Emma Young:  

I am currently retired after 35 years in the advertising industry. I began my advertising career at Leo Burnett where I went from junior copy writer to associate creative director before leaving to go to Soft Sheen Products in 1980 as a marketing manager. I talked Soft Sheen ( a tiny company at the time) into starting an inhouse advertising agency, which I headed up - Brainstorm Communications. Soft Sheen sales went from $800,000 to $33 million in less than a year - and up to $99 million the following year. While I was at Brainstorm Communications, we were approached in 1982 to help with a voter registration campaign. I created and produced the first voter registration campaign that used the electronic media - "Come Alive, October 5," which resulted in the registration of 200,000 new voters. As a result, I was asked to write radio commercials for Harold Washington's Mayoral Campaign. Since then I have freelanced on a number of political campaigns, including Reverend Meeks' senatorial campaign, Rep. Bobby Rush re-election bid and Gov. Rod Blagoevitch's campaign (notice, I'm not saying that too loudly :-) Subsequently Soft Sheen was sold to L'oreal, but I had long gone by that time after being convinced by Tom Burrell to use my writing and ad creative talents for a more versatile mix of products other than haircare. I was at Burrell for 10 years as Vice President/Group Creative Director. In 1993 I left Burrell and mov...Expand for more