This is chris eberhardt’s application for the copywriting track at the Vcu brandcenter Fall 2017

Recommended reading music:

Awake – tycho Bad self portraits – lake street dive

Kid a – radiohead Light upon a lake – whitney

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Your competition is not other people,

but the time you kill, the ill will you create, the knowledge you neglect to learn,

the connections you fail to build, the health you sacrifice along the path,

your inability to generate ideas, the people around you who don't support

and love your efforts, and whatever god you curse

for your bad luck.

James Altucher

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• Pages 4-8: My story so far • Page 9: my favorite writers/is

technology making life better or worse?

• Page 10: Stories 50 words or less • Pages 11-12: A bad ad, reworked • Pages 13-15: Underappreciated

products • Pages 16-29: original print ads

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1 In two short, considered paragraphs, tell us who you are and what you are good at.

I am best defined by my enthusiasm for the unknown. For the new. For the unexplored. There are many

branches of that passion, but the root of it is my desire for knowledge. I am constantly in pursuit of it, and am

passionate about the idea that there is no end to education. The best way to build clear, well rounded perspectives is

through immersive learning. Take traveling, for example. The best way to learn about a foreign culture is by talking

with its people, learning its history, and immersing yourself in their traditions and values – there’s only so much a

textbook can tell you. I strive to live outside of my comfort zone – and whether its with music, fitness, writing,

snowboarding, family, my career, or travel – my pursuits have taught me a lot about myself.

I have learned to always listen first, talk second, and never doubt the potential value of a contribution

(including my own). Sometimes all that people need is an attentive listener. I have seen how the importance of family

transcends cultural borders, and realized how fiercely loyal I am to my own family and support system; they are

everything to me. I have learned that my energy and enthusiasm can inspire other people to greet the day with a

different perspective. Even when I am fighting my own battles, I try to help people fight theirs, first. In a divisive time,

it’s important to learn from each other. There is a whole world of knowledge out there, and I am doing my best to

make the most of my time on our little blue dot.

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2 Tell us how one place you’ve lived has influenced you.

You can’t quite feel the hometown in you until you leave it. Mine is Downingtown, a small, generally wealthy

suburb thirty miles west of Philadelphia. My childhood consisted of pretty standard suburban stuff: t-ball, karate

lessons, vacations, and great schooling, among other things – the “American dream,” if that’s what your definition of

the phrase is.

It took the four years I spent at a southern University to show just how easy it was to view life through the

lens of my hometown. My impatience, my pace, and most of my ideologies were derived from my small

Pennsylvanian community. My vocabulary was different: I said “alls I know” instead of “all that I know,”; I called “subs”

“hoagies”; My “sneakers” at home were “tennis shoes” down south; so on and so forth. Beyond that, though, there

were a lot of cultural aspects of the south that I simply did not understand. Alls I knew was, I had to start broadening

my perspectives.

To tie these thoughts into a bow – Downingtown’s influence was both good and bad. I lived on a privileged

side of the system, and am grateful for the parts of my personality it helped shape; but it also limited my worldview to

a bubble that I have spent the last five years trying to think outside of.

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3 What led you to the Brandcenter?

My younger male owner comes home most days looking tired… or maybe uninspired. My older woman

owner always asks him how work was, and he always shrugs and says “same old” as he scratches that one spot on

my head. For a while, he seemed stuck, like he was floating in water with land on both sides, but didn’t know which

way to swim.

One day, about a week after my owners sang a strange song to me and fed me decorated cookies, he came

home with a different look in his eye. He asked my older woman owner if she had heard of a school called the VCU

Brandcenter. When she said no, he excitedly pulled out his computer to show her, making frantic gestures with his

hands as he explained the school. She looked happy to see him so excited.

He had heard about the Brandcenter from a senior copywriter that my owners’ friends (the one with all the

squirrels in the backyard) introduced him to. For a few weeks after that conversation, he talked only about a career in

advertising, and how he wanted it to start with studying copywriting at the Brandcenter.

One weekend, he disappeared. That one spot on my head went unscratched for two whole days. Despair

began to set in. When he (finally) came back, he looked at my older and younger woman owners and said, without

breathing, “You guys should have seen that place, it’s beautiful! The job placement is awesome and the faculty

seems to actually care about the futures of their students.” He took a breath. “Guys, I really think the Brandcenter is

the school for me.”

I didn’t know what any of this means, mind you, I’m just his dog. I’m happy when he’s happy; it’s as simple

as that. Well, as long as he keeps feeding me and scratching my head… wait a second… where is this

“Brandcenter?!”

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4 Tell us about a personal failure. Describe what happened and what you did

about it. Distill the story into one paragraph.

