Advertising

I began my career at an integrated communications firm, where one of my responsibilities was creating advertisements my clients. And even during my decades in public relations, I was occasionally tapped to write ad copy for clients, though more frequently for in-house advertisements. And by the time I earned a marketing leadership role, I was responsible for all aspects of advertising: strategy, creative, media strategy, and media buying, and measurement.

Being a data-driven professional, I always like to start with a good understanding of the client’s strengths and weaknesses and then learn everything possible about their target market and competitive environment. In fact, that goes for all communications tactics, but particularly for advertising. This typically involves acquiring reliable research or, whenever possible, conducting our own, including focus groups. And I have been fortunate to have always had the opportunity to work with talented designers to help with the creative, since my expertise tends to be the with the strategy, concept, and copy.

Over the years, I have created, placed, and tracked a variety of ads, both in-house and on the agency side. Most have been print or digital, though I did create a few radio spots while working at Asphalt Green. And while there, I experimented with Facebook ads and other paid opportunities online, including search engine marketing and Google Ad Words, but our budget lacked the depth to do anything sustainable in this arena.