George Tzortzis

Role

Senior Copywriter

Same cubicle, changing brand.

When it was time to round out my experience with a stint on the brand side, I jumped on a chance to work with America's largest satellite TV provider: DIRECTV. But, things got interesting during the first week on the job—DIRECTV merged with America's second largest mobile carrier, AT&T. For almost two years, I've helped AT&T integrate with DIRECTV and helped the former incorporate the edgier, punchier tone of voice of the latter. This brand transition has been a critical to AT&T, eager to recast itself as an entertainment company.

Professionally, it's also been a very instructive period of systematically merging two tones of voice into something unique as AT&T stepped into the digital streaming space with DIRECTV NOW, their "Netflix killer." Based on my past experience writing brand guidelines, I was asked to write the brand guide for all AT&T digital marketing. It's now being disseminated throughout the Digital Marketing Group (DMG) within AT&T.

In addition to working on merger communications, the massive array of AT&T's product offerings gave me an opportunity to write copy for almost every kind of digital medium, from banners to full-blown landing pages. Plus, I got a better understanding of how decisions, processes, and strategy work on the client side And thanks to DIRECTV's exclusive arrangement with the NFL, I'm privileged to add sports marketing to my repertoire.

My work was center stage.

I was often responsible for developing content for high-visibility pieces like landing page headers.

I like big jokes and I cannot lie.

I was occasionally tapped for any in-house social content, since I had the most experience, which also let me get some of my pun-centric sense of humor into my work. 

You can’t keep good copy down.

The thing I most proud of is that, no matter how stodgy the corporate culture was, I was able to slip some character into the brand voice of DIRECTV.