When my parents split, I wasn’t sure how to react. I was ten at the time, and didn’t have the awareness to

recognize where I was most needed. I handled a lot of it internally, and never really talked about it. That was fine for

me, I kept myself busy with sports and friends. What I failed to notice, however, was how much my little sister needed

me. She was nine, and couldn’t process the emotions of it all. As her big brother, I should have been better about

talking her through it – I should have been there for her more. I recognized it a few years post-divorce, and vowed to

improved our relationship. Now, I ask her for a lot of advice, and make sure I always have a shoulder she can lean

on; she is one of my closest confidants. I owed her more when we were younger, but the strength of our relationship

now is assuaging the pain of that memory.

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5 In one short paragraph convince the person reading your application that you have spent a respectful amount of time researching the track you are applying to and the work people in that track do when they graduate. I believe that the amount of thought and research necessary for a decision is directly proportional to how

large of an impact that decision could have on your life. That being said, pursuing the copywriting track at the

Brandcenter is a decision that would completely reorient my life path. It’s a decision that requires research past the

standard definition of the word. He talks the talk, you’re thinking. So here’s my walk: I’ve talked to people in the

industry, I’ve visited the school, I’ve reached out to current students and alumni of the copywriting track, I’ve read all

the recommended readings on the website, I’ve studied the alumni statistics, I’ve collected favorite advertisements

from all mediums, and I have looked through countless copywriter portfolios online, among other things. And the best

part is that it has all excited me. If you’re not convinced by what I’m telling you, though, I hope this application shows

you how much thought, research, and effort I have put into this process.

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Copywriting track questions 1: Some questions and answers

A. Who are 3 of your favorite writers (not copywriters) and why? • No fiction writer draws me into their universe more than Stephen King. He has an innate ability

to prod at the human heart with his words. • John Jeremiah Sullivan is a journalist who knows how to earn the trust of the reader. His

essays are honest, funny, immersive, and beautiful. He is a student of the sentence, and uses his craft to put you in the passenger seat of his assignments.

• I’m big into music, so I have to give the nod to Kendrick Lamar as the best writer in the industry

right now. He’s a poet, activist, and can write truly cohesive albums. Above all, the man presents his work with humility, making it more accessible.

B. Is technology making life better or worse?

The doctor called the family into his office to tell them that the heart transplant had been successful. The wife was in awe of the technology – he has a new heart, she thought to herself. The son, however, missed the doctor’s news while he was scrolling through his Instagram feed.

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2: Short stories (50 words or less)

a. That’s a good boy

When he told us, we all patted his head and said that we understood. That it was “bound to happen”

because of his line of service. That he was sniffing the stuff everyday. With our full support, he retired from the drug dog service, and is now three years sober.

b. Snowy morning

My parents’ bedroom floor was my childhood solace, an escape from the nightmares. Early one morning,

the phone rang. My dad answered and listened, grim-faced, then hung up quietly. His mother had passed.

He left for the hospital; I watched as his car made fresh tracks in the morning snow.

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3: Bad advertisement reworked

Original Ad (found in the Dec 2016 edition of Wired Magazine):

This ad is conceptually bad because the message is overused and does not give the average consumer

any idea as to what mailchimp.com is, or what it does.

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Reworked ad: My intention was to keep the central idea of the last ad but more tailored to the service that

mailchimp is trying to sell.

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4: underappreciated products

1.

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce is a religious figure to me; I put it on almost everything. It has an unfair

reputation for masking the taste of a dish, whereas I think it enhances the taste and adds a nice

dimension of heat to the experience.

2.

The potato itself may not be underappreciated, but its versatility is. Here is a (probably not) all

encompassing list of potato creations: French fries, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, home fries, tater

tots, chips, hash browns, latkes, and vodka – c’mon, that’s just plain impressive.

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3. Grapes are like those employees that not only do their main job extremely well, but help with other jobs

in their spare time – like shriveling into raisins, or being crushed and processed into wine. They deserve

more recognition.

4. The utility of a toothpick starts at food but extends beyond it. For example: use one to get that nail

threaded into the hole that is slightly too big; use one to save your smile during a date;; or simply pop

one in your mouth to look a little bit cooler.

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5. The creepiness of this picture of a stocking employee does not undermine the fact that stocking

employees are very underappreciated; those shelves don’t organize themselves.

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10 original ads:

1. Barnes and Noble

2. Keurig

3. Elk mountain

4. 8tracks.com *

5. Burton Snowboards

6. Costa Sunglasses

7. Bose Bluetooth Quietcomfort’s

8. Spotify *

9. Andre Champagne

10. Bodybuilding.com * denotes a print “campaign”, the others are single print ads ** all images included in ads are Google images other than the Andre Champagne ad (credits are underneath the ad)

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original photography by a friend, Andy Conner.

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