RACHAEL LEWIS-KRISKY

How can a documentary journalist succeed as a marketing producer? The fields are innately different, with a seemingly inevitable trade-off between money and story. In 2017 nearly 4 years ago, I was in this exact position when I was hired as a multimedia marketing producer on the creative marketing team at 2U, a global digital technology company that powers world-class online education for universities. My moral compass was spinning as I wondered if I could create honest and ethical media when major clients and dollars would dictate so much of the story and message.

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Coming from independent journalism, marketing was a whole new world to me. I had to think about brand and messaging in a strategic way, whereas my past work focused more on storytelling and the artistic approach. At first, under these conditions it felt impossible to create nuanced and visually captivating assets. When I had to worry more about a client's opinion than my expertise, how could I create quality work? 

 

I started as a Videographer/Editor and at the time was the only media maker in Marketing. But multimedia production is not work that can be completed successfully alone. So after being promoted to Multimedia Manager and with the help of many amazing coworkers, I built a multimedia team from scratch. This included building workflows that integrated with creative and wider marketing team processes; hiring an well-rounded and team-oriented staff; launching major initiatives to utilize our team's abilities and create real impact on prospective students; and directing creative work on a daily basis to provide engaging multimedia marketing content. 

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In my time at 2U, I learned that marketing is not an evil beast with nothing to offer. Instead it's simply a new framework, where audience engagement, data analytics, and spending strategy can help marketers and journalists alike tell stories that resonate. Strategic communications could help journalists better connect their audiences to their work, in the same way journalism's approach to thorough and honest storytelling could help marketers drop the old-school sales act and focus on the impact of their products.