Thanks again for stopping by site. As you can see, I’ve had a very unique career. I feel this is a professional strength, as it gives me a diverse set of experiences to pull from for the ideas I generate, the sessions I facilitate, and concepts and copy I write for Integrated Marketing Services.
I graduated from Seton Hall University in May of 2004 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sports Management. I chose Seton Hall because they offered this specific degree as a business degree. It focused on running a sports franchise like a business and geared business classes towards the sports world, such as Sports Marketing, Sport Management, Sports Finance, etc. This degree let me pursue a passion of mine – sports – while providing me with a solid business foundation.
During my time at Seton Hall, I had 3 professional internships – 2 with the Reading Phillies (AA Phillies Affiliate) and 1 with the Indianapolis Indians (at the time an AAA Affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers.) These taught me the ropes of working in sports, and it was great to see everything I learned about in school in action. I also was afforded some rare opportunities at these internships – hosting a contest on the field, dressing up on theme nights, being a contestant in contests, even dressing up like a cheerleader and performing. I think what I miss most is the sense of comradery there was among the staff. We were as much a team as the one that was on the field.
While job-searching after my internship with the Indians, I decided that commission-based sales wasn’t for me. Most entry-level positions in the sporting industry were heavily commission-based, so it made finding a job in sports that wasn’t sales very difficult. Because of this, I had to expand my job search to fields outside of sports.
Pursuing my interest in the marketing field led me to The Mega Group, a marketing communications agency specializing in traditional marketing, internal brand communications, and online promotional item stores. I came on aboard there as an Account Coordinator to help with the various in-house accounts. It was there I was professionally introduced to copywriting and design. I encountered them in college, when I realized I really enjoyed them both and considered them for career paths. I tried to take on as much copywriting and design work as I could from our clients and even currently do a bit of freelancing on the side.
From there, I came to Innovation Focus, a new product development and market research consultancy where I am currently employed. I feel like I received a reeducation when I started here. I had only touched on the periphery of new product development before, and it took me a solid 2 months before I could even speak the language of the business. I’ve enjoyed learning and practicing this new knowledge as well as market research.
At Innovation Focus I had the good fortune to learn more about subjects I really enjoy, namely creativity and creative problem solving. I knew I wanted creativity to be involved in my career for some time now. I found out I really enjoyed creative problem solving after I was trained in the Focused Innovation Technique. After I attended the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), I knew I wanted my career path at Innovation Focus to be in creative problem solving and creativity.
I found an opportunity to merge my formal ideation training and my love of creativity with my copywriting experience at Integrated Marketing Services, where I currently serve as a Concept Writer/Brainstorm Facilitator/Copywriter. My role is to facilitate brainstorming sessions for beginning themes and ideas, and then help knit those ideas into full shopper marketing program concepts program concepts which execute at a specific retailer. The concepts contain multiple recruitment (out-of-store) and engagement (in-store) elements, which all reflect the theme of the program.
So far – I love it! I feel extremely blessed to find a position that allows me to combine my love for creative problem solving/ideation with my love of copywriting. I enjoy creating a unique engagement for shoppers at each retailer. I’m still figuring out the emerging field of shopper marketing. Although it’s a bit restrictive as far as what you can and can’t do, I’m up to the challenge. I hope to continue to do work in the conceptual and copy areas for years to come.
Again, thank you for taking the time to learn more about me, my thoughts and my career – I appreciate it. Feel free to get in touch with me at any time through: andrew@andrewzenyuch.com.