Welcome to my blog! Before perusing through my blog posts, I would like to introduce myself and the purpose and structure of this blog to you.
About Me
Hello, my name is Brooke Williams and I am a bookworm (acceptance is the first step to recovery, right?). Except I do not want to recover from this nerdy symptom, if you will, that has graciously plagued me throughout my entire life. I grew up with a passion for reading, from Shel Silverstein to George Orwell to William Shakespeare, and that childhood passion later blossomed into the new passion that I have today — copywriting.
My migration from literature to copywriting began when I started college. I came into Virginia Tech as an English major (with a professional writing focus) because of my love for technical writing and editing. Once I began taking professional writing courses, I became very interested in public relations and marketing. Although I love all three of these areas of study individually, I particularly enjoy practicing them as one collective unit, and copywriting allows me to do just that.
I am currently a rising senior at Virginia Tech, meaning that I will graduate early in December 2015, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in English (with a professional writing focus), a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, and a minor in marketing. In addition to obtaining two degrees and a minor in just three years, I have completed an internship almost every semester of my college career, which brings me to the topic of this blog…
About This Blog
This semester, I was offered an advertising copywriter internship with Cumulus Media, Inc., the second largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the United States. Specifically, I worked at the Blacksburg/NRV broadcasting station, which broadcasts five radio stations to members of the the New River Valley.
I performed this internship position for eight hours a week. Each shift, I would write 15-, 30-, and 60-second advertisements for clients of the three account managers that work at this station. The account managers would email me copy points their clients wanted to highlight within an advertisement, and I was instructed to write an advertisement the client would want to purchase using those copy points.
It was such an amazing journey to practice real-world copywriting at the Blacksburg/NRV station of Cumulus Media, Inc. because I was able to write advertisements that were aired on the stations I grew up listening to as a native of the New River Valley!
Within this blog, you will find 10 posts that are designed to share what I learned during this incredible real-world copywriting journey. I have included copywriter entries that highlight what I learned about copywriting, as well as examples of how and why I would change already present advertisements; creative critiques that demonstrate how I am now able to analyze a piece of creative because of the experiences I gained as an intern; and commentaries on how concepts in advertising textbooks relate to my real-world advertising experiences.
I have also created a page with five additional 30-second advertisements I wrote for clients of the Blacksburg/NRV broadcasting station.
I hope you enjoy reading what I learned on my advertising journey as much as I enjoyed the journey itself. Thank you for your time.
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Brooke's Real-World Copywriting Journey 