Joel’s early training for a career in marketing.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

– Henry David Thoreau

BORN TO WRITE.

When I was 12 I wrote songs and wanted to be the next Bob Dylan.

At age 16 I wrote my first novel about a faded rock star.

At age 19 I wrote my first film script – about a terrorist plot.

At age 23 I became a journalist for Canadian Interiors magazine.

At age 27 I became an advertising copywriter at Foster’s.

At age 35 I became an independent advertising/marketing/communications and strategy writer/scriptwriter/creative director.

At age 50, I applied all my diverse writing experience into a curriculum to help other writers broaden the scope of their writing voices through Writeup.

BIO

For more than three decades, I have worked as a Copywriter, Creative Director, Strategist and Coach for advertising agencies and in direct work with clients. My focus is transforming key strategic insights into powerful copy platforms. The first eight years of my career were spent inside two major advertising agencies on blue-chip accounts, including General Motors and Nestle. Since then I have enjoyed long-term relationships with a series of clients, from GM and IBM to a series of small and medium sized businesses (through Branderos). While the medium and clients change, what is common is the process – first helping to discover the right strategic angle and then executing communications that fulfill that direction. I am fortunate to have such a broad diversity of subjects and platforms that keep me continually adapting, learning and refining my techniques.

In the past few years, I have applied my experience to the development of writing workshops through my company Writeup. This process has helped me solidify ideas about what makes powerful writing. My focus is on the small building blocks of words and phrases that produce memorable writing – and the adjustment of the emotional temperature that’s appropriate to different subjects and audiences. It is inspiring to help unlock other writers’ (and “non-writers”) stories and voices, encouraging them to express themselves with more passion and purpose. Along the way, this experience has changed my own approach to writing, making me much more deliberate about my own choices of wording and structure. Each piece of writing builds on this accumulated knowledge.

WORK HISTORY

Branderos, Pardner, 2015 –

Formed Branderos with Richard Toker to answer a need for better marketing support for Canada’s small and medium-sized businesses. With strategic branding, identities, websites, content marketing and relationship marketing, the Branderos help these smaller businesses take on their bigger, richer rivals.

Writeup Power Writing Coach, Principal, 2015 –

Launching Writeup has been one of the most fulfilling chapters in my career. I spent six months developing a curriculum for a full-day immersion workshop on Power Writing. I captured all the strategic tools and stylistic devices I use, often intuitively, and made them tangible so I could share them. My mission is to help people who write for work write more effectively and more powerfully.

Branding and Strategic Development, 2002 –

Branding and strategic development have become an increasing professional focus. With larger clients, I specialize in messaging – writing the storyline and creating the voice of a brand. For smaller clients, I have the privilege of developing the brand from scratch, right through to the writing of core communications pieces. Clients include: Canadian Education Association, Telus International, Plastic+Paper, Eli Lilly, LifebankUSA, Ford Insurance (US), Canadian Paralympic Assocation, Smith+Andersen Engineers,

Footprint S+A Sustainability, MMW Lawyers, Klukach Family Law, Save The Children (Canada) .

Freelance Copywriting, Creative Direction and Strategic Development, 1994 –

I have worked in a variety of capacities, with clients ranging from law firms and small businesses to General Motors and IBM.

Media include: advertising, digital, and collateral.

Clients include: General Motors (all brands), Bell, Kia Canada, IBM, Goodyear, Ford Insurance (US), Durham College, The Royal Conservatory of Music and ACDelco.

Advertising Copywriter, McCann Erickson/Toronto, 1990 – 1994

Media include: TV, radio and print advertising.

Clients include: Nestlé, Nabisco, Kraft, Coca-Cola Foods, Goodyear, Red Lobster.

Advertising Copywriter, Foster Advertising/Toronto, 1985 – 1989

Worked on major advertising campaigns for Pontiac, Buick and Chevrolet.

Magazine Journalist, 1981-1985

Wrote articles for both business and consumer magazines, including TV Guide, Homemakers and Canadian Interiors.

Client List

In no particular chronological or alphabetical order, freelance clients include:

Clients from McCann-Erickson and Foster:

Proud member of the Thoreau Society.

Other Creative Pursuits

My paintings are all abstract expressionist.

Writing is how we define what we believe. It’s our form of sharing ideas. Gotta believe.

Joel Sears Strategic Thinking | Strategic Writing

Through a career spanning more than 30 years, Joel has written journalism, advertising, marketing, brand strategies, corporate communications, videos, white papers and scripts. The message is never the same. The audience is never the same. The voice is never the same. Tuning the written voice to the specific brand, context and audience is similar to the way a musical composer would score a piece to match its tone, structure, emotional temperature and vernacular. Joel brings this nuanced approached to writing to all his work.

BORN TO WRITE.

Other Creative Pursuits

Writing is how we define what we believe. It’s our form of sharing ideas. Gotta believe.

Joel Sears Strategic Thinking | Strategic Writing

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