Jay Lankau


copywriter and narrative designer


Jay is a wordsmith and storyteller based in Atlanta, Georgia who focuses on authenticity and tone when crafting brand stories. His commitment to engaging, snappy, and accessible copy is informed by his background in editorial and journalistic spaces. Jay’s work has appeared in The Sunlight Press, Savannah Magazine, WebMD, and VinePair, and across print, digital, audio, and video mediums. Jay has also worked with brands such as Patron Tequila, Barefoot Wine, Teremana, and organizations such as The Hue Society, The Savannah Tree Foundation, and Berlitz Corp.Fascinations include: Birdwatching, folklore, pretty wine labels, TTRPGs, and campy horror movies.Jay graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2020 with a B.F.A. in Writing.

Current roles

LUVU Brands
Copywriter & Content Manager
December 2024 - Present

Vinepair
Contract Writer
July 2022 - Present


Previous experience

BetterSleep by Ipnos
Script Writer
June 2023 - December 2025
Planned, developed, and wrote engaging audio story voice-over scripts for over 65 million global sleep app users. Adhered to brand voice guidelines, responded to editor feedback, and used performance knowledge and technical formatting to create unique & engaging listening experiences.
Savannah Magazine
Freelance Writer & Social Media Manager
March 2020 - August 2022
Partnered with editor in order to follow brand voice and met hard deadlines with engaging editorial stories related to traveling, food & drink, architecture, and health. Maintained positive and professional brand partnerships (SCAD, Savannah Tree Society, etc) and executed social media strategy to 28.3k Instagram followers.
Medscape/WebMD
Freelance Writer
August 2021 - May 2022
Collaborated with managing editors to produce engaging, on-brand editorial content and news briefs, conducted independent research and obtained original interview material and quotes, and authored 15 feature and news brief articles related to LGBT healthcare, mental health, medical schools, and health/wellness social media trends.
Berlitz Corp
Materials Design Contractor
October 2020 - October 2021
Formatted Learning & Development and DE&I contents for client’s internal use by matching existing style guides, collaborated with multiple teams to complete deliverables on schedule, and provided constructive feedback on how to improve remote work processes.
Comic Book Resources
Games Features Writer
March 2020 - May 2020
Researched features pieces relating to video games and relevant industry events. Edited, formatted, and improved SEO for each article, delivered on deadlines.
The Daily Fandom
Contributor Intern
October 2018 - July 2019
Responsible for contributing articles every month for the culture section of the website, as well as the articles’ research and SEO. Topics included TV, video games, film, and music.


Education

Savannah College of Art and Design
March 2020 | B.F.A. in Writing
CalArts, Coursera.com Class
Story and Narrative Development for Video Games
Character Design for Video Games

Fiction

Editorial

News Writing

Promotional Writing

script writing

Belbeeps lore video

Role: Script writerIzzy AKA "Belbeeps" is a Twitch streamer and artist who uses a digital avatar online (VTuber). The lore video was a viewer community reward that tells a story explaining Izzy's character's background and how they came to be where they are now.

"a knight's quest for love"

Role: Script writerDiscover a tale of bravery and romance as Sir Cassian defies all odds in his pursuit of true love."A Knight's Quest for Love" is a narrated audio story available on the app BetterSleep. It was written for the app's 2023 Pride Month releases and featured on the Apple Store.

"the legend of mama quilla"

Role: Script writerWhen the Incan goddess of the moon overworks herself, her devoted priestesses go on a journey to meet the sun god Inti and help Mama Quilla get some well-deserved rest."The Legend of Mama Quilla" is a narrated audio story available on the app BetterSleep. It was written for the app's 2023 Latinx History Month releases and featured on the Apple Store.

"pride on the soccer field"

Role: Script writerDiscover the power of community and acceptance as Jack finds his place on the soccer field."Pride on the Soccer Field" is a narrated slow literature audio story available on the app BetterSleep. It was written for the app's 2024 Pride Month release and is narrated by soccer player Collin Martin.

