Writing Careers: Copywriter Leanne Milway Chabalko
By: Julia H. Jackson
Leanne Milway Chabalko is a copywriter in San Francisco whose career achievements and professional background echo the trajectory of the online journalism and advertising boom. Now an established copywriter at Oglivy West, she has developed campaigns for clients such as Yahoo!, Cisco, Wells Fargo, and the San Francisco Department of the Environment. She got her start at USA Today.com, where she first learned how to write for the web, a skill that can be applied to marketing, advertising, development, and business. Forget Mad Men – Leanne and her compatriots go beyond the print world to find creativity in advertising. She agreed to share some ideas with us here at Eduify for our next installment in Writing Careers: Real Tips from Real Writers.
How would you define what you do?
My professional title is “copywriter,” a term used by advertising agencies for a person who works with an art director to solve creative problems and come up with a “big idea” that will make an audience take notice. Copywriting often entails writing emails, banner ads, and print ads as a way to sell a company’s product or service. Many advertisements want to say the same thing: “This will make you feel better” or “This will save you money,” and so it’s our job to find new ways to make these ideas sound appealing.
How did you become a copywriter?
I was a journalism major in college—I loved reading and writing, and never considered a career that didn’t include those things. My first job was with USA Today.com, updating their website. When I first started web writing, it was not as obvious a career choice as it is now. My job was to repackage the news stories for the web—which means writing attractive enough headlines to get readers to click on the links and read the full stories. I worked at USA Today during the Clinton / Lewinsky scandal of the late 1990s, and quickly saw how online news is the place to be when big news stories are happening. There’s a lot of energy and effort placed into getting the news online as quickly as possible. When you write for the web, you also have to keep in mind the production aspects, such as formatting the story and pictures. In the end, web writing was a good fit for me because, the truth is, it’s a lot of fun. I love the web.
What was your transition from web writing to advertising?
I moved to San Francisco during the dot com boom, where I wrote content for a failed dotcom start-up before working at Microsoft. I also worked as a freelance writer, and developed skills in marketing. Because I could write, and had enough experience writing for the web, I was eventually placed at an ad agency, where I later got hired as a copywriter. I had to develop a lot of skills on the job, and was lucky to find a firm that helped me do that. I’ve been working in advertising for about six years.
What’s it like to work with an art director? Is it anything like Mad Men?
It is a bit like Mad Men, without the cigarettes and chauvinism. As a copywriter, I’ve gotten so used to working in teams. When you work with an art director, your skills complement each other. The art director often knows what the ad needs to say, and the writer often has ideas about what the ad should look like. It takes both people to create something that communicates the intended message.
What kinds of projects have you worked on?
From the Recycling Moments Campaign
During my time at Oglivy West, we launched the great recycling moments campaign for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, a group that works for Gavin Newsom and are prepared to make composting mandatory in the city. Here you can see some of the work we did that you may have seen on bus shelters around town. We had city residents submit their recycling stories, then did interviews and photo shoots with five of them. The ads ended up on bus shelters around San Francisco, as well as on their website.
At the last agency I worked at (Publicis Dialog), we won the Bermuda Tourism business. That’s when we did a major redesign and rewriting of their massive website. Yes, I got to go to the island twice. We did a photo shoot with lots of local people that we used in our advertising. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of hard work. I also did work for HP and Sprint at that agency.
I’ve also contributed to Bookmarks Magazine for many years, where I’ve written book reviews and author profiles. Currently, I’m pursuing a masters degree in creative writing at San Francisco State University. I’ve got a book of poetry in my heart that needs to get out.
What tips do you have for young writers?
Read all the time. Write all the time. Recognize that a lot of work goes in to the banner ads, print ads and email newsletters you see every day – even though most people ignore them. It helps to be a good editor. Be open and willing to adapt. Try new kinds of writing all the time. You never know where it might lead.
