Ameena Meer—Writer

ameena meer creative director/ copywriter TRAFFIC CREATIVE MANAGEMENT 111 EAST 70TH STREET NYC 10021 T. 1212 734 0041 E. INFO@TRAFFIC-NYC.COM

COPYWRITING product naming promotional/collateral pieces catalogs tagline development advertising editorial

BRANDING creating a voice development of internal brand identifying core audience strategies and product vision

BOOKS

Available on Amazon

Ameena Meer is a writer and creative director who has launched and revitalized high-impact brands and products with lasting influence. Her strength is expressing emotion that inspires action. As a writer, Meer knows intuitively that a good story changes minds. She believes the most effective communication is based on love for the consumer, respect for the brand and change for the good.

After a misspent youth as a fashion victim, club kid, journalist, dancer, editor, Asian American activist and waitress, Ameena came back to writing with her first novel, Bombay Talkie. Three daughters later, she authored How to Shoot Your Kids for Arthur Elgort. After she survived cancer she wrote Fearless Healing, an inspiring guide to take charge of your own healing . A mother of re-invention, Meer’s been a copywriter, thinker, conceptor and/or creative director for Avon, Calvin Klein, Coty, The Gap, Estee Lauder, Donna Karan, Federated Stores, Pzifer, L’Oreal, The Navajo Nation, Homes for the Homeless and Proctor & Gamble.

In recent years, Ameena began to bridge her commercial branding and advertising work with her passion for natural health and healing. She trained and became a certified Holistic Nutritionist, Energy Healer and Meditation Guide. As her focus in this area has grown, so have the clients and brands with whom she works—providing them with a deep knowledge she has to offer. She has worked with Jurlique, Under the Canopy, Kama Ayurveda, and 5S for Shiseido (based on 5 senses). She has spent the last two years working with Weleda as a consulting creative director to help brand and guide them for the US.

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE WORD IT’S THE IDEA THE IDEA UNDERNEATH THE EMOTION THE IDEA THAT DRIVES THE STORY THAT PAINTS THE PICTURES THAT MAKES US BELIEVE BRINGS BELOW-THE-LINE TO ABOVE-THE-LINE VIRTUAL TO REALITY THE IDEA THE MOVES THE PRODUCT INTO OUR MINDSPACE THE IDEA THAT CLOSES THE SALE AND OPENS UP A WHOLE NEW WAY OF BEING

A conversation between Ameena Meer and Michelle Edelman.

ME: To start, tell us a bit about yourself.

AM: I had a great childhood. I was lucky enough to have grown up in tte 70s when we had a lot of freedom - no cell phones, no social media - and I spent a lot of time riding horses, reading voraciously and discovering new cities with friends with no one watching my every move. Though my parents are from India, my grandparents and eventually, my parents, were diplomats so we had a very international, multicultural, multireligious household. While I was raised as a Muslim, my father was a scientist (thus a rationalist) and my mother was always asking questions and exposing us to other faiths and people. I have family members across the racial, political and religious spectrum. I feel like I was always part of the world where everyone had different perspecitives and we all loved and respected each other, so it was a very open place.

ME: What inspired you to become a writer?

AM: When I was 6, I was voted most likely to become the school librarian, because I had read every book in our little school library! As soon as I could write, I did. I was obsessed with the idea of turning material experiences - taste, touch, scent, sounds - into words that could leap off the page and drag you into the story.

ME: You studied Literature at the University of California Santa Cruz, where we first met. When did it first occur to you that this would be your path?

AM: The problem with something that comes easily is that you don’t value it. So bizarrely, I got a combined Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and Dance - because I was as interested in the physical body as in the intellectual one. I used to dance 6 hours a day and write for 1 or 2 and still get my work done. I was never going to be a great dancer, but I loved being in my body in that way. Also, the dance major in Santa Cruz required you to study anatomy and physiology, which stranslated itself into my writing, too.

ME: Who is your greatest influence?

AM: That is always changing - at the moment, my thinking is influenced by social activists like Malcolm X or Bernie Saunders or the Dalai Lama - but I also adored Wayne Dyer. I listened to his audio books sometimes over and over again. I love Marianne Williamson and I re-read A Course in Miracles constantly. But as a writer, I love the dense sensual writing that sucks you in - whether its poetry or fiction. I used to say that if - like a Blues musician - I went down to the crossroads at mid night and typed in my best riff and then handed my lalptop back over my shoulder, the Devil would give me the power to write like Michael Ondatjee or Rumi or Gabriel

Garcia Marquez. It’s writing so lyrical and moving, it’s like listening to music.

ME: What inspires you? In general...

AM: At the moment, it’s water. I love to be in it or near it.

I love the way it is incredibly powerful and destructive and also gentle and beautiful. I love swimming, surfing, paddle-boarding, even taking showers. Just looking across a river, an ocean or a lake calms the soul. On the practical level, the quality and quantity of the water we drink is crucial to our health. It’s one of the reasons I am so moved by the Standing Rock Sioux. Water really is a sacred element.

ME: You’ve managed to create a bridge between your personal work and interest in natural healing with your branding and commercial copywriting work. How can clients benefit from your experience? And, why should it matter?

AM: Integrity and authenticity matters. Coming to terms with who you are – owning and healing your past and truly inhabiting your present gives you a powerful future.

That’s what you learn when you work with a person as an intuitive or a healer and that also applies to a brand or a business. If you can bring those thoughts to your brand communication, along with real ethics, consumers will recognize it and want to be a part of it. When I work with client, whether they are there for healing or creative direction, I fall in love with them a little. And when you work with a real love and respect that comes across in the results.

ME: What is your parting advice/message/gift?

AM: The best stuff comes when you release fear. Whether you are a brand or a person, take the time to step back and really immerse yourself in who you are, in what you’ve accomplished, in what you’re proud of. We all criticize and judge too easily – and that can trip us up and lower our vibrations. It’s not that you ignore your faults or mistakes but that you own them and use them as stepping stones to what you want to achieve. I love this quote: “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”

Ameena Meer has been the consulting creative director for WELEDA USA for the past three years, developing the brand’s positioning, branding guidelines and campaign concepts that become a template for the agency partners (advertising agency, digital agency, packaging design agency, retail design agency, PR agency). She creative directed still and video shoots along with coordinating the edits and post-production work. The challenge was to build awareness and an emotional connection between the U.S. consumer and the original wellness brand, started in 1921. The mission is for Weleda to become a dominant player in the natural skincare sector, leveraging their long European history with a deep roots in natural products with biodynamic and anthroposophic practices in the natural skincare sector. Over those three years, Weleda’s sales at Wholefoods increased 68-77% a year, the sales in other natural lifestyle stores increased 65% a year and the sales in mainstream stores like Target, Walgreen’s, Wegman’s and Walmart increased 100%.

SHISEIDO BEAUTY BRAND AND CONCEPT STORE. BRAND POSITIONING, NAME DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCT NAMING, PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS, TAG LINES, CONTENT COPY, AND IN-STORE SIGNAGE

If you know who you are.

If you’ll try anything once.

If you won’t take no for an answer.

If you live your own life.

If you choose love over stability.

If you like to share.

If you don’y try to be something you’re not.

If you think conformity is boring.

If you’re a man or a woman.

CK one

BRAND DEVELOPMENT

FASHION

LIFESTYLE

Thank you.

CONTACT:

TRAFFIC CREATIVE MANAGEMENT 111 EAST 70TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 T. 1212 734 0041 E. MICHELLEVE@TRAFFIC-NYC.COM