Happy by choice. Grim by name.
Hi, my name's Matt Grim. I'm an associate creative director of verbal strategy who discovered the world of advertising, marketing, and branding by accident.
I was a personal trainer with a small business in Chicago. When the 2008 mortgage crisis hit, I was a personal trainer with a small business in Chicago that lost 70% of its recurring business within a week of the onset of the crisis.
I had to rebuild my business fast and the traditional market was grossly oversaturated with out-of-work personal trainers. I couldn't compete with the traditional playbook: sex appeal, flex appeal, or copious amounts of experience. Instead of trying and floundering, I looked for creative marketing opportunities the other trainers were too distracted by reflective surfaces to see. My favorite regrowth strategy was donating personal training packages to gala events, silent auctions, and charitable causes throughout Chicago.
One of these events had a promotion which disrupted my sweaty world: a complementary full-page ad in the event's program guide in exchange for donating. Over one long night, I made my first ad.
“Your ass is my business”
It was my very first headline, followed by a lock-up of "Grim Personal Training.”
After rebuilding my client roster to 115 regular clients by late 2008, I realized I was more excited about advertising and branding for my business than actually running it. A lunch meeting with a client who worked in marketing (thank you, Mike Fortner, I will forever comp you with free workouts) introduced me to copywriting, branding, and content strategy. Two months later, I sold my business and enrolled in Miami Ad School.
Since then, I’ve worked on a colorful array of domestic and international clients. My international and domestic experience includes Singapore, Bangkok, Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Hamburg, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and Seattle.
I've led content design, managed social content, facilitated pitches, created best practices and tenants for branding, crafted scripts for every medium out there, mentored junior copywriters, worked with partners of all roles and levels, and executed a full gambit of meaningful campaigns.
I currently live in Seattle and work on the Xbox global brand team as the associate creative director of verbal strategy.
Want to chat? Email me.
MatthewGrim@gmail.com
