Tech Brands | Lara Holleran

Agency: McgarryBowen | Client: Intel Global | Project: Global Campaign — commercial, digital & social

When Copywriters become Tech Nerds, Research is Required

Lara Holleran

San Francisco . Portland . Bend

2018—2021

Intel | Adobe | LiveRamp | StrikeReady | AWS | ASUS | Amazon | Capital One

echnology. The vinegar to a writer's sugar, the oil to our water, the bane to our existence ... some may say.

There's no denying that the tech industry is as far from writing as a topic can get, but that's not to say I don't enjoy a good scrimmage on Call of Duty, or understand the basic difference between RAM and Memory. The challenge for writing copy for tech is the complexity of building a storyline that resonates from "speeds & feeds".

The audience is a mix between fanatical and rip-your-throat-out if you get the callouts wrong. If it's meant to be 2.2 and you wrote 2.1, you might as well have insulted someone's mother. But, for me, that is where the true joy comes into play. The audience is rabid, the stakes are high, and Reddit-forbid you fake

your way through it. I first learned this lesson interning for an e-sports college league. High in self-confidence and assured that no matter what I wrote would be great, I winged it, throwing gaming words left and right like a noob. THWACK! That was the sound of my ego getting KO'd as I watched each one of my pieces get shredded.

Now, eight years later, and multiple global campaigns for Fortune 50 tech companies successfully produced alongside some amazing teams of people, I finally understand what the industry needs. They need writers who aren't afraid of research, who can read about AI-based virtual-reality until their eyes go blurry, and have no fear in the face of conventions filled with masked cosplayers or lapel-protected, drone-flying engineers.

When we get right down to it, writing for tech isn't really about writing, it's about joining in the excitement of the next invention, the next game, and the next level-up.

You can pretend to be a nerd all you want,

but if you truly want to write about it,

you have to live it.

Some of the projects included below involved deep research into the newest memory updates, AI-based cybersecurity analysis, processors, mini-PCs, art-inspired motion graphics, credit vs. business-loan application, and modular, self-driving robots for children. I can safely say that if you need another member on your trivia team for tech night, I'm your girl.