Q: I read your book, “The Well-Fed Writer,” and one thing I was looking for answers on was who were the best people to contact for the work you talk about. If it’s writing a speech for a company, what’s the title of the person to approach? If it’s a brochure, is it the same person? If you’re contacting an ad agency for copywriting, what’s the title you need to get in contact with?
A: I was looking through the book just now, not actually believing that I wasn’t clear about that, but you’re right! I’m currently working on the updated version of TWFW, which will combine both it and TWFW: Back for Seconds.
To answer your question, in big end-users, starting the marketing communications department (a.k.a. corporate communications is the best route) and with that department, there’s no one person who’s best. Anyone in the department – and they’re usually not THAT big – can help you get to the right place. I mean, you could ask for the director of marketing communications, but the assistants would be just as good.
Guess what I’m saying is that in some cases, if you asked for the director, and that person wouldn’t typically field calls from writers, you might not get anywhere, whereas if you just explained to whoever answered the phone what you were up to, you might get farther. The point being, that there ARE no hard and fast rules for ANY of this… With smaller end-users (i.e., NOT Fortune 500 companies), your best bet is the marketing director.
For Middlemen clients (MMs), you’d usually ask for the Creative Director or Assistant Creative Director. The latter is usually a better bet, as the CDs stay so busy they won’t likely take your call. What’ll usually happen is that when you ask for these people, they’ll ask you what it’s in regard to and then you’ll either get through or you won’t. With smaller MMs, the staffs are often so small that anyone can help and they’ll just steer you to the right person.