CONTACT
e: rachael.kendrick @gmail.com
WHAT I DO
Creative concepts for campaigns. The meat and potatoes of my work. Coming up with killer ideas that get audiences excited, then executing on them.
Creative brand strategy. Like any writer, I’m about 70% strategist. Content audits, positioning, audience research - I relish the challenge of interrogating a business problem to within an inch of its life.
Platform and production copy. I play well with UX and developers. Creating messaging hierarchies, producing copy for A/B testing, and the good old fashioned slog of writing for a content matrix.
WORK
July 2023 - present - creative director, Livity
Connecting brands to culture, minus the cringe.
September 2019 - June 2023 - associate creative director, Brave
Sweat stylist. Meme sommelier. Actual cat herder.
July 2018 - March 2019 - senior creative, Ogilvy
Created campaigns, both serious and silly, for Boots, American Express and Vodafone.
March 2018 - July 2018 - freelance senior creative, Livity
Pitched and won a major launch campaign for Netflix.
February 2018 - March 2018 - freelance senior creative, Google Brand Studio
Researched and developed scripts for a project profiling Google’s collaboration with the New York Times.
September 2017 - December 2017 - freelance senior copywriter, Digitas LBI
Developed concepts and scripts for six very fun, very clickable, very thumbstopping digital films for Pringles, then oversaw production.
2015 - 2017 - senior copywriter, Huge London
Rollerskaters, airport security choreography and sourcing chopsticks to support Josh Ostrovsky's, AKA The Fat Jewish, 'hairection.'
2014 - 2015 - copywriter, AKQA
Vampire teens. Secret agents. A dental-themed slow motion booth. General shenanigans.
2013 - 2014 - copywriter, Nomads Agency
Mariachi bands. Hair gel. Knights. Lionel Messi. 'The Hotdog Is In the Box!' We had a lot of fun.
2012 - 2013 - copywriter, StrawberryFrog
Where do I start with the Frog? David Warner was the first to take a chance on me after my adventure with the Kennedys. In my first month there I threw a little idea into a deck for a Pampers brief. The client loved the idea, but told me to go back to square one for the rest of the brief. That idea is now a fully grown app. The lesson learned? Sometimes great ideas don't come from briefs. Also, answer the damned brief.
2011 - Kennedy, Wieden + Kennedy
Part apprenticeship, part boot camp, part experiment, part tiny agency, all amazing. 938 applied. Six were chosen. One was a girl. Duties included hanging sewing patterns from the ceiling beams of an 18th century stable, constructing a man with a torso of balloons, learning to operate on four hours of sleep, horrifying the designers with my attempts to use Photoshop and InDesign, and generally making a bunch of stuff.
Learn more about The Kennedys here and here.
2010 - 2012 columnist, thevine.com.au
I wrote recipes for The Vine and I’d also take pictures of the food I made. I once made a six layer lavender and vanilla rainbow cake with strawberry ruffle icing. No bigs.
2009 - tutor, Monash University
I taught in the Primary Care department of Monash University. My students were enrolled in physiotherapy, nursing, midwifery and emergency medicine courses. My classroom was next to the nursing department’s simulated hospital room, complete with special mannequins outfitted with human genitalia for the student nurses to practice on. I was better at teaching this time.
2008 - tutor, Melbourne University.
My first teaching job. I really didn't know what I was doing. Sorry, kids.
2005 - 2008 - transcript typist, Media Monitors
I was a typist for reals. I like to think it gives me some kind of Peggy Olsen cred.
2004 - 2005 - sales assistant, Jem Aquatics
My dad loved fish. Growing up we had a four foot tank housing a pair of huge oscar cichlids in the living room. We spent a lot of time at this store and I loved it there, so I typed up my first proper CV in Microsoft Word, handed it in and spent the next year scrubbing coral algae off glass. I now know the humane way to euthanise a sick fish and once accidentally killed a giant seahorse, because death is omnipresent in the ornamental fish trade.
EDUCATION
2011 - PhD, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. Supervisors: Dr Audrey Yue, Dr Fran Martin. Thesis title: The Stomach is a Grave: Epidemic Obesity and the Metabolic Body.
‘An outstanding dissertation, a deeply consequential piece of critical scholarship that is intellectually groundbreaking on many fronts.’ - Dr Melinda Cooper
‘Not only does the candidate demonstrate an impressive fluency in a vast array of literatures (theoretical, scientific, social science and policy based), she is able to bring this heterogeneous material together into a cohesive and original argument that nowhere flounders on unnecessary detail.’ - Dr Nicole Shukin
‘So you’ll be getting a job now, darling?’ - my mum
2006 - Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Cultural Studies. First class. University of Melbourne.
2005 - Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Gender Studies, Australian National University