Brooks — Fill-in Assignments

My first round of working for Brooks was like that of a substitute teacher. The staff copywriter was on vacation for an extended period of time, so they needed someone to come in and take on her workload.

So that was my job: learning the “Run Happy” voice and picking up her work. What kind of work was that?

One example would be the brief descriptions I wrote about sustainability initiatives that Brooks was taking. These were part of “Run Happy U,” a former sub-site of their main website. As you’ll see, they aren’t entire pages but are simply excerpts, which is a product of how briefly I was on assignment for them:

The next example is the Pinterest presence they were developing. At the time, Brooks was using their Pinterest to post images that represented the fun, happy nature of their brand and voice. These allowed runners who were fans of Brooks to find the mottoes that resonated with them. Enjoy running in the rain? The dark? We had you covered. (And, of course, we had you covered if you enjoyed running in the sun too!) Here are a few examples:

I was even tasked with some ghostwriting. If you were one of the runners following the Twin Cities Marathon blog, that intrepid Brooks staff member who was stringing together running-day advice was me! (Though, thankfully, the advice itself came from people who actually knew a thing or two about marathons.)

All in all, while each of these sets of samples have been relatively simple on their own, I think they put together a nice portrait of a week in the life of a freelance copywriter: get an assignment, report to the company, and then churn out a few things they need done in their company voice.

As a young copywriter, it was a huge compliment to me when I was introduced from one staff member to another as, “He’s a copywriter helping us out. Don’t worry — he speaks Brooks.” I may have never successfully mastered any of the foreign languages I studied, but hey, I could learn a company style guide!