Lovely to meet you.

Point of View

A brand is no longer built on communications alone. Today's most interesting and resilient brands are built on an experience that continually adds greater value to people's lives throughout the relationship.

Brands are their whole experience. And people want to know, 'what have you done for me lately?'

Running a TV spot or serving a banner ad must be mere breadcrumbs within a greater brand eco-system that creates a shared, mutually beneficial experience between brands and people.

Experience

A truly integrated thinker, I bring 18 years of strategy expertise in Brand, Experience and Content Marketing. Across agency and client-side roles, I've been able to understand and impact a wide array of categories and brands, including Target, Dairy Queen, Hanes Brands, Red Wing Shoes, Syngenta, Land O'Lakes, Purina, Instinct Pet Food, Kubota and Edward Jones.

Yet the common thread throughout my own 'journey' has been my genuine curiosity about what motivates people, and passion for bringing teams together to cultivate more meaningful relationships between people and brands.

Edward Jones

VP, Director of Strategy & Insights

Martin Williams Advertising / Br team

2020-2021

As the Integrated Strategy Lead, I was responsible for Strategy across several Omnicom agency partners in service of Edward Jones. In this role, my experience in bringing disparate teams together under a unified vision was a necessary superpower. From pitch to performance reporting, I led a team of integrated strategists in helping the Edward Jones client attraction team develop a new creative strategy, and an integrated marketing experience across the customer journey.

Edward Jones

Opportunity

For several consecutive quarters, Edward Jones continued to see it's client attraction marketing campaign, decline in attribution and brand recall. Additionally, the brand had recently completed an enterprise unified brand positioning. The brand needed a fresh creative strategy that aligned with the firm's overarching unified positioning.

Objectives

1. Increase Unaided Brand Awareness and Brand Familiarity with prospective investors.
   
2. Capture the brand's most valued equity, it's very human, very personal approach, through the creative strategy and execution.
   
3. Deliver qualified leads to the nearly 19,000 local Edward Jones branch teams in North America.

Edward Jones

Strategy Development

Unlike many clients, Edward Jones had more existing research than they know what to do with. After digesting this library of category, brand and investor insights, we coupled these learnings with cultural and consumer trends to arrive at our strategy.

Insight

Strategic Reframe

Most people associate Edward Jones with the category, and they associate category with retirement. But for investors (and Edward Jones), life’s not only about retirement. It’s about financial well-being. Today, tomorrow, and in the future.

reposition Edward Jones as your partner through so much more than long-term investing by orienting around well-being today.

Edward Jones

Testing & Refining

The Edward Jones marketing team required a series of qualitative and quantitative testing prior to production of assets. From initial creative platforms, to variations on bringing the key idea to life, to testing storyboards, we carefully and thoughtfully refined our direction per the feedback without losing the core strategy that led to the work. The final round of testing showed higher scores than the brand had seen in many years. Our strategy in reframing the brand as 'helping people live their best lives' was hitting all of the right nerves, with prospects and existing clients.

Edward Jones

Segment Intelligence & Understanding

Using Omnicom's proprietary people-based insight platform, OMNI, we developed profiles, footprints and journeys for Edward Jones key client attraction segments, Loyal Advocates and Informed Analyzers.

As Creative assets were being developed, our Strategy needed to be translated into an Engagement Strategy that gave more meaning to activation, and an Experience Strategy that outlined the experience architecture along the journey.

Engagement Strategy

Experience Strategy

Edward Jones

Creative Content

Edward Jones

Outcome

Our new work launched in early October 2021, and within the first three months, Unaided Awareness jumped 4 points, Brand Familiarity was up 6.7%, and Google Trends indicate the work has generated more interest in the brand than ever (or since Google started tracking in 2004).

TARGET

Senior Manager

Brand & Category Marketing

2012 - 2016

During my nearly five years at Target, I had the opportunity to impact several areas of the brand's business, including my first role within the organization, as an Experience Design Strategist working on re-imagining Target's highest profile web experiences (e.g., homepage, category landing pages, etc.). While in Brand & Category Marketing, I played a key role on categories such as Pets, Candy, Snacks, Mens, and Sleepwear -- and worked closely with the marketing teams of household names such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Frito Lay, General Mills, Purina, Mars, Hershey's, Hanes, Wellness Pet Food, and Freshpet. This experience not only taught me a great deal about Retail, but also ecommerce, merchandising and brand partnerships.

TARGET

Role & Responsibilities

As a Senior Manager of Brand & Category Marketing, I was accountable for integrated marketing for Target's $1B activewear business. This specifically involved Brand & Experience Strategy for C9 Champion brand at Target. This role required a range of strategic and integrated marketing leadership skills including Brand Positioning, Brand, Product & Promotional Advertising, and driving Creative, Content & Media Strategy across all integrated touchpoints.

TARGET

Strategy Development

Turning Insight into Action

Leveraged insight from qualitative research to identify ownable white space for brand point of view.

Strategic Diplomacy

Partnered with Hanes Champion brand teams and Target merchandising leaders to refresh brand strategy and positioning.

Mixing Up Our Approach to "Media"

Developed roadmap for driving brand preference with next gen guests and dimensionalized media mix to deliver greater value through each interaction.

