needs to be led by an idea, then the right words, then the design. There is only one goal and that is to engage the consumer's attention, interest and consideration. Advertising can be very subjective, often the pragmatic has more impact than the perfect. The skilled writer knows more times than not, the win will be found in the middle ground where there is a connection with the majority.
Brand is everything. Time and again we see marketing materials, campaigns, products, staff and attitudes that let brand down. In order to sell, no matter what your product or service, you need to be able to convince the target audience there is perceived value and benefit in buying it. I love finding the words that reassure, shift behaviours and strengthen brand.
Over my too many years I have seen a lot of designers and writers come into an agency and want to do the sparkly work straight away. They want to write the funny line, they want to design the award winning image, they want attention. 90% of corporate communications is hard work, often boring, governed by stringent guidelines and protocol
Over my too many years I have seen a lot of designers and writers come into an agency and want to do the sparkly work straight away. They want to write the funny line, they want to design the award winning image, they want attention. 90% of corporate communications is hard work, often boring, governed by stringent guidelines and protocol and whilst possibly not for the award seeker, it still can provide incredible satisfaction for the writer. Crafting a punchy media release, an engaging speech, an effective communications plan or tactical campaign that meets its objectives is reward enough. It may not be seen and revered by the masses, but that is not why I write. Satisfaction comes from the difference you can make by understanding the brief and delivering to the brand.
Between 2021 and 2022, I have written in excess of 200 speeches for the City of Ballarat. Being a rapidly growing regional area both economically, physically and culturally their speeches are diverse in subject and audiences. Speeches are always tailored to acknowledge the occasion, promote the council support and include the bigger picture of how the occasion relates to the Council plan/objectives/strategy. I have a thorough speech process from brief to draft approval including any research and stakeholder liaison required in-between. I regard the speech as a brand opportunity for any organisation. I am happy to share examples of my speech writing or discuss my approach with you.
In a career of literally a few hundred ads written, mostly for TV, radio and print a couple stand out. With Zoo Advertising in Canberra I was directly responsible for winning the Brumbies Rugby Union advertising account and wrote their highly successful 'You'll hear their thunder' campaign for television, print and below the line marketing collateral. I held their account for the three years I was at Zoo.
In Adelaide I wrote for Nippy's fruit juice during a difficult time as they defended a third party contamination case of their product. With a brief during the legal proceedings prohibiting the use of words like fresh and\or juicy, I wrote the tag line 'Naturally as good as it gets' with a concept of falling fruit turning into juice bottles. The tag line helped the Nippy's company through this difficult period and well beyond the successful outcome.
I set up East Street Advertising for the Gerard Group of Companies upon their sale of Clipsal Electrical. As the senior creative and manager I was responsible for delivering advertising for their extensive and diverse portfolio of companies that included both corporate and retail advertising for everything from Black and Decker, Mistral, Tungali Beef, Brunnings Ezygro, Pierlite Electrical, Chief Cookware, Bell Total Logistics and many more fascinating businesses'.
Around 2009 with the threat of H5N1 (Avian Flu) becoming a distinct reality, I was contracted to co-write the Pandemic Communications Plan for the SA Health Department. As I came to understand the threat of pandemic I raised the point about slowing transmission being a key to gaining control as vaccines came on board. Off my own back I wrote and presented a concept called 'Wash, Wipe, Cover - Don't infect another!' as a way of re-introducing the importance of hand and respiratory hygiene. This campaign is still in use today, won a state community award and has been rebadged interstate and even overseas. Initially along with my head epidemiologist and manager we approached Premier and Cabinet for campaign funding but were knocked back. However the campaign concept was fully supported by the hospitals and medical fraternity so I sourced enough money to produce the marketing collateral artwork and used the extensive online health network to distribute it to all hospitals in SA. The following year it became fully funded and Black Sheep Advertising were contracted to produce kits that were distributed to every hospital, GP surgery, pharmacy and school in SA. It is in use to this day and was adapted for COVID-19.
From 2010 to 2019 I managed the South Australian Country Fire Service bushfire awareness campaign. When I started, the service's brand was built around bushfire, yet that made up only one third of their business. I wrote the positioning line of 'Country Fire Service - more than a bushfire service' and began a seven year journey to shifting their marketing and advertising from their senior uniform telling people what they should do, to educating the public on why they needed to take responsibility for their bushfire safety and making them the advocates for bushfire safety. I believe it was a major milestone in changing the perception of the service and increasing not only greater safety for firefighters through better public preparedness, but also greater respect for the brand and what it meant.
In 2019 I was contracted by the State Library of South Australia (SLSA) at the start of COVID-19. With a decreasing patronage and an unsure understanding of what the SLSA brand represented I initiated a staged process to rediscover what it really meant to both the people of South Australia and the staff. The result was powerful and with the assistance of Nation Advertising one of Adelaide's leading brand strategists we shifted a former positioning line of 'For your information' to 'The State Library of South Australia - The stories that make us'. An incredibly powerful and representative reflection of the 60 kilometres of climate-controlled basement shelving, housing collections of South Australia's history stored for use by historians, film makers, students, researchers, artists and writers.
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