Category Archives: Creative Direction

Projects where my role was creative direction

Content Strategy, Creative Direction, Experience-Design, Video, Writing

Adding Revenue With Google AdWords

Challenge:

Google, a leader in Internet and ad tech products and services, needed to grow engagement and online advertising spend among millions of small businesses–starting with the 2.8M small business owners who had created an AdWords account.

Given that small businesses spend less than 3% of their marketing budgets on online advertising, and AdWords is a complex product that businesses large and small struggle to master, increasing spend among  the nearly 3M small business AdWords account holders was be no small feat.

Strategy:

Make it simple and accessible. We developed a series of videos and worksheets to complement an email campaign and small business events that Google hosted in select cities.

The videos provided answers to the most frequently asked questions (based on interviews with Google’s customer care teams). We selected video as the medium because our research indicated that the medium made learning seem complex things “seem” simpler to our target audiences–since they were already searching or working online and because they often had their hands full in their businesses (literally and figuratively).

The style and tone of the videos–from the script to the voice over and the images–projected simplicity and approachability. We used straight-forward, descriptive titles, familiar metaphors and analogies (…”using this feature is like…”), and graphics and images that mirrored the Google brand’s bright, no-fuss, elegance.

To account for a variation in learning styles and to provide an opportunity to practice, we paired the videos with downloadable worksheets. The worksheets featured space for note-taking and provided supplemental information that small business owners could take with them.

Finally, we designed a website to serve as an “online classroom” and toolkit for small business owners. The site featured all of the videos and worksheets and provided a framework to help users navigate the content in a way that helped them solve specific challenges and achieve desired goals.

google_awoc_video_guide_what is Adwords_storyboard1_v0-0-1

 

Links to Learn With Google/AdWords Online Classrooms Around the World:

Americas:
EMEA:
JAPAC:

My Role In The Solution:

I led a team of talented UX and visual designers, developers, program and project managers. To this team and project I contributed…

  • Developed the creative strategy and provided creative direction for all of the content
  • Developed the content strategy for the video, worksheets, and website
  • Partnered with the client teams to conduct customer/user research
  • Analyzed data to identify actionable insights
  • Partnered with UX and visual designers and back and fronted developers to deliver the website
  • Wrote all scripts and worksheet and website copy
  • Directed videos
  • Named the hub Learn With Google
  • Partnered with vendor and client to modify and adapt scripts for use in 15 videos for use in 19 countries and 12 languages

Results:

The website launched as part of a larger promotion. The video content was leveraged as part of email and web campaigns, used on Google’s YouTube and other owned channels, and were used a reference materials to which customer service teams referred customers/users seeking help.

Creative Direction, Product-Service Design

Getting The Word Out Inside A Large Organization

highFidelity_v3

Challenge:

Kaiser Permanente (KP) is the world’s largest integrated health care organization. To the outside world, it’s one big company. To its 120,000+ employees and clinicians, it’s 21 companies with over 700 senior executives, spread across 7 regions. Each region is it’s own sovereign business unit. And, Kaiser Permanente is a health insurance company, a health care provider with exclusive physicians and nurses, a health IT organization, and so much more.

Though its leaders and employees are far flung, Kaiser Permanente’s culture is one of consensus and collaboration. Agreement and alignment are required before any new product/service, process, or model can be adopted by the enterprise. Prerequisite for agreement and alignment: Awareness.

Strategy:

We needed a way to grow awareness of key work happening within the organization in order to secure sponsors and grow adoption of new products/services. We didn’t want to add to the deluge of emails the top 700 leaders were already receiving. Nor did we want to add another new software solution that stakeholders would have to pay for and learn to use.

We designed a communications and engagement platform that provided accurate, consistent information about every product, project, and pilot happening across the organization–with a low learning curve, no license requirements, compatibility with popular systems in use, a simple and attractive interface, and a backend that facilitated communications planning and scheduling, and project team coordination.

My Role In The Solution:

I dreamed up the platform in response to 5 conditions I observed. I designed the platform–it’s initial look and feel, its interface, features and functionality. I also worked with architects to design an interconnected node-based system that would allow platform admins/owners to cross post and search other sites within the network.

I created the initial wireframes and “fat frames” and marketed the platform to Kaiser Permanente leaders throughout the organization to secure seed funding.

I developed the subscription model, and secured the funding and clients willing to pay.

And, I identified, recruited, briefed, and managed the team that is bringing the platform to life.

Results:

We’ve already got pre-orders for the platform set to launch on Janaury 21.

Creative Direction

Creative Direction

Creative Direction is a discipline and profession is a mosaic of four other critical disciplines visual and UX design, art direction, and strategy.

Creative Direction is a lot like being the conductor of an orchestra of eclectic artists and beautiful instruments. You select the music, craft the arrangement, and the artists bring their own talent and expression to what you all hope will be a transformative, inspirational experience.

Cre-a-tive Di-rec-tor

A creative director is a leader who guides and manages the design and development process to ensure the art direction, visual and UX design, and strategy leads to the creation of a product that supports the clients’ objectives.

