You wouldn’t think an actor would be good at marketing. I didn’t think so either. When I was offered my first copywriting job I thought it I’d be fired within a week. I wasn’t.

In 2011, I moved back to Toronto, after six years in New York getting my MFA, doing regional Shakespeare, children’s theatre, and bizarre avant-garde downtown plays. Back in Toronto, I got small roles on all the usual shows (I was even murdered on Murdoch Mysteries). I started writing and producing music videos, then commercials, and then digital series. I was also writing plays, short stories and even jokes for local comedians. Still, I thought I was long way from marketing.

Until I got that first gig in 2017 - for a cannabis company - and figured I’d give it a try. It turns out that the skills of an actor aren’t so useless after all. We understand voice, character and audience. We practice empathy and step into different points of view. We’re intensely collaborative and love a challenge. And maybe most importantly, we are trained to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into a role, learning about it, analyzing it, dreaming about it.

When I’m creating for a brand - whether it’s an evergreen platform, a multi-channel campaign, a blog post or a tweet - I throw my instincts, my intelligence and my passion into the project. The creative techniques I learned as an actor, and practiced as a writer and producer, give my work energy, point-of-view and uniqueness.