TARGET

To boost trial of our new sports bra fit and drive market share, we created a first-of-its kind PopSugar + Target Must-Have Box for January 2015. This box was so popular, it sold out within minutes and created new buzz for the brand with key communities and individuals.

Creative: Target Creative

Media: Haworth Media

Creative Content

Creative: Deutsch LA

Media: Haworth Media

TARGET

Activation & Outcomes

Life Time Fitness C9 Challenge

To prove the performance of our redesigned sports bras and performance leggings, we created a one-of-its-kind branded fitness class, the C9 Challenge, in partnership with Life Time Fitness and one of our brand ambassadors, Adam Rosante.

This partnership strategically enabled us to go where our guests already were, deliver value through fresh content, product giveaways, coupons, and seeing our newest products put to the test by the class instructors.

Within the first nine months of 2016, we had executed nearly 12,000 C9 Challenge classes, and impacted the lives of approximately 220k people. Additionally, in that time, the class had was already the 8th most popular out of the 111+ classes they offered across the Nation.

Land o'Lakes

Senior Strategist

Colle McVoy Advertising

2009 - 2011

One of my proudest achievements while at Colle +McVoy as a Senior Strategist was my strategy work for Land O'Lakes dairy foods. This role brought together my experience and understanding of brand strategy, as well as digitally-driven content and experience strategy.

Land o'Lakes

Opportunity

When Land O'Lakes came to us in 2009, the brand only had a website (no social presence to be found) and it hadn't been updated in thirteen years. The brand needed a fresh digital presence and to establish a modern version of the brand's point of view through content-driven marketing.

Objectives

1. Increase awareness of Land O’Lakes online
2. Build perception of Land O’Lakes as a trusted resource for cooks and bakers
3. Ultimately, increase brand relevance with emerging and growing families

Previous digital presence

Land o'Lakes

Strategy Development

Identifying the White Space

Leveraged insight from virtually-enabled ethnographic research to identify ownable role for Land O'Lakes to play in the daily lives of modern families.

Experience Strategy

Developed strategy to reframe Land O'Lakes' digital brand point of view and pave the runway for a stronger value exchange through a content-driven approach.

Land o'Lakes

Experience & Content Strategy

Reframing the Brand's Value through Content

Through our Discovery, we learned of the Land O'Lakes Test Kitchen and the passionate, tireless team behind the scenes making sure every tip, trick and taste is just right.

Therefore, knowing we couldn't compete as just another 'recipe site', we leaned into the Test Kitchen's very human expertise and brought their content to the forefront.

This brand point of view was also at the core when establishing its presence and content strategy for social channels -- creating an eco-system of interconnected content that paid off the brand strategy and fulfilled its intentions for the consumers, and the brand.

Land o'Lakes

Experience & Content Strategy

The Blog Post that Launched a Partnership

While in Discovery, we were following the (then only emerging) Pioneer Woman on her rise to cultural influence. Upon noticing her practically tempting Land O'Lakes to reach out, we brought the opportunity to Lake O'Lakes marketing leaders and ultimately, a culturally-relevant, on-brand conversation had began.

The brand went on the partner with Ree, including the Test Kitchen team themselves taking several trips to the ranch and cooking up inspiration over the course of a number of years.

Dairy Queen

Strategist

space150

2006 - 2008

In 2007, in my first role as a Strategist, I was fortunate to work with Dairy Queen corporation, rethinking many different aspects of the brand experience as they brand took its initial steps in to the emerging digital world. This included the brand's flagship digital experience, dq.com, rethinking their Blizzard Fan Club loyalty program, as well as my proudest achievement -- reimagining their approach to their youth and family program.

Dairy Queen

Opportunity

In 2008, Dairy Queen (DQ) was lagging competing QSR brands  in terms of average check size, and in affinity with kids and families as a place for meals.'

The brand needed a modern experience that would drive authentic affinity with kids and families, and become a brand they prefer regularly for dinner and dessert.

Objectives

1. Increase HH trips by getting families to visit DQ one more time per year
   
2. Migrate average DQ family check size closer to QSR industry average
   

Dairy Queen

Strategy Development

In addition to leveraging syndicated data related to tweens' use of emerging digital experiences, we conducted multiple phases of qualitative research throughout North America to determine the brand's white space opportunity, and to test initial ideas and designs.

Reframing the Ask

Rather than approaching the opportunity as a conventional restaurant chain 'kids' club,' we reframed the role of the program using insights gleaned during research on and with Tweens.

Game-Changing Insight

In addition to understanding how a modern 'kids' club' could be of more value to tweens, we learned a game-changing insight -- unlike at other QSR chains, kids would rather have a treat with their meal than a toy.

Dairy Queen

Created a unique brand story, playing off our key insights and brought to life via an online game and in-store experience.

Creative Content

Dairy Queen

Experience Strategy

Experience Strategy by Development Phase

As the experience was being developed, partnered closely with Creative and Tech teams to ensure each additional feature added a key piece of strategic value for the guest, and the brand.

Created a Perpetual Brand Experience

In addition to creating the digital experience, strategically designed the in-store experience and its touchpoints, to complement the gaming experience online.

Dairy Queen

Outcome

Let's Create Together