For their first foray into frozen baked goods, Hostess introduced Deep-Fried Twinkies, available in the freezer section at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. We had a very, very small budget to work with (the brand was still recovering from their famous bankruptcy and had only recently made their “Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.”) We were entrusted with determining a very strong creative strategy for a digital/social campaign that would run for two weeks prior to the launch and then continue for a three-month period.

Sheetz Convenience Stores, a $7.2 billion privately-held convenience store chain, launched a comprehensive premium coffee line, rolled out across 700 stores in 6 states. This project provides highlights on the strategy, design, branding, and promotional campaign work my team and I created for brewed and frozen coffee drinks. As the creative and strategy lead, I provided strong leadership for the team’s tremendous contribution to the brand’s growth. Other specific Sheetz campaigns are represented independently within my portfolio.

Sheetz Convenience Stores is a $7.2 billion privately-held convenience store chain, with an ongoing effort to represent the brand as a QSR with high quality food and not just a gas station. As strategic and creative lead, I provided strong team leadership through our team’s tremendous contribution to the brand’s growth over many years. This section provides a broad snapshot of the breadth and depth of my experience in QSR/convenience. Other specific campaigns are represented independently within my portfolio.

My team and I worked on the Hoover brand as AOR over the course of four years. We were responsible for developing an array of work for consumer and trade, including creative development of full campaigns for multiple product lines, overarching brand campaign work, sales enablement materials, trade-show design, product and brand photography, accessories packaging redesign, and more. In this project section, I am providing a very broad 50k-ft overview of the breadth of work and experience I’ve had on this account. Individual campaigns and marketing efforts with greater detail are represented separately within my portfolio.

Sheetz Convenience Stores, a $7.2 billion privately-held convenience store chain, launched a comprehensive premium coffee line, rolled out across 700 stores in 6 states. This project provides highlights on the strategy, design, branding, and promotional campaign work my team and I created for brewed and frozen coffee drinks. As the creative and strategy lead, I provided strong leadership for the team’s tremendous contribution to the brand’s growth. Other specific Sheetz campaigns are represented independently within my portfolio.

This promotional campaign was developed to help Victory Motorcycles address their annual winter sales slump. I led the creative strategy and creative campaign, which was developed around the impatience and anticipation riders feel during the days of winter when they’ve got “garage fever”. The campaign invented a category-inclusive event, focused on accessories and apparel, and achieved a company record for winter accessories sales.

As an American heavyweight v-twin competing against Harley-Davidson, Victory Motorcycles (a Polaris brand) needed a compelling approach to communicate the brand’s unique differentiators. My team and I created a foundation to show that Victory redefines the modern heavyweight v-twin for high performance risk-takers. The creative strategy informed and guided a full, multi-channel branding campaign and ongoing promotional campaigns that included national television, print, photography, point of purchase, direct mail, social media, digital, PR, events, partnerships, and sales enablement and dealership support.

Cozi.com, a family organization app, hired us to help promote the site and increase sign-ups, with a goal of reaching 1 million new users in a year. They were prepared to run a digital campaign, but we pitched a much bolder idea, based around the creative strategy that Cozi helps families “keep their ducks in a row”. My team and I created an event to help Cozi set a Guinness World Record for the longest line of ducks in a row, with 17,782 yellow rubber ducks stretching an entire mile through Magnuson Park in Seattle, WA.

For their first foray into frozen baked goods, Hostess introduced Deep-Fried Twinkies, available in the freezer section at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. With a small budget and minimal time, I had to work very quickly to articulate a creative strategy and brief. The product had several negatives working against it: unhealthy food product, low yum appeal due to packaging considerations, incongruity of being frozen and also deep-fried. To ground the strategy in human insight, I explored consumer behaviors and sentiment toward deep-fried foods. This very colorful subject showed up as a cultural phenomenon, with one source noting that, despite the adverse health effects, it “borders on obsession”.

Milksplash flavor enhancer provided a variety of kid-friendly flavors, designed to encourage kids to drink more milk. Research showed that kids were 70% more likely to choose flavored milk over plain milk, and are 50% more likely to choose flavored milk over juice, when they have control over the flavoring. We based the creative strategy on the human truth that kids like choices almost as much as they love treats.