As a Communication student, I had a love for marketing and advertising for several years. Stemming back to a secondary school marketing class, I learned all about why retail stores positioned their counters, their merchandise, their lighting and even their paint to suit a certain purpose. It was through a project designing my own yoga studio that I fell in love with the idea of creating something on a creative scale to entice people and get them to believe in you.
Although the initial exposure I had to marketing and advertising was through retail, I wanted to combine my love of writing with my interest in marketing. My brother suggested copywriting, not only because the money was lucrative, but because it would give me an opportunity to be creative with my writing as well.
By now, I was two years into my university career, and had just joined High Altitude Poetry in a bid to get my poetry published and find like-minded poets. I had done some work on marketing plans, press releases and articles for various people I knew but I didn’t have a clue how to get into the advertising industry for copywriting. I finally received some help after stumbling upon the website of one Steve Denvir, a copywriter out of Toronto, on Google. After e-mailing Mr. Denvir and explaining to him what actions I was taking to grow my portfolio of writing samples, he suggested that I check out a certain website, ihaveanidea.org. It is run by a group of communication professionals out of Toronto, and is by far the best resource I’ve ever seen when it comes to getting information on the advertising industry.
ihaveanidea.org is divided into several sections. There is a job bank for you to look for employment within advertising. There is a section for you to ask a creative professional, known as Jancy, for answers to your most pressing questions, and a comprehensive listing (though still being updated) of advertising agencies and marketing firms around the world. On top of that, thereare interviews with creative professionals, how-to articles and showcases of professional and student projects. However, the collection of resources is what makes ihaveanidea.org the most detailed database I’ve ever come across for information on advertising.
The collection of resources is listed alphabetically and sectioned off by organization, place and activity. I immediately connected with the resources for copywriting and it was there that I stumbled upon two very valuable links, Connected Thesaurus and OneWord.com. Connected Thesaurus would not only help me find synonyms for each word I typed in, but also the relationship between two words, the intersection between them and words that rhyme with either of them. OneWord.com was my ultimate favorite, throwing out one word for me to type as many related words as possible within a time limit.
Prior to finding ihaveanidea.org, I had been relying on my memory and visits to Thesaurus.com in order to find related words for my poetry. Now that I have this resource, it has taught me a different way to start the brainstorming process prior to writing an ad, and because of that, my experiences as a budding copywriter have become much richer, and the ads I create have more flow.
So all you fellow marketers, budding advertising executives and poets, check out ihaveanidea.org; you never know what you may find useful.
