As majoring in Professional Communication, I am equipped to work in advertising and public

relations, two of the most chosen careers and in high demand in the workforce (Hook 2013).
Professional Communication students are trained to communicate across all platforms and create
multi-type of content in the dynamic media and communication fields(RMIT n.d). Overall, there are
three main career pathways for professional communicators: working in the agency, in the client's
marketing team, and in the in-house Marketing team. In the future, I want to pursue a career in
Copywriting in a Creative agency. As I have been exposed to assignments related to Creative and
Advertising, I developed the desire and preference for this position. My strengths lie in creativity,
critical thinking, and ideation, and importantly, I love to explore human insight and brainstorm big
ideas to solve human problems and positively impact their lives. Thus, I opt to apply for a Copywriter
Intern in a creative agency to sharpen my skill sets and expose myself to real-life situations.

Figure 1: The job description and qualifications of Saatchi & Saatchi for a Copywriter. (Source:
Linkedin)
Figure 2: The job description and qualifications of Ogilvy for a Copywriter. (Source: Linkedin)
Figure 3: The job description and qualifications of Dentsu for a Copywriter (Source: Linkedin
2022)

After thoroughly looking for the job description of a Copywriter from some well-known creative
agency, I found that the scope of work and responsibility could include:
- Working with the Account team and Planning team to finalize Creative brief from Client
brief.
- Researching and comprehending all clients' requirements, their industry, and target audience.
- Collaborating with Planners, Accounts and Creative directors from building the concept to
presenting the final products to clients.
- Main duty to develop concepts and copy ideas with creative teams.
- Successfully transfer the client's expectations and requirements to the creative team promptly
and professionally.
- Having a passion for working with words and the ability to write interesting, captivating and
insightful copy (headline, body, straplines, slogans, key messages, scripts,...) that persuade
consumers and obey all brand moods and tones.
- Tracking the working process and examining the creative work to make sure that the work is
brief and meets expected quality.

The job descriptions also mention other requirements and qualifications that a copywriter should have
to qualify for this position:
- Working experience: Having about 2 years experience of the copywriter position in a creative
agency
- Essential skills: research, critical thinking, presentation, visualisation, communication.
- Be creative, innovative, result-oriented, and proactive.
- Showing valid creative skills and advertising knowledge, capable of proposing ideas and
concepts in short time and under diverse perspectives.
 - Currently using both English and Vietnamese.
- Can-do attitude: be willing to take on new challenges, ability to work under pressure, and
attempt to complete the task when the deadline is up.
- Time and project management: job description requires handling quite heavy workload at the
same time and delivering a significant amount of work before the deadline.
- Good teamwork skills: working in harmony with other team members in a constructive
manner.
- A member who can work independently, be responsible and reliable, and show great
enthusiasm in Creative/ Advertising.
- Learning attitude: always be curious and robust willingness to absorb new knowledge.

In my opinion, there are three core strengths that help a person to become a professional copywriter,
namely creativity, customer understanding and presentation skill. For creativity, the creative work not
only needs to be exciting and appealing to cater to great attention from the target audience but also
stand for the target audience to empathise with them or help them solve a problem, which in the end
helps brands to achieve their marketing objectives. In addition, a copywriter needs to develop human
insight to understand their desires, unresolved issues, and behaviour, which path right way to develop
creative strategies, concepts, and ideas for copy, and to create interactive content and speak for the
target audience. Moreover, a copywriter must have strong writing skills because a well-writtent copy
could easier touch and engage with the target audience.

From my perspective, the working process in a creative agency is quite intensive, with a huge amount
of work and the pressure to deliver the work ahead of a given time. Furthermore, the responsibility of
copywriters is quite broad, from briefing to presenting the work to clients. When the client brief is
transferred to the creative brief, the account will allocate the job to be done to copywriters.
Copywriters have to work closely with the account afterwards to understand the brief and deliver the
expectation. Following that, copywriters would do research for a powerful insight and brainstorm
ideas. Personally speaking, the process of choosing the actionable insight, which both touches the
target audience and aligns with the brand problem (Berman 2012), is very challenging. Although there
are some criteria to judge an insight and decide whether to get rid of it, sometimes copywriters have to
feel it and have a sense of its effectiveness with consumers. One of the key skills of a prospective
copywriter is the ability to write a rationale, a short form of writing to show thought behind the idea
(Maslen 2020). This is also an exciting yet difficult task for copywriters since this piece of writing
should successfully persuade the agency's internal team to choose this option and then present them to
clients. I think that whilst copywriters are required to take on many responsibilities when working for
creative campaigns, the focus should be put on copywriting skills as it would lay a strong foundation
to do other related work and helps copywriters stand out and develop a prospective career path. I also
prefer working with the Creative Art team to finalise and launch the product to the public. I realised
that an effective communication campaign needs to be done through the smooth collaboration of the
various team and to make a change in consumer perceptions and behaviours, leading to consumers
taking specific actions with the brand.

References

Berman, M 2012, The Copywriter's Toolkit : The Complete Guide to Strategic Advertising Copy, John
Wiley & Sons Incorporated. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.

Dentsu 2022, Copywriter, LinkedIn, viewed 18 July 2022,

<https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=2872186774&keywords=dentsu
%20copywriter>

Maslen, A 2020, Write to Sell (New Cover) : The Ultimate Guide to Copywriting, Marshall Cavendish
International (Asia) Private Limited, SG. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.

Ogilvy 2022, Copywriter (Mid level), LinkedIn, viewed 18 July 2022,

<https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3141521734/?refId=F9lL2oWB3sA6keEutXUNxA%3D
%3D&trackingId=l3eiH8MoAVMF3ivVILo%2Btg%3D%3D&trk=d_flagship3_company>

Saatchi & Saatchi 2022, Copywriter, LinkedIn, viewed 18 July 2022,

<https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3160466275/?refId=m7UK56Vxi05PcTFUxA8FqA%3D
%3D&trackingId=9QKUTOCEghRizdzKWEsTfA%3D%3D>