Case 1 / SecureSet
Deduction
As a startup, there was a lot to build from scratch at SecureSet, a cybersecurity academy for aspiring entry-level cyber professionals. One of the first strategic moves we made at SecureSet was persona development. Before we could venture anywhere in our marketing efforts, we needed to understand our audience. With careful quantitative and qualitative research, we uncovered an audience of ethical hackers, ambitious students, military heroes, and self-professed tech geeks.
Once the audience and the customer journey had been defined, we were able to begin the development of vision, mission, and key messaging. The tagline and North Star for our marketing efforts became “Secure the Future.” With key messaging in hand, we built the identity and associated brand guidelines, lifecycle/email marketing, and digital marketing campaigns. We built an event marketing strategy that centered around the principle of “trying it out” and developed experiences that our prospective students would come back for again and again. In order to scale these experiences, I led the development of “events in a box” and other marketing toolkits for easy implementation across campuses.
Throughout the strategic development, brand and marketing played hand-in-hand. All decisions were based on research and data, not only providing functional solutions for SecureSet’s mission-oriented audience, but building a brand strong enough to carry a start-up into maturity. SecureSet was sold to WeWork in 2019, a sister school to Flatiron School (also owned by WeWork), and I led the integration of two strong education brands. I built a marketing handbook of cheat sheets so that SecureSet marketing could continue seamlessly with new teams of marketing gurus and the cybersecurity programs could be marketed on the Flatiron School campuses.
Visit the Website
www.secureset.com
Context
Brand + Guidelines, Website, Persona Development, Customer Journeys, Funnel Development, Campaigns, Competitive Analysis, Brand Integration, Event Strategy, Marketing Toolkits, Budgeting and Forecasting, Cheat Sheets, and more.
Client
SecureSet Academy + Flatiron School (WeWork Companies)
Role
In-house: Director of Brand + Marketing
Date
2015–2020
Details
Hackers, white hats, military, nerds, computers, gaming, lights
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SEE THE CREATIVE WORK ⟶
Case 2 / Voltage Advertising + Design
Context
B2B Marketing Plan, Website, Persona Development, Customer Journey, Funnel Development, Key Messaging, Content Playbook, Comms Calendar, Competitive Analysis, Email Nurture Marketing, CRM Management, Marketing Templates, Social Campaigns and more.
Client
Voltage Advertising + Design
Role
Agency Contractor: Director of Marketing
Team
VOLTAGE Advertising and Design
Date
2021-2023
Details
Lightning bolts, electrically charged ideas, and sparky people
Deduction
This is an agency with an exceptionally charged heart. Already a “force for good” in the Boulder Colorado community, VOLTAGE set out to be known as the “best in the West” among agencies. To achieve this status, we ran a competitive analysis, developed personas and used them to document the ideal customer journey. From there, a marketing plan was developed along with goals and KPIs for tracking performance.
To put discipline to the abundance of ideas that are inevitably generated by a high-performance team, we developed key messaging and a content playbook. These tools were used as guardrails to keep us on the right track with our owned, earned and paid marketing channels.
With B2B, the sales cycle is long and the funnel has the potential to be leaky. To stop up the cracks, we developed an email nurture plan that would engage leads as well as active and past clients.
VOLTAGE already has a strong brand with a reputation for good, it simply needed a bit of discipline to make the marketing funnel shine.
Visit the Website
www.voltagead.com
Case 3 / Moots Cycles
Deduction
Moots is a lifestyle cycling brand with an incredibly loyal following of outdoor enthusiasts and serious bikers. They came to us needing some scaleability and we delivered the tools they needed to succeed.
After conducting an audit of the CRM to find opportunities for optimization, we developed personas, a customer journey and an email nurture map. These tools were also important for informing a new set of brand guidelines that would define their marketing assets.
Visit the Website
www.moots.com
Context
CRM Audit, Persona Development, Customer Journey, Email Nurture Marketing, CRM Management, Marketing Templates and more.
Client
Moots Cycles
Role
Agency Contractor: Director of Marketing
Team
VOLTAGE Advertising and Design
Date
2022
Details
Adventure, mountains, handmade bikes and chillax people
Case 4 / Quanta Services
Deduction
Quanta Services is the leading, end-to-end solutions provider in the electric power sector. They build the infrastructure that powers your world.
The energetic folks at Quanta came to us looking for the kind of marketing that would draw new talent into powerline careers. As always, we led with research and strategy—our recomendations were backed by data. We researched and developed an extensive social strategy for drawing “True Grit” archetypes into the funnel through adrenaline rich, educational ads and posts.
We also helped to research and develop a podcast strategy for their recently acquired podcast “The Powerline Podcast.”
Visit the Website
www.quantaservices.com
Context
Performance marketing, content strategy, social strategy and a podcast strategy.
Client
Quanta Services
Role
Agency Contractor: Director of Marketing
Team
VOLTAGE Advertising and Design
Date
2022-2023
Details
High energy, adrenaline, grit, power and people
Case 5 / Southern Virginia University
Deduction
SVU is the kind of school that everyone can feel good at. They are a private, self-reliant, residential university aligned with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its principles and values.
The kind-hearted team at SVU came to us looking for a modernized marketing website for converting prospective high schoolers into full-fledged college students. To get there, we led with solid strategy based on years of education marketing knowledge. We started with personas and plugged them into a user experience with story, which led to the user journey and site map for the website.
Visit the Website
www.svu.edu
Context
Personas, customer journey, user journey and website
Client
Southern Virginia University
Role
Agency Contractor: Director of Marketing
Team
VOLTAGE Advertising and Design
Date
2023
Details
Big hearts, students, futures, arts and athletics
Case 6 / Reduce Campaign
Context
Print book + Campaign
Client
Academy of Art University
Role
MFA Graphic Design Student
Date
2007
Details
Trash, paper bags, shipping containers, toys, waste, united states, choices, discussion, change, reclaimed wood, recycled paper.
Deduction
A pattern emerged and exposed the case to be a wasteful society. The clues were found in reclaimed wood, recyclable trash bags, and photo illustrations of massive amounts of waste. Focus groups brought trash bags full of 24 hours worth of waste. We analyzed the waste and discussed what could and could not be recycled. Research flash cards, a deck of persona cards, and a poster helped inform a beautiful book created from reclaimed wood, recycled paper, and a coptic binding.
A focus group was held and inspired the creation of invitations and discussion booklets. Recyclable trash bags were “packaged” in order to invite the participants to the discussion. Participants were to fill their bags with 24 hours worth of trash for the group to dissect and discuss.
Research cards were created to teach all the angles that are involved in changing a wasteful society. Putting different cards together can inspire discussion topics for a variety of groups.
Case 7 / The Twisted Film Festival
Context
Print varied
Client
Academy of Art University
Role
MFA Graphic Design Student
Date
2009
Details
Dark, humor, wallpaper, old hotels, blood, weapons, intelligence/and lack of, illusions, the things you can’t see get you into trouble.
Deduction
Through a thorough examination of the facts, it became evident that the case involved the infamous Coen Brothers. The clues were found in old hotels, the things you can’t see, and dark humor. The movies inspