Welcome aboard Nina Cresswell

Senior writer Nina Cresswell joins the TBB content team, bringing with her a career devoted to writing and a passion for marketing that makes people feel good. Get to know Nina better, as she discusses her wealth of copywriting expertise. 

I’ve always taken to writing like a daffodil-smooshing bumblebee. As a kid, I’d write short stories about alien encounters, songs about builders’ bums, and poems about tangerines.

Growing up on a boring council estate in County Durham, I wanted to know everything about everything beyond it. And I couldn’t wait to write about it all. 

So, I studied Magazine Journalism at Sunderland University – spending my internship in London writing for music mags before graduating in 2011 with First-Class Honours. With the highest mark of the year in the bag, the world was my oyster! Alas, I signed on the dole – because there were also no jobs in the North East of England. 

Working in a call centre for a year made me more determined than ever to write for a living. I was still interviewing bands, but the pay was in pints and gig tickets. Finally, I went on to manage the comedy section for popular entertainment website Whatculture. With millions of views and shares, I wrote the company’s highest circulating article (about call centres, would you believe).

This led me to content marketing – providing strategic writing and editing services for a boutique agency in York, then award-winning Leeds-based digital agency Stickyeyes. I’m forever grateful for these experiences, in which I worked closely on campaigns for Tesco Bank, Hertz, ghd, Beaverbrooks, Wedgwood, Waterford Crystal, LUX, and Staples.

In 2017, I founded my own one-woman-two-cat agency, Writewells. My own experiences and values helped shape my personal brand, where the emphasis was on marketing in a way that made people feel good and included. Where the product or service was offered as an addition to someone’s wholeness, not convincing them they needed to fill a hole.

Over the next five years, I inhaled all I could about conscious copywriting, meaning management, and the power of marketing archetypes. I was worried it might put most clients off, but then an agency called The Bigger Boat got in touch in 2020 with some of the most enjoyable clients I’ve ever written for. When I was asked to join the TBB crew full-time as maternity cover in 2022, I dived in without hesitation. I’d previously worked closely with Carrie, head of content, and couldn’t wait to again. Everything was the perfect fit – the culture, the clients, the values.

In my first couple of weeks, I’ve written for some fantastic TBB clients – highlights include creating content plans and socials for sex-positive brand Kiiroo, ad copy for household name Little Tikes, and blogs for Baby Annabell and BABY born. The freelance world is an island, and I’m looking forward to becoming part of this good ship’s crew – getting stuck in, learning lots, having a laugh, and being creative where I can.

When I’m not writing marketing copy, I’m writing stories, songs, and poems, just like the old days. Having coeliac disease inspired me to start a gluten-free blog (some of my foodie writing has been published by The Guardian), and I also write on feminist issues I feel strongly about. I’m addicted to cold water dipping – I have a daft jump about the waves on the Sunderland coast most weeks. I love aerial yoga, creating collage dreamscapes from old magazines, binge-watching Dinner Date, and creating extremely specific Spotify playlists.