Emily Ash Powell is Global Head of Copy at Bumble.

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Where’s your hometown?

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Bridgend, South Wales. It’s halfway between Cardiff and Swansea and 15 minutes from the sea.

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In a few sentences, describe what you do.

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By day, I’m Global Head of Copy at Bumble, where I’m responsible for all our words as a brand. I often describe the job of a copywriter as being like that of an actor. You’re given a character (a brand) and it’s your job to play that character every day, using your words. Except you can do it behind a laptop screen, sometimes from bed, without having to dress up or look good.

By other times of the day, I’m a writer who writes for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Stylist, the iPaper, Metro, Huffpost and a few others, too. I also write Hurdling, my newsletter on Substack.

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You’ve worked at some amazing brands. What was your path to your current role? How and where did you get your start?

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My first ever job was as a Saturday Girl in Topshop – the best job in the world. From 16, I stood on that shop floor talking to anyone who walked in, chatting about the world and sometimes, selling them clothes. I loved Topshop so much and I think my passion for everything that brand stood for (and my love of clothes) just shone through everything I said and did. Back then, all I knew was that I had to care deeply about something in order to do it well and I’ve used that as my guiding light for all the decisions I’ve made since.

I went to Swansea University to study English Language and Literature and spent more time on the shop floor than I did in lectures. I loved writing, I loved other people’s writing but I just couldn’t help but feel that I was studying words in such a passive way. Studying what other people had written just wasn’t… doing anything. In my second and third year, I used all my optional modules to pick anything but English Literature and instead chose things like Gender Representation In Media, Online Media, Non-Fiction Writing and Gender Politics. I then (somehow) persuaded the College of Arts & Humanities to let me do a Non-Fiction dissertation on Language in Online Media, which I now know to be copywriting – a word / job / career I’d literally never heard of back then. I had a blog, wrote for the student newspaper and was obsessed with Instagram, too. One of my best friends Matthew used to say, ‘You’ll never make a career out of being online, Em.’ I really enjoy reminding him of this.

After uni, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I still didn’t know copywriting was a job but I knew I wanted to be in London. I was applying for any job with ‘Social Media’ or ‘Editorial’ or ‘Writer’ in the title and then one day, I had a call from a recruiter who told me a new startup was looking for ‘someone like me’ to join as their Social Media Intern. I had no idea what a startup was but I just wanted a job remotely linked to what I was interested in. She asked me a few questions about my background and interests and then said, ‘Oh, just one more thing. Do you like dogs?’ I think I exploded.

From there, I somehow got the job and three days later, I moved to London and landed at tails.com in 2016, joining a group of incredibly brilliant people who changed the world of pet food. I started as their 31st employee and in just under two years, I learned so much about the startup world, subscriptions, marketing, branding, data analysis, operations – you name it. I also made friends with such gorgeous, wonderful people. Many of them are still my closest friends today and one of them is now my husband.

After a year as their Social Media Editor, I was writing more and more copy until eventually, it became a no-brainer that this was what I wanted to spend my days doing. It was always obvious that I belonged in the Docs, not in the Sheets. But after being given a hard ‘no’ (and being told I was ‘no writer’ by the new CMO), I had to decide whether my love for the brand (which was huge) outweighed my love of writing and my desire to do it every day. It was such a difficult decision to make and for years, I wondered whether it had been the right one.

But it was. I moved to a fintech company and became their European Copywriter and then to an ad agency where I reported into the best Head of Copy I’ve ever known. He pushed (and shoved) me into opportunities, allowed me to have strong opinions and encouraged me to use my voice. From there, my startup (specifically, subscription) experience and copywriting experience for big brands with big personalities (IKEA, Disney, Virgin etc) came together and I was soon asked to join another startup to help them figure out their voice and personality.

