Hello, I am Cody Colvin, a brand strategist with a Master of Science in Creative Brand Management from Virginia Commonwealth University Brandcenter. I have always had an interest in business and understanding consumers' feelings towards certain products. My long-running interest in business and marketing started when I was in high school and has continued throughout my professional career. During my two years pursuing my Master's Degree, I have worked on numerous projects and with many clients, all of which helped to hone my branding and strategy skills. Now I work for a marketing agency as a brand strategist, where I help brands find their voice and identity, and market their business to grow their customer base. During my time as a brand strategist, I have helped numerous clients, each with a variety of different challenges. Through my work, I have sharpened my branding and strategic thinking and capabilities, as well as learned new abilities and grown my skillset.

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My professional journey began in 2015 when I started working as Management Trainee at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. While at Enterprise, I was responsible for different aspects of the business, such as keeping finances up to date, managing and training our service works, ensuring proper customer satisfaction, and marketing our brand and services to both businesses and customers. During my time at Enterprise, I was able to sharpen my business acumen by learning things like; how to manage the logistics of a company, how to lead a team, how to grow sales and brand awareness, business how to market a business, and how to successfully manage a business. My time at Enterprise taught me a lot and helped provide me with increased business acumen, and another layer to my thinking.

 

Three years later, I decided that I wanted to continue my education and I chose to go to the VCU Brandcenter to get my Master's Degree in Business with a concentration in Creative Brand Management. Throughout this program, I had the privilege to work on numerous different brands, while also developing new skills in strategy and branding, and improving my leadership and brand ownership abilities. Two of the brands that really stuck out to me were the Richmond Theatre Alliance and the Virginia Film Office. For these two brands, I was responsible for developing a brand refresh to help them grow their brand presence. Through my use of primary and secondary research, I was able to uncover key insights for each brand and develop brand strategies that helped elevate each of them.

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After I completed my time at Brandcenter and received my Master's, I joined a small startup marketing and media agency where I started as a Creative Brand Assistant. As a Creative Brand Assistant, I was responsible for analyzing client’s Google Analytics and creating reports showcasing key data, researching and helping clients manage social platforms that were best for their brand based on where their target audience was, I served as a Production Assistant and Editor for client's filmed content, used Adobe Creative Cloud products to edit images and to help me draft client proposals, created and designed websites for clients while considering the user journey, and conducted research and SEO research into clients brands and their competitors and used the data to create brand strategies and actionable tactics for clients. In this role, I began learning many new skills, such as web design and development, programming and database management, SEO research and management, and increased my analytics and social media marketing skills.

 

Through my hard work and determination, combined with my newly acquired skillset, I was promoted to Brand Strategist one year after I joined the company. As a Brand Strategist my responsibilities expanded to include being the main person in charge of conducting brand, market, and consumer research and turning the data into strategies and actionable insights, conducting a deeper dive into client's SEO and Google Analytics and developing and execute strategies to help them rank better on search engines, examine and understand consumers consumer journeys on client's website and make necessary changes to ensure website flow better, collaborated on and developed print and other marketing material including logo designs for clients, manage and lead projects and employees ensuring the scope of work was being completed and deadlines were met, served as the point of for clients answering any questions or concerns they had, and gave them progress updates on work, created branding exercises for clients to better understand their brand, and created brand briefs and guidelines for my team; in addition to all my responsibilities as a Creative Brand Assistant. During my time here, I have worked with a variety of different clients of all sizes in many different industries. By working at a small agency, I have had the chance to really get involved in all aspects of the work and work with different departments, as well as produce work that not only met clients needs but has made an impact on clients and their customers. My time at Talk 19 Media really taught me an enormous amount of useful skills and exceeded my expectations of what I thought I would ever know and the impact that I would be able to make on clients and the industry.

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As I continue to pursue my next step in the advertising world, I am always looking for new innovative ways to solve problems and help brands, as well as make an impact on clients and the industry. I am also always looking to for new ways challenge myself and thinking, work with new people, and take on new tasks, so that I can continue to increase my abilities and expand upon my knowledge. I may not know where my path will continue to take me, but I do know one thing, I am not afraid of what's on the horizon and am looking forward to the next step in my journey.

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What Makes Me Unique

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I am not your traditional problem solver. Over my many years of working and combined with my education, I have expanded my way of thinking. This has helped me to think through problems more uniquely and to dive deep into my research. When I solve a problem, I don't just look at it head-on but rather, I envision it as a three-dimensional problem. I think about things like why the problem is occurring in the first place and what can we do in the future to prevent it from happening again. I also look at it from the brand, company, and consumer's perspective so that when I develop a solution, it will work best for all three parties. When doing research, I throw myself deep into the work, because I get enjoyment from solving complex problems. I love diving deep into research and understanding problems while also learning new things. As a result of my strong researching skills, most people rely on me for the answer because I can find what others can't. After I conclude my research, I develop solutions and simultaneously poke holes in them until I find the best solution with no faults. My process makes me unique because instead of just focusing on the fun and positives of solutions, I use research to help me find areas of improvement and develop the best possible solution for everyone.