Category: Branding
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From Freelance to Fractional: Rethinking the Future of Creative Work
Freelance is a word everyone knows. It conjures images of coffee shops, pajama pants, and the occasional “Hey, can you turn this around by tomorrow?” email at 9:47 p.m. It’s flexible, it’s scrappy, and for a lot of creatives, it’s been the way to balance passion with a paycheck. But lately, there’s a new word…
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The Art of the Creative Brief: How to Set Yourself (and Your Team) Up for Success
The success or failure of a project almost always comes back to the creative brief. A great brief doesn’t guarantee a great campaign, but a terrible one practically guarantees mediocrity. Done well, a brief is less about checking boxes and more about setting the stage. I like to think of a brief as a GPS…
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The Secret Sauce of Great Copy: CTAs That Convert
Writers obsess over headlines, subject lines, and hooks, and rightly so. But a brilliant headline without a strong CTA is like a beautifully plated meal that no one tries. Your CTA is where you turn interest into action. It removes friction by making the next step obvious and guides behavior by answering the unspoken question,…
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How to Write Headlines That Actually Work
Years ago, I wrote what I thought was the perfect ad: smart copy, clean design, and a headline I was proud of. When the results came back, though, the numbers told a different story: almost no one read past the headline. That was the day I learned the hard truth about copywriting: the headline isn’t…
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Understanding Your Audience: The Key to Effective Copy
When I first started as a copywriter, I thought my job was to write the perfect words. Polished. Clever. Tight. But the longer I’ve been in this business, the clearer it’s become: the words themselves matter less than who they’re written for. You can write the cleverest line in the world, but if it doesn’t…
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How to Know When It’s Time to Rebrand
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When Cracker Barrel unveiled its recent rebrand, the internet had thoughts—lots of them. From memes to outrage to measured applause, the reaction proved one thing: people feel deeply about the brands they’ve grown up with. But here’s the truth: backlash doesn’t necessarily mean the rebrand was a mistake. In fact, it can signal that a…
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From Lyrics to Launch: How Taylor Swift Turns Storytelling into a Marketing Masterclass
When Taylor Swift releases a new album, it’s never just music—it’s a cultural moment that’s carefully orchestrated, deeply personal, and nearly impossible to ignore. That’s not luck. It’s strategy. And it’s one of the clearest demonstrations of how storytelling can drive loyalty, conversation, and cultural relevance.
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Behind the Portfolio: The Story Behind My Most Impactful Campaign
When embecta—an injection technology leader with over a century of commitment to people living with diabetes—asked our team to create a storytelling campaign, the challenge was clear: How do you connect with more than half a billion people worldwide who share a diagnosis, but live in different countries, cultures, and circumstances? The answer was obvious:…
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5 Copywriting Myths That Are Holding Your Brand Back
Every brand wants words that sell, connect, and stick—the kind of copy that makes people stop scrolling, pay attention, and feel something. But here’s the problem: over the years, a few stubborn myths about what “good copy” looks like have taken hold. Let’s bust some myths, shall we?
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Sweating the Small Stuff: Why Great Copy Lives in the Details
While the rest of the world is slathering on SPF and dreaming of popsicles, I’ve been thinking about sweat—the kind that comes from laboring over a single word in a headline, reworking a CTA for the fifth time, or debating whether “discover” or “uncover” feels more on brand. That kind of sweat? It’s the secret…
Sara Barton 