That startup became Skin + Me (it didn’t have a name or a product when I joined) and I spent two years creating their voice, rolling it out and making sure it was consistent. Again, it was such a brilliant ride with such a brilliant founding team and we had so much fun building what it is today. From there, I sort of accidentally became known as the ‘subscription startup writer’, which led me to get approached by Freddie’s Flowers to join as their Head of Copy. I spent a year in that role, then six months as their Head of Brand and Creative until I, along with far too many brilliant people, was made redundant.

I spent the three months of redundancy pay on spending time with family in Wales, growing my Substack and boozy lunches in the middle of the week. It felt like such a treat to be a full time writer, just for a tiny slice of time. But I knew I needed to face reality and started thinking about what to do next. For six months or so, I’d been talking to Emma Baines, the Global Head of Creative at Tony’s Chocolonely, as a little co-mentoring setup to help us both solve problems and tackle challenges in our respective roles. I told her I’d been made redundant and was thinking about going freelance and she told me she was pregnant. Would I want to apply to do her maternity cover? Oh, and if I got the job, would I like to move to Amsterdam to do it?

I pitched the idea to my husband and before I could finish my list of detailed pros and cons I’d scoped out, he said yes. I got the job, we moved to Amsterdam and I got to spend eight months looking after the brilliant creative team and all their ideas at Tony’s Chocolonely.

As we were weighing up whether to stay in Amsterdam or return to London, I saw on LinkedIn that Bumble was looking for a Global Head of Copy. I’d already decided that I wanted to go back to being closer to copy, as opposed to creative. It’s just always been about the words for me and despite having had two Head of Creative roles, I felt like I was always just elbowing my way back into copy again. Plus, Bumble was a brand that had been on my Desert Island Brands List since my days at tails.com – but I’d just never thought I’d ever get close to that world.

But in a moment of, ‘Fuck it, the worst they can do is say no, right?’ I applied for the job via the LinkedIn form and whatever recruitment platform they’d been using. But I just didn’t feel like it was enough. And shouldn’t a writer like… write something to show what they can do, rather than just tell? So I did some internet stalking, found the Creative Director’s email and sent him a very long, passionate (probably unhinged) email about my love of words, my love of people and my love of love. Somehow, he didn’t think I was insane and he offered me an interview. Two months and many, many interviews later, they offered me the job. And now here I am, back in London, still pinching myself.

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When choosing a new role, what do you look for in a company? (i.e. Good people, interesting work, work/life balance, etc)

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This has definitely changed over time for me. It used to be that I looked for the brand and the work. Will I be excited by it? Will it make a difference? Will it do good in the world? Will it change something? I still look for all of those things now, but through too many bad experiences, I’ve now got so much more criteria on my list. Do I believe in the leadership? Do they believe and stand by great creative work? Do I have the right balance or empowerment, freedom and support? What’s the work / life balance like? Will it matter? Will it pay me what I’m worth? Will I be building something? Will I have fun?

My startup experience has meant that I’m far more at home in building mode than I am in maintenance mode. I like being part of the process that decides what you’re executing, not just the executing itself. So joining Bumble ahead of their 10 year brand refresh was such a perfect moment for me. And so far, all my boxes are being ticked.

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What’s your advice for writers wanting to get their foot in the door at great brands? 

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Only the other day, I gave this advice to a junior copywriter I’ve been mentoring. I really believe that to be a good copywriter, you should do a stint at an agency fairly early in your career. The experience of writing across different brands and switching between their voices is, in my view, what gives you the foundation of understanding how to write to persuade – which is, obviously, what copywriting is. Once you’ve got that experience under your belt, I think you have a much more solid understanding of what differentiates brands and their voices from each other. You also learn how to sell in work, how to present and you’re surrounded by other people who are doing the same job as you who you can learn from. In house, you’re often flying solo as the only writer, which can be a little lonely and can leave you being backed into a corner by marketing people (or CEO’s whose wives ‘didn’t like that subject line’) who think they know more about copywriting than you do.

Get that experience under your belt and you’ll be able to show those great brands why you’re the right person, rather than just tell them – like everyone else is doing. Hunger will get you further than talent and I think it’s better to follow your gut and do things your way, rather than try to slot in with what everyone else is doing and how they’re doing it.

