In the beginning...there was Bob.
There’s nothing more boring than the real world—at least, that’s the mindset I always held as a kid. My solution? Go out and create my own. Bob, a little green pom-pom with googly-eyes, was my most loyal childhood companion for years. He lived in a lavish cardboard box furnished with whatever I could scrounge up from my house, including but not limited to: a deodorant-lid bathtub, water-bottle bar stools, and a tin-can convertible. The first time I brought him to school, Bob-Fever struck. Hard. Soon enough, all my friends had Bobs of their own. We founded Bob Weekly, a newspaper that became the pride of my journalistic career at age 10. I even dabbled in trashy tabloids with Teddy Gossip, a small publication (about an inch tall) that became a hit among the Bobs.
My Bob phase eventually fizzled out, but the thrill of creation never left me. Whether it’s for an ad campaign, sculpture, video edit, or short story, I’m constantly chasing that spark of inspiration. It almost always ends up coming from somewhere I never would have expected— like the time I spent two weeks building a giant flower-monster (his name is Fitzgerald) all because one of my neighbors was throwing away a bag of dried corn husks.
Since exploring the world of advertising and coming into my role as a copywriter, I’ve realized that the real world doesn’t have to be boring—it’s exactly what we make of it. You can look at a bag of green pom-poms and see just that, or you can see a species of sentient creatures waiting to be brought to life. I apply the same concept when writing for a brand. To achieve compelling, persuasive storytelling, you have to look beyond the obvious. You have to find the Bob, or Fitzgerald, underneath it all. To me, that’s always been the most exciting part of advertising—getting to bring something to life in a way no one has ever done before.
Still curious? Here's a full resume:
