Mastering the Marketing Elements with Beatriz Kaori Miyakoshi Lopes

International relations. Japanese studies. Population aging. Accessible architecture. Long ago, the four passions lived together in harmony — but everything changed when COVID-19 attacked. Only Beatriz Kaori Miyakoshi Lopes, master of all four interests, could overcome the pandemic and use her across-the-board love of collaboration to forge a new path.

And when the world needed her most … she came to work at Brafton!

The Adventure Begins

Dear reader, if I have done my job well, you will likely recognize that intro as an adapted version of the opening monologue in “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” The good news is that we didn’t have to find Beatriz frozen in an iceberg like Aang. Instead, her adventure began when she applied for a Marketing Assistant position in December 2021.

“I was rethinking my priorities during the pandemic,” she says. “I worked at a bank before, and I learned a lot, but I needed to find something else — something more my style.”

Lucky for us, Beatriz decided to explore the marketing world — and it turned out that she had a knack for all of it, from project management to creative work. She was promoted after just one year, and now she’s easily one of the most multitalented and vital members of our Brafton team. “I thought I knew absolutely nothing about marketing,” she says, “but then I became a Marketing Specialist and now I’m a Project Manager!”

A New Kind of Hero

Although Beatriz may not be fending off the Fire Nation, soaring around on her Sky Bison or providing the foundation for one of the best redemption arcs in the history of fiction (looking at you, Zuko), she’s very much a hero of the Brafton story.

“There are times I’ve had to handle the creation of over 100 landing pages at a time,” she recalls. “I was building, tracking, assigning — it was something I never thought I could do.” But did Beatriz let her doubt get to her? Definitely not! Like any proper protagonist, she rose to the occasion and mastered the marketing elements to make a huge difference in our world.

And she doesn’t just work behind the scenes. You can also find Beatriz’s brilliance on full display in the Brafton blog.

One of her first pieces, “Football and Holidays: A Golden Marketing Opportunity,” was a chance to dip her toes into writing — something she’d long had an interest in. Naturally, she knocked it out of the park. (Yes, I know that was a baseball reference. Yes, I know we’re talking about football. Let me live.) Beatriz says she could attribute this success to her identity as a huge bookworm, her passion for teaching or her love of English, her favorite language. (“Except the vowels. The vowels are terrible.”)

But as a copywriter myself, I suspect her natural storytelling has just as much to do with the fact that she’s a self-proclaimed “huge nerd” — although she knows that, by saying this, everyone’s going to assume she’s talking about “Star Wars.” If she ever decides to join us on the Dark Side, we’ll be ready.

In the meantime, Beatriz is expanding her Brafton experience by working even more closely with other teams, including Editorial. For “What is B2G (Business to Government) Marketing: The Essential Guide and Best Strategies,” I was lucky enough to be her brainstorming partner, editor and meme consultant — the Sokka to her Aang. She says she loves this kind of work because “I can write in my own style, I can put in jokes, I can be dramatic!”

Of course, the story is far from over. Beatriz still has a lot of great things to do here. “I much prefer this to any job I’ve had so far,” she explains. “I’m having so much fun!”

More Than a Project Manager and Marketing Specialist

Like everyone, Beatriz is more than her resume and job description. She’s a hero outside of marketing just as much as she is for her Brafton coworkers.

For example, she always wanted to volunteer — so she harnessed her love of languages to help teach Portuguese to Haitian refugees and English to Brazilian citizens. “They were totally different experiences,” she recalls. “Some of the refugees didn’t have computers or personal devices, so they all had to do the same class on the same phone. I tried so hard to make it all accessible.”

And speaking of accessibility, that’s yet another interest in her ever-expanding repertoire. “Health is always on my mind due to my disability,” she says, “so I try to learn more about the world from an infrastructure perspective. ‘This building is beautiful, but is it accessible?’” On top of that, she says that if she could have any superpower in the world, it would be healing through waterbending — and as someone who chose “talking to animals,” I feel a little bad now.

Although waterbending isn’t something we offer here at Brafton, Beatriz says she’s thrilled with the things she gets to experience here — like “connecting with people all over the world.” She adds that it’s even helped her learn more about her own perspective.

“I was born with a little bit of both Eastern and Western cultures,” she explains. “I had these balancing ideas. I still feel a duality, even to this day — sometimes I’m like, ‘My Japanese side is speaking more,’ or ‘This is my Brazilian side.’ I feel like I’m still in a bubble, so I love to meet other people and cultures.”

Come Say Hi!

From judging a manga contest where she wishes she could “give everyone a golden star” to mastering all the marketing elements, Beatriz really is our very own Avatar. She’s incredible to work with and even more incredible to talk to — so Bia, this one’s for you!

via GIPHY

But don’t just take my word for it, dear reader. Check out all of what Beatriz has done right here.

BONUS: If you were a piece of marketing material, what would you be?

“An eBook! Something with visuals but with a lot of stuff to read. I tend to write walls of text — so as much as I’d like to be an infographic (straight to the point, visual and clean-cut), I’d be something more long-winded and time-consuming.”