Creative Director’s Role

  1. Facilitates idea generation and development into creative deliverables including visual designs, copy, images, and content strategy.
  2. Sets direction, style, and methodology–and the standard for quality and innovation.
  3. Integrates clients’ requirements into strategies and design solutions.
  4. Guides and mentors the creative team.

The Work

Growing Customers And Value For American Express

AMEX Corp Card Homepage
American Express Corporate Card Websites

 

Teaching Small Businesses To Grow With Google

Learn With Google
Learn With Google website

 

Winning Big With Google’s Small Business Customers

Alternate Direction AdWords Email
Alternate Direction AdWords Email

 

Reinvigorating a Pioneering Brand With Cord Blood Registry

CBR homepage
CBR Rebranded homepage
Content Strategy, Creative Direction

Securing Attendees For World’s Largest Security Conference

RSAC-2014-theme
Campaign to drive attendance as we had 3 years running
The campaign included email, outdoor, event, web and mobile ads, and AR postcards.

Challenge:

RSA Conference is the world’s largest IT security conference, bringing together computer security experts to network, share ideas, new products, and new ideas. The Conference takes place annually in San Francisco and in Singapore.

RSA Conference began in 1991 so keeping the conference new and interesting and growing and maintaining attendance year over year can be a challenge.

Strategy:

In my fourth year on the account, it was difficult to think of new ways to drive attendance. Email and search marketing continued to be effective channels, helping us do an excellent job of securing repeat attendees but were having less success with prospects. But we needed a way to grow attendance.

Our Approach: We needed to broaden our net, attract new audiences–younger IT practitioners, women, and those interested in IT security as part of their jobs/businesses in industries such as finance and health care.

To attract these audiences, we needed fresh marketing and marketing collateral.

Campaign included emails, banners, mobile and web ads.
Email campaign featuring cryptography and a mystery to be solved
Email campaign featuring speaker and social media game

My Role In The Solution:

I developed a marketing campaign that spanned email, direct mail, web, print, outdoor, and social channels. The campaign centered on multimedia content, images that reflected the audiences we wanted to attract, and infographics that educated and entertained.

I developed the Conference theme–Share. Learn. Secure. I served as creative director, leading visual designers and copywriters to design the Conference marketing collateral, venue signage, street signs, rich media ads, email templates, augmented reality mailers, and infographics.

Each info graphic targeted an audience segment and delivered key messaging on why attending RSA Conference was important in protecting their data, assets, and customers.

My mockup of infographic
Brainstorming new theme
Brainstorming new theme
Audience-Specific Email
Financial Services Industry Infographic

Results:

Year-over-year double-digit increase in attendance.

Content Strategy, Creative Direction, Experience-Design

Putting the X-Factor In XMatters

XMatters homepage
Why XMatters page
IT Communications page
Proactive Communications Solutions page
XMatters Community homepage

Challenge: 

XMatters creates “Relevance Engines” that deliver relevant information about business interruptions, disasters, ad community alerts to individuals and group audiences based on their geographic location, job group, availability, channel preferences, and other key factors.

Their Relevance Engines have myriad uses for organizations across industries. However, XMatters needed to clarify their offering in order to grow their customer base and increase value to existing customers.

Strategy: 

There are few industries and few professions that couldn’t put XMatters to use but we needed to start with their Super Fans and Early Adopters–groups for whom the use cases were apparent and the success metrics and stories were easy to share.

We also needed a simple way to share the learnings of XMatters’ existing customers, Super Fans, and Early Adopters–and to leverage this to grow value with new and existing customers.

This was the basis of our content strategy for the XMatters website and the online community.

We ultimately delivered…

  • A redesigned website with completely new messaging and content that was targeted to Super Fan/Early Adopters and easy for like audiences to understand;
  • An elegant UI, taxonomy, and ontology that made the information easy to discover–and “breadcrumbed” site visitors to contact XMatters; and
  • An integrated community that allowed current and prospective customers to share their XMatters knowledge and experience.

My Role In The Solution:

I was part of a great team of talented designers, developers, program and project managers. To this team and project I contributed…

  • Developing the initial design concepts (sketches) for the new visual design
  • Leading visual and UX designers to design a new visual design, information architecture and interface.
  • Developing the content strategy for the redesigned website and community
  • Writing copy and managing copywriters, designers, and HTML developers who produced content for the site
  • Providing creative direction for the website and community
  • Developing IA and UX for the website and community

Results: 

Increase in the percentage of website visitors who engage with video and other interactive content and who complete a lead form (demo, contact sales, request info). Growth in number and percentage of website visitors who join the XMatters community. Lower percentage of level one questions being escalated to higher level support.

Content Strategy, Creative Direction, Video, Writing

Reinvigorating a Pioneering Brand With Cord Blood Registry

CBR homepage
CBR category page with video
Drop-down Nav
CBR media page – video
Get Info On Clinical Trials
“Gateway” to Cord Basics microsite
Pricing calculator page
CellAdvantage Product page
CBR print ad
CBR email to prospect

Challenge: 

Cord Blood Registry (CBR), a pioneer and leader in the cord blood stem cell banking industry, needed to grow the number of expectant parents who choose to bank their babies’ cord blood stem cells with CBR.