"river's magical worlds"

Role: Script writerDiscover the wonders of storytelling as River and their grandpa create new worlds where anything is possible, and you can be anyone you want to be."River's Magical Worlds" is a narrated slow literature audio story available on the app BetterSleep, written for the 2024 Pride Month release. The story features a nonbinary protagonist who uses they/them pronouns.

"3D voyage under the sea"

Role: Script writerDive under the waves and discover the sounds that exist along the ocean floor in this magical journey for the senses."3D Voyage Under the Sea" is a narrated slow literature audio story available on the app BetterSleep. The script focuses on integrating narrated description with audio cues and other sounds.

"Dreamweaver Academy"

Role: Script writerWelcome to the prestigious Dreamweaver Academy, where young Nocturna study to become the next great Sandman."Dreamweaver Academy" is a narrated slow literature audio story available on the app BetterSleep. The story features an original fantasy world with original locations, characters, and fantasy races.

Contact

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Building Narrative & Copy Ecosystems

I'm interested in creating a cohesive user experience from a storytelling and copywriting perspective. That means building brand voices that resonate, translating goals into messaging that adapts across channels and audiences, and preserving a unified copy ecosystem informed by data.

Please note: Liberator is an erotic luxury intimacy brand. In this portfolio, you may see copy that reflects intimate wellness or adult themes.


Brand Voice Systems

I craft and maintain tone, style, and writing across multiple brands that adapts to who is speaking - and more importantly, who is being spoken to. Across three distinct consumer brands, I've developed copy systems that hold up brand-by-brand and channel-by-channel. Jaxx, Liberator, and Avana have distinct tones for product descriptioins, email campaigns, and long-form editorial. Each brand has its own vocabulary, guidelines, and emotional registers.

  • Jaxx: A warm and playful brand tone with a focus on comfort and community. Positioned towards families and people who host often. Copy that sounds like a friend recommending something.

  • Avana: Calm, credible, and health-forward. Language earns trust through clarity: what the product does, who it helps, and why. Strays away from explicit wellness claims, but meant to sound like a friendly family doctor or yoga instructor trying to look out for you.

  • Liberator: Sensual, editorial, and confident. A voice that reads as elevated and intimate rather than crude or comedic.

Shopify Migration Initiative

Between October 2025 and January 2026, I was part of the team that migrated consumer brands Liberator, LiberatorStore (an ad-safe version of Liberator), Jaxx, and Avana from Magento 2 (Adobe Commerce) to Shopify. My role focused on content. For Liberator, I wrote and updated product copy across 6 product categories and more than 30 subcategories, reworking outdated PDPs to fit the new site framework. I also wrote and built 15 navigation pages and located and restored missing content across the sites. After the Shopify sites launched between May and July 2026, I audited the blogs and fixed 140 broken links.Shopify's more flexible themes let me improve how customers read and explore our content, from product descriptions and blogs to enhanced content and FAQs, creating a smoother browsing experience alongside a new checkout system. The results were significant. With all brands live, web revenue from July through September 2026 grew 24% year over year, nearly double the 13% growth rate before the migration. LiberatorStore's revenue rose 71% as orders nearly doubled, Avana's revenue grew almost fivefold, and Jaxx turned a 37% year-over-year decline into growth.

Campaign Development & Launches

Across brands like Liberator, Jaxx, and Avana, I develop cycles of seasonal sales campaigns and support new product launches. Each sale cycle starts with a broad-picture story: "Bring the Resort Home," "The Great Indoors," "Boudoir Theater." I write and schedule the email flows and homepage messaging that carry that story consistently across channels.For new launches, I develop copy tone and naming conventions that turn a set of SKUs into coherent collections. This means deciding how new materials and configurations get named, differentiating similar product styles, and crafting consistent naming conventions in order to create parity. An example of this is the Raven-Symone Home Collection, a celebrity-partnered launch for Jaxx where I named products, wrote PDP copy, developed naming conventions for new fabrics and styles, and built out instructional copy, landing pages, and funnel-stage ad copy from awareness to conversion. I also wrote scripts for the collection's commercials and supported media outreach - influencers, press releases, and arranging interviews with local TV networks. I was able to own a range of messaging throughout the launch's life cycle.Before this role, I worked with VinePair and Savannah Magazine, partnering directly with client stakeholders to represent their events and products to each publication's readership. That work meant reconciling two different voices: the client's promotional goals, and the publication's editorial standards. By synthesizing both of these into editorial content, I craft articles that read as native, useful, and entertaining content rather than an ad, while still driving outcomes for the client.