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Thinking about brand voice, what do you think are the essential ingredients or factors to consider? 

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The brand voice is the verbal side of the personality, so it has to ring true against your brand’s values and principles. Figure out what sets you apart from the competition and say what only you can say – in the way that only you can say it. Figure out what the biggest problems in your industry are for customers and try to address them with your words. For example, when I started figuring out the tone of voice for Skin + Me, I spent a week visiting various different beauty counters in Soho and telling the people who worked at the counters about all my skin woes. I aired my frustrations with not finding products and I listened to how they spoke to me, how they said what they said and how they made me feel. That essentially formed the basis of our tone of voice: making sure people felt understood with the very specific problem our product could solve for them. 

Maya Angelou said, ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ I stick this quote in every tone of voice deck I write because I really believe it’s the foundation for how to write. It’s also a pretty good foundation for how to treat people, too.

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As a steward of a brand voice in-house, what do you feel is most important about your job? (i.e. consistency, making it ownable, fighting for good ideas internally, etc)

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It depends on the brand and who your creative team reports to. You might have a CEO who thinks that words don’t matter or a Chairman who likes to get very micromanagery over every word in your emails. So I’d say that confidence and belief in yourself is the most important thing to have as a Head of Copy. Have the confidence to believe in your ideas and bring them to life. Have the confidence to believe in your team and empower them. Have the confidence to believe in your decisions and fight for them.

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What are some of the challenges of working in-house at well-known brands? What are the upsides?

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It completely varies from place to place. I’ve worked in-house at well-known brands where I’ve gone in so excited to peek behind the curtain of a brand I’ve loved and been a customer of for so long, only to find that what’s behind the curtain is… chaos. I guess it’s a bit like that ‘never meet your heroes’ thing.

The upsides are that you get to be a part of evolving or building a brilliant brand that shows up in people’s real lives. It never gets old to go into a shop and see something that you wrote, perched on a shelf, ready to be taken home by a real person. It literally makes me giddy.

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What are some skills beyond good writing that make the biggest difference in your work?

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Listening. Inspiration is everywhere if you tune in. By paying attention to what’s going on around you (even on social media), you’ll have a better grasp on what people are thinking, doing and feeling. That’ll give you things to write about that’ll tap into the zeitgeist and relate to real people’s real lives. Writing is always about your reader, and your readers are real people. So go and listen to them.

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Biggest career win? What is something you feel most proud of? 

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The thing I feel the most proud of is the impact I had on a writer I managed at Freddie’s Flowers. When we met, he was lacking in confidence and unsure whether writing copy was even for him. He’d moved from a Customer Support role into the role of Copywriter because he was a good writer, but he’d sort of been left to his own devices with no support or training with how to actually write for brands. His work was often criticised by leadership without proper effective feedback and he essentially just thought he was shit at his job. It was horrible. I joined, got to know him and made it my mission to get him to fall in love with writing copy. Eventually, he did and he evolved so much of the brand’s language and wrote such sparkling copy for every corner of the brand. There just wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

At my birthday last month, he told my husband that I’d changed his life. I wanted to cry (ok, I did). I didn’t really, of course – he did that by himself. But I do know that I made him love the job again, and that I gave him the confidence to actually do it. He’s now at Wild, having just created their tone of voice and is nailing it. Oh, and he just got signed by an agent for his novel, too. He’s amazing.

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As someone who’s worked in a lot of writing roles both agency-side and in-house, are there any things about the business that frustrate you? Any bones to pick with the world of branding, design and writing? 

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The thing that frustrated me about working at an agency is that I felt too removed from the impact that the work had on real people. I wanted to know how many people were opening the emails we were creating. I wanted to know how many people were seeing the billboards we were writing. I wanted to know whether my words were working.

Often, it feels like you’re putting out the work that the agency wants to be known for (and awarded for) – rather than putting out the work that actually speaks to customers. That’s the bit I care about (though I know this isn’t for everyone!).

