Copywriter - Marketing Communications (12 month maternity contract)

We have an exciting opportunity to join our thriving Creative Services team for 12 months as a Copywriter within the Marketing team. It’s a busy and experienced team where you can make a real difference and talk to millions of our customers on a weekly basis.

The majority of the work will be focussed around seasonally relevant trade, service and CRM emails and direct mail, for both our grocery business and across the Tesco estate – as well as the creation of engaging online content.

We require approx 1-2 years copywriting (within Marketing) experience. You will be a good communicator who can build strong relationships with colleagues in marketing and beyond, lending them your language expertise to make sure they deliver the very best message to customers.

About the team

The Creative Services team sits at the heart of Tesco’s UK Marketing Communications department, which plans, creates, distributes and evaluates a vast range of content, both online and offline.

You’ll see our work everywhere: on our social media platforms, on our website, in Tesco magazine (the UK’s most read publication), and in other places like our gift guide. We also write and design the emails that we send to customers and the direct mail they get though the post.

At Tesco, our purpose is to make sure we’re always serving Britain’s customers a little better every day. We bear this in mind when creating all content – making sure that it’s as helpful as possible for our customers, while also allowing us to stand out.

We work closely with the rest of the Marketing Comms team (as well as the wider business such as the brand and product teams), making sure that the content we create contributes to Tesco’s wider business strategy – and the core purpose we mentioned earlier. We may be the country’s biggest retailer, but we want customers to feel like we’re talking directly to them in a friendly way. There’s nothing more boring than a corporate giant with a minuscule personality.

• Writing compelling and engaging customer-facing marketing copy, including direct mail, email, digital display and SEO-friendly online content
• Actively make sure brand guidelines are followed across Marketing Comms, and act as an ambassador for the correct tone of voice
• Helping teams across Marketing Comms by subediting and proofreading copy to make sure it’s absolutely correct and on brand.

• 1-2 years’ experience working either client-side or agency-side (within retail would be a bonus)
• Exceptional and engaging writing ability
• An impressive portfolio of work
• A clear understanding of how copy – good or bad – can affect brand perception
• An unwavering dedication to high quality writing and grammatical accuracy
• A solid understanding of SEO best practice
• The ability to adapt and tailor copy for different channels
• Excellent sub-editing skills
• A creative mind that’s bubbling over with ideas
• An understanding of customer behaviours in the retail industry and how they can and have changed over time
• the ability to capture customers interest in one line.

About you:

So that’s what we’d expect job-wise. As for what we’re looking for in the right person, you’ll be:

• a sociable type who enjoys working as part of a (dare we say lively, dynamic and fun) team
• a creative thinker who’s always looking for “a better way to say it”
• able to think of adjectives besides “delicious” and “tasty” on a daily basis
• well organised, flexible, pragmatic and a lateral thinker
• able to interpret guidelines and be an ambassador for them – a guardian of brand standards
• a good communicator who can build strong relationships with colleagues in marketing and beyond, lending them your language expertise to make sure they deliver the very best message to customers
• objective, thick-skinned, open to change and accepting of constructive criticism (because when it comes to copy and design, everyone’s a critic)
• able to defend your work and persuade colleagues to use it, while remaining flexible and collaborative
• someone with an inquisitive mind who’s motivated and always wants to do the right thing for our customers
• a stickler who’s eye twitches when they see a mistake – like in this very bullet point
• someone whose spotted (and is disproportionately annoyed by) the other handful of deliberate mistakes in this job spec and can list them
• a creative who has an aversion to corporate jargon (but who understands it and can translate it into everyday language)
• calm under pressure and able to take last minute briefs and changes in your strides
• able to think of an original alternative word to “passionate” when describing how you feel about really good copy.