AEO & SEO

Over the past two years, I've worked across Liberator, Jaxx, and Avana to improve organic and AI-search visibility from the copy side. This includes meta descriptions, H1s, intro paragraphs, blog articles, and FAQ sections written specifically to strengthen relevance and answer the direct queries AI overviews favor.For Avana, I rewrote the site's product and category copy, building FAQ sections around symptom-based questions that customers and AI search engines ask. That copy now anchors a keyword cluster - Avana ranks #1 for "pillow for acid reflux," "wedge pillow for side sleepers," "pillows for acid reflux gerd," and "acid reflux pillow wedge," among others, and the Avana bed wedge is one of the first results in Google's AI overview for "best wedge pillow for acid reflux." Site-wide, Avana's keywords appearing in AI overviews grew from 23 to 442 over the period.For Liberator, I idenitifed and removed keyword cannibilization to prevent search terms from diluting each other's rankings. Each product and collection page now owns a distinct keyword lane instead of splitting traffic with its sibilngs. Liberator's AI overveiw presence grew from 0 to over 3,000 keywords in the same window.For Jaxx, I launched a new blog built around long-tail search terms. AI tools are built to answer specific, lower-competition questions with natural language, so blogs catered to these types of key phrases. Since the blog launched alongside the site's Shopify relaunch, Jaxx's AI overview keyword count grew from single digits to nearly 500, with organic traffic climbing steadily.

PR & Media Outreach

My PR experience runs in both directions. I've worked both as the outlet coordinating content with brands, and as the brand pitching outlets for coverage. This gives me a practical understanding of what makes a pitch land.On the brand side, I handle press outreach across Liberator, Jaxx, and Avana, tailoring the pitch and target list to each brand's category. For Liberator, that means relationships with adult-industry trade press like AVN, as well as securing product placements in gift-guide and listicle content through affiliate partnerships. For Jaxx, my outreach direclty led to national television coverage: I secured Raven Symone's interview on Good Day Atlanta for the Jaxx Raven-Symone Home Collection launch, a placement that resulted from my direct pitch to the network.I've also written investor relations releases covering the company's strategic moves, including our Shopify migration, distributed through Issue Direct to the financial press wire. This work requires a different tone, something more precise and compliance-aware, aimed at investors instead of consumers.Before this role, I worked the other side of the table with VinePair and Savannah Magazine, coordinating partnered editorial content between client brands and the publications' readerships.

Email Marketing

When I joined Luvu Brands, Jaxx, Liberator, and Avana's email programs consisted of seasonal sale announcements. No lifecycle automation existed. Working with the team's paid media specialist, I helped design and build the flow systems from scratch: welcome series, cart and browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back, and VIP/loyalty flows, each with copy tailored to where a customer sits in the life cycle and relationship with the brands.I also designed and implemented a three-tier audience segmentation system based on engagement. Tier 1 (most engaged) received every send, Tier 2 (moderately engaged) received a reduced cadence, and Tier 3 (lapsed) received only new product launches and sale announcements, protecting deliverability and sender reputation by not over-mailing subscribes who had disengaged. This structure let us match message frequency to subscriber interest rather than sending identically to the full list.Before I joined, the brands didn't run A/B tests on email marketing. I introduced testing on subject lines, CTAs, and audiences, building a habit into a program that had previously been static. I also wrote, or otherwise proofread, every email during my time there, building many from scratch and deciding the cadence of the sales cycle, as well as what products to feature based on inventory and trends.