The big bone that I’m picking right now is that so many things are looking… the same. All these brands seem to be rebranding (why, btw?) and certain branding agencies are just using certain fonts and colour palettes that are currently on trend. Trends move! They’ll be outdated in a few years! We’re losing the building of distinct personalities and heritage in favour of moving with trends. In a few years, these brands will need to rebrand again and they’ll lose all the brand awareness and brand equity they’ve built up. Ugh. What happened to building a legacy?

A company I used to work for has just done it and it feels like such a waste to me. They’ve had three different brand identities in less than 10 years. I think brands see their customers getting tired and going elsewhere, so they decide to wake them up with a shiny new brand, when it’s actually the product that fundamentally needs fixing. We should be listening to customers and their needs to understand whether the product or service is the problem, not just doing yet another rebrand.

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You write a Substack newsletter called Hurdling. Tell us about why you started it and what your plans are for it in the future?

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I do! Thank you for reading it! I think most people write because they’ve got something to say, and I found that I had a lot to say about like, a lot of things – but especially the world of work. I started Hurdling because I was getting frustrated by reading all these career success stories from people who’d be like, ‘Yeah, and it was really hard for me and this bad thing happened to me and I was at rock bottom. But then I got a book deal and things worked out and now I’m successful.’ Or, ‘Yeah, I was working at a bar and I hated it but then I got signed to a record label and all my dreams came true.’

I’d be reading these stories and feeling so robbed. All I was seeing was the highlights reel – never the messy bits. The bit I cared about was the bit people tended to skip over. I wanted to peek behind that highlights reel to the behind the scenes content. I wanted to know how exactly someone got a book deal. Why Dave Buonaguidi actually left ad agency life behind to become an artist. How hard it actually is to get your cartoons published in the New York Times. How Jane Shepherdson actually felt about Philip Green during her Topshop days. I just think it’s so helpful to really understand how people have navigated the bad, as well as the good, to get them to where they are today.

My plans for it change all the time. I do have plans for it to become a podcast but I’m very time-poor at the moment. So many people ask me questions about Substack and I feel disheartened when one of their first questions is how they can quickly grow their readership and make more money. For me, it’s been about taking the time to find my own voice (not the voice of a brand, for once!) and gradually finding that it resonates with people. I think if you chase volume over value you end up sacrificing quality for quantity. And that’s just not what it’s about for me. For now, I’m finding it rewarding enough to write because I have something to say – and so far, people seem to be enjoying that!

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What’s one thing you wish more people understood about our industry? 

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That there really aren’t enough women in leadership positions. 12% of creative directors are women. That’s wild, especially when women make most of the daily decisions on household purchases. I remember looking around the creative team at an ad agency I worked out and observing that there were more men in the creative team called Matt than there were women. I wish I was joking. The gender pay gap is still real and although you might see a balanced gender split across all the business as a whole, if that 50/50 gender split is not also reflected at the leadership table, then you’ve got a problem.

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Writers go by many names in our industry – copywriter, brand writer, verbal specialist, verbal designer, and so on – what name feels most right to you? And do you wish there was more consistency with these titles or do you like the variety?

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To be honest, I think if you write copy, you’re a copywriter. Just own it! It doesn’t need to be fancier than that – even if most people think you work in legal, dealing with copyright. I think that the more people who wear our title, the more powerful and respected it becomes. 

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Where can Subtext readers keep up with you?

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I am, and always will be, a chronically online person. You can read my writing on Substack, snoop my photos on Instagram or see how bad I am at networking on Linkedin.

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Bonus Round:

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Dream brief: what does it say in 1 sentence or less?

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Create a distinct tone of voice for a new crisp brand with a funhinged personality.

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Fuck, marry, kill copywriter edition:

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Fuck billboards.
Marry manifestos.
Kill Taglines.

Sorry taglines, it’s just everyone across the business always seems to have an opinion about you.

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In one word, what is the enemy of good creative work? 

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Perfection.

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If you could life swap with anyone, who would it be (no explanation needed)?

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Bill Nighy.