Would you like to land a copywriting job in an advertising agency working with blue chip clients? How about working in New York in the heart of advertising land? What about using your copywriting skills to write a bestselling novel?

If you like to learn how to do any of these, then you need to listen to Philip Taffs. He has worked as a Senior Writer and Creative Director in both Melbourne and Manhattan. He’s worked with major players like Menulog and Playstation and helped launch the Honda CR-V & Odyssey into Australia.

He has taught copywriting at AWARD School, Strategic Communications at LaTrobe University, Public Relations at Deakin University, and Advertising, Media and Social at Swinburne, and his bestselling novel, Bubby, was recently re-released in the U.S. to great acclaim.

You’ll hear how he did it all and some important lessons on how you can get your foot in the door to launch your copywriting career even if you don’t have any experience.

Here’s what else you’ll learn:

• The connection between copywriting and novel writing
• How to market a novel and find an agent
• Advice for copywriters looking to write a novel
• How he’d market his novel differently if he had the time over again
• How he got his foot in the door of the advertising industry
• How to connect with Creative Directors of leading advertising agencies, even if you don’t know them
• How he launched the Honda CR-V into Australia; the highlights, the low-lights and everything in between
• The importance of being ‘nice’ in business and why it will win you work
• How he landed a job in New York
• How to network and find the right people to speak to
• What advertising life in NY was like and the differences in writing copy for the United States
• How novice copywriters can get noticed and find work even if they don’t have any experience
• What he thinks of AI and how it is being used in copy and branding
• Insights/techniques/formulas/processes he teaches that resonate most with the students

About Philip:

Philip Taffs has worked as a Senior Writer and Creative Director in both Melbourne and Manhattan. He still has a client out of London and handled recent projects for Menulog and Playstation.

Major brand experience includes Honda (helped launch the Honda CR-V & Odyssey into Australia), Esanda Finance (headed up the account at Publicis Mojo), Australia Post (Joint Creative Director), and Cabrini Health (Creative Director).

As well as running his own creative consultancy, he has taught copywriting at RMIT and AWARD, Strategic Communications at LaTrobe University, Public Relations at Deakin University, and Advertising, Media and Social at Swinburne.

Philip’s novel, The Evil Inside, was published by Quercus London in 2014. (Same publishers as Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) In February 2024, it was re-released in the U.S. under the new title, Bubby.

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Greg Baker knows more than most about AI and where it's headed. As an AI futurist and lecturer in Computational Linguistics at Macquarie University, Greg educates students on the intricacies of Artificial Intelligence for Text and Vision, and blends his theoretical insights with practical applications.

He helps the C-suite understand the future of labour, how to maximise AI productivity gains and how to gain a deep technical understanding of what is possible. He is a director at the Institute for Open Systems Technologies and has worked at Google and CSIRO and is a leading voice in how to understand the opportunities that AI offers us today and into the future.

If you’re looking to discover how AI is impacting copywriters and the writing industry, this is the episode you have been waiting for.

You’ll learn how to:

• Take advantage of the opportunities (and understand the threats) in the evolving landscape of AI
• Explore new developments relevant to copywriters, including changes in platforms like Upwork
• Understand, access and create your own Custom GPT to help clients create better copy
• Monetise Custom GPTs for your own purposes
• Examine niche applications of Custom GPTs and understand the relevance of large language models for copywriters
• Compare the emerging competitors to ChatGPT and use the right ones for your needs
• Get the most from models like Anthropic’s Claude Opus
• Use speech recognition programs to write your copy
• Get a job as a copywriter or screenwriter for computer games (and get paid more than ever before)
• Take advantage of the errors that ChatGPT makes when ‘hallucinating’ and turn that into a money-making opportunity (as a fact checker or sub editor)
• Understand the role Chat plays in Search Engine Optimisation (and why Google is in danger of becoming irrelevant).
• Create your own Chat Bot
• Assess how the ‘helpful, harmful or honest’ used my language models skews the results we get

About Greg:

Greg is a lecturer in computational linguistics at Macquarie University, an author of 7 books and an award-winning music composer. His client list is a who’s-who of top businesses, governments and not-for-profits in Australia and around the world. His is also famous for his work preserving and restoring endangered and extinct languages.

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Would you like to add copy editing, project editing and proofing to your suite of services?

If so, then this is the episode for you.

Matt Davies is a leading copy editor. He specialises in the health care and government sectors and has created a thriving business that lets him work on his terms so that he has the time and space to pursue his true passion – writing novels. He’s already written three and he is just going from strength to strength.

Read the show notes

This podcast is brought to you by the Australian Writers' Centre. WritersCentre.com.au

Join our community of copywriters at CopyClub.com.au.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.