Miami Ad School offers Crash Course in Content Creation – Will Edwards named lead teacher

Miami Ad School Sydney is set to launch ‘Crash Course in Content Creation’, a new 10-week course offering an introduction to the content creating functions of a copywriter aimed at aspiring creatives and writers.

The course, which will be led by Will Edwards (left), associate CD at JWT Sydney, will teach 5 classes:

1.    Script writing,

2.    Short & Sweet (headline writing),

3.    Pop Culture Engineering (content creation),

4.    Product Creation

5.    It’s a Mobile World (mobile marketing).

The course will commence on Monday 6 July and will be taught in the evenings, 6pm to 9pm Mondays to Fridays at the school on level 5, 2-12 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills.

School director Helga Diamond said she decided to run the course after consulting with senior creatives and students who are often unsure about creative roles in agencies and which creative discipline to chose.

Tuition costs for the course are $5,500. The 5 classes are part of the school’s 2-year portfolio course. Students who enrol into the portfolio course will receive a credit for the 5 units and a discount of $1,100.

The school is accepting applications now. For the admission criteria and application form, contact Helga Diamond. For a descriptions of the classes, click here.

MIAMI AD SCHOOL – COPYWRITE RIGHT.

By Will Edwards, associate creative director at JWT

My first foray into the world of advertising was as a Junior Art Director. Why I chose to go with crayons over pencils is still a bit of a mystery. I guess my first creative counterpart was way wordier than I and therefore better suited. So by default, I assumed the role of arty-directional guy.

However, after 4 years of moving stuff around Mac, I had a small yet profound epiphany – whilst I loved creating ads, I wasn’t exactly enjoying the art of making them work visually. I decided that I didn’t want to be a half-hearted Art Director and spend my career taking the polish off great ideas.

So after much deliberation, I relinquished my hallucination-inducing markers and assumed the role of writer. It wasn’t easy. It meant starting from scratch. Again. But it was worth it. By making the switch, I realised just how much more I loved writing. How much I loved coming up with ideas. Most of all, how much I enjoyed playing a pivotal role in shaping a brand’s story.

In my opinion, great advertising has always been about storytelling. Sure digital is giving us shiny new tools to play with, but with one emerging every minute, it’s brand stories that resonate and endure – brand stories that can and do create emotional connections with consumers. And it’s copywriters who are instrumental in telling those stories.

Times have changed for writers. Long copy is long gone. The minimal visual was king. But thankfully, branded content has now taken the throne, opening up an exciting and more meaningful way to communicate with audiences. Rather than the force-fed TV ads of old, a brand can now tell its story to an audience that is willing to listen. That said, a brand needs to know how to say the right things, or it’s at risk of sounding like a dad at a High School disco. This is where skilled copywriters play an important part. 

After fifteen years in the industry, I know that good copywriters are hard to come by. There always seem to be more Art Directors trying to get a foot in the door. That’s why I’m shamelessly plugging the Miami Ad School Copywriting Course and the Crash Course in Content Creation. If you’re getting into the industry, it’s a pretty good way to figure out if writing really is your thing. I certainly wish it had been around when I was deciding which side of the creative fence I was going to stand on.