Walt Jaschek thinks large for you.

I listen to you.

And to your team.

And to your customers.

And only then do I begin writing. And writing. And writing. In search of the Large Idea.

It’s not the job of advertising and marketing to get the prospect to understand your brand. It’s the job of your brand to prove it understands the prospect.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to be a little entertaining. Or a lot entertaining. I mean, we won’t even have a shot if we don’t get their attention.

That simple philosophy underlines what I do.

As a senior copywriter and brainstorm leader, I consider myself a brand storyteller. I help brands find their stories, tell their stories and get their stories remembered. The result: large growth.

Find: by leading lively Message Development Sessions that involve a whiteboard, structured brainstorms and lots of caffeine. Give me a marker and a few hours of you’re time: we’ll get to the Large Idea.

Tell: through the creation of irresistible, ownable concepts. And through compelling copywriting that tugs the eye, fills the head, floods the heart.

Get remembered: the work is successful only when customers can repeat your story, unaided, because they believe in its message and were grabbed by its expression.

For more than 20 years, the brand stories I’ve crafted have spiked sales, enhanced reputations and solidified customer loyalties.

A Few Brand Stories I’ve Created and Told

• 20th Century Fox. Co-created the national advertising campaign for the syndicated roll-out of The Simpsons, helping to make it the most successful syndicated program launch in TV history.

•  AT&T. Wrote the tagline “Productivity at Work,” which became the spine of a 5-year, $5 million b-to-b marketing campaign, earning the company more than $75 million.

• McDonalds, Coca-Cola. Co-created for these brands a series of original comicbooks featuring National Hockey League player Brett Hull, which increased Kids Meal sales by 300% and Coke sales by 200%.

• Anheuser Busch. Concepted the college-market promotion Budweiser TV, which ran for three years, made the company $10 million. Also wrote a series of funny radio commercials for Budweiser.

• Parkside Financial Bank & Trust. Co-created identity and marketing materials for this start-up bank, including the tagline “Take the Parkside Path” and integrated expressions of that metaphor.

• The Crescent. Positioned these million-dollar condos as “The Shape That Defines Your Future,” and created a series of very high-end marketing materials based on that theme.


• SSM Heart Institute. Created for this network of hospitals the tagline “Closer to your heart,” and brought that line to life in a currently running series of ads in all media.

• Central Baptist Hospital. Wrote for this Kentucky health care company the tagline “This is Care,” which has been at the heart of every TV, radio, newspaper, magazine and outdoor marketing message for three years. I’ve written almost all of it.

My Career, So Far

Owner, Copywriter

Walt Now Brand Strategies, St. Louis, MO, 
1995 - present

Branding consultant and creative studio for marketers and agencies worldwide.
 Available by the project, day, assignment or cocktail.

Creative Director
Moosylvania Marketing, St. Louis, MO, June, 2005 - February, 2006

Totally awesome sales promotion agency.

Director - Marketing Communications
Tellabs, Naperville, IL,
2004 - 2005

Global telecommunications equipment company.

Co-Founder / Head Writer
Paul & Walt Worldwide, Hollywood, CA,
 1988 - 1995

Award-winning radio commercial production company.

Manager - Advertising and Public Relations
Southwestern Bell, now AT&T, St. Louis, MO,
1983 - 1988

International telecommunications services company.

In addition, for seven years I served as Adjunct Professor of Advertising at Webster University, St. Louis, and I continue to guest-lecture there each semester.

Awards and Honors

Won $20,000 Mercury Award for commercials created for The Simpsons. Received multiple Clios, Best-Of-Show Addys and hundreds of other national creative awards. Named “St. Louis Advertising V.I.P” in a feature article in Advertising Age magazine.

Was special guest and presenter to the Denmark Advertising Federation, Copenhagen. Samples of my strategies and executions have appeared “Broadcasting and Cable Copywriting” (Allyn and Bacon) and “Now a Laugh From Our Sponsor” (Adweek Books.)

Education

University of Missouri- St. Louis, MO, B.A. - Speech Communications, May 1978

See:

My porfolio on Behance.
My LinkedIn profile and recommendations.
My Tweets.
My “Dang Gnats” webcomic. 

Favorite Glee Character

I’m just kidding. I don’t watch “Glee.”