Bylines help English Taylor (IMC14) land Ogilvy Content Strategist role

For English Taylor (IMC14), it’s all about the content.

Taylor began her studies in the IMC full-time program in 2013, and during her summer quarter, she interned in the consumer insights department at Discover Financial Services. Taylor said while the project helped her realize the insights function was important in IMC, her true love in marketing was content. So Taylor enrolled in Professor Candy Lee’s Content Marketing Course in the winter of 2014. She was hooked.

“In PR, you have to be a phenomenal writer to publicize and monetize your product,” she said. “You have to know what your product is and be able to communicate it, but you also have to be able to communicate with other organizations about your story.”

Taylor realized taking writing classes at Medill, among top-notch journalism and writing professors like Lecturer Karen Springen, would give her an edge up in the marketing world. When she was entering the job market, Taylor said synthesizing information in a clear and concise way differentiated her from other applicants.

“When a lot of people realize the IMC program is housed in the journalism school, they’re surprised, but to me it’s a perfect fit because I think journalism and writing is crucial to IMC,” Taylor said. “In the IMC program, we are told we need to tell stories from the data, and that’s writing.”

Taylor took gaining writing experience to heart, landing a byline in The Atlantic for her article on the history of eyebrows entitled, “Eyebrows, Why?” The article led to a job as a freelancer for Refinery29, where she’s been published several times, including her most recent article, “When Your Hairstylist Becomes Your Therapist.” Taylor credits her IMC training and her understanding of consumer insights for gaining in-depth quotes in interviews for the article.

“Being able to figure out what hasn’t been done before and what’s relevant and what people might be interested in came from my IMC training – I looked at beauty blogs to see what’s been done before and came up with a new and different topic,” Taylor said. “That helped me get published.”

Taylor graduated this winter and will start her new role as the Content Strategist for the Content Strategy and User Experience Department at Ogilvy in February. The role involves developing brand style guides, copywriting and coming up with a long-term content strategy for a brand.

For more on our graduate programs in IMC, visit our website.