In researching the market and interviewing and surveying expecting parents, both CBR’s customers and parents who chose not to bank, we learned that there were four challenges we’d need to overcome in convincing parents to bank:

  • Low awareness of cord blood banking among expectant parents
  • Low understanding of stem cell science and medical applications
  • Relatively high cost of banking
  • Lack of agreement among physicians on the benefits of banking

We also discovered three barriers to growing preference and the number/percentage of banking parents who choose CBR:

  • Confusion around the Cord Blood Registry’s private banking offering and nonprofits that offer let parents donate cells free of charge
  • Competitors co-opting CBR’s branding and messaging, making differentiation among un-savvy expecting parents challenging
  • Low understanding of the benefits of CBR’s superior quality and research-backed offering

Strategy: 

To counter these challenges, we’d need to…

  • Make the science accessible;
  • Position CBR’s superior offering in plain English and in terms of things parents value;
  • Reach parents outside the current target audience; and
  • Leverage the credibility of physicians, parents, and others who believe in banking.

We repositioned the brand–crafting new brand messaging, value proposition statements, product benefit and feature statements, and a new brand identity.

CBR's new logo lockup
CBR’s new logo lockup

 

New storage kit design
New storage kit design

 

We redesigned and completely reimagined the responsively designed website and mobile website. The content strategy was built upon the above insights and prominently featured videos of CBR customer and employee stories and physician testimonials, info graphics to explain stem cell science and CBR’s clinical trial outcomes. We also developed an online enrollment process, designed landing pages and lead capture forms and downloads to grow qualified leads.

http://youtu.be/BMtUNLD7i9M

We developed email marketing campaigns to persuade existing customers to bank the stem cels of their second (or third) babies and to refer CBR to expecting friends in exchange for a discount on their annual storage fees. We also targeted prospective customers via email, print, direct mail, mobile, and wall boards and brochures in physicians’ offices.

CBR Mobile App Reductive Design
CBR Mobile App lead forms
CBR Mobile Ads
CBR Sweeps email
CBR print ad

Finally we created a patient education microsite that supported physicians in educating patients on cord blood banking.

Cord Banking Basics Patient Education Microsite
First stop
How It Works stop
Benefits stop hover state
Benefits Stop
Final Stop – More Info

My Role In The Solution: 

I was part of a great team of talented designers, developers, program and project managers. To this team and project I contributed…

  • Developing new positioning for the brand
  • Developing a new tagline that aligned with the company’s long-term vision–“Healthy Futures Born Here”
  • Developing the content and creative strategy for customer and prospect email, online, print, direct, billing, and medical office campaigns
  • Wrote scripts, created storyboards, and directed videos
  • Writing copy and managing copywriters, designers, and HTML developers who produced campaign content
  • Serving as creative director for the website, patient education microsite, and marketing campaigns
  • Designing the A/B testing strategy to identify highest-converting pages and copy
  • Developed taxonomy, tagging, personae, and tracking for Sitecore CMS

Results: 

Double-digit increases in brand awareness, preference, and referrals. Online enrollments contributed to significant percentage of new enrollments.

Content Strategy, Creative Direction

Winning Big With Google’s Small Business Customers

AdWords Promotion Email
AdWords Targeted Email
Alternate Direction AdWords Email
AdWords Promotion Email 2
AdWords Anniversary Email

Challenge:

Google, a leader in Internet and ad tech products and services, needed to grow engagement and online advertising spend among millions of small businesses–starting with the 2.8M small business owners who had created an AdWords account.

Given that small businesses spend less than 3% of their marketing budgets on online advertising, and AdWords is a complex product that businesses large and small struggle to master, increasing spend among  the nearly 3M small business AdWords account holders was be no small feat.

Strategy:

Make it simple and personal. We started with what we (actually Google) knew about their account holders and used that as the foundation of our strategy–basically their email addresses and the details of their accounts and campaigns. We used this information to create a hyper-targeted email campaign that used brief copy and a simple graphical format to provide personalized recommendations for their current or next campaign.

But the campaign wasn’t just a campaign–it was the start of an ongoing conversation and the beginning of a new relationship.

Account holders who acted upon our advice triggered subsequent emails and new recommendations based on their new account/campaign elections. And so began an increasingly lucrative relationship.

My Role In The Solution:

I was part of a great team of talented designers, developers, program and project managers. To this team and project I contributed…

  • Developed the creative strategy and provided creative direction for all of the content (video, web copy, visuals, UX)
  • Developing the content strategy for the emails
  • Writing all copy for the first campaigns
  • Managing copywriters, designers, and HTML developers who produced subsequent campaigns
  • Serving as creative director for the email and landing page design
  • Designing the A/B testing strategy to identify highest-converting

Results:

Double-digit increases in email click-through rates and AdWords spend, and quadrupled growth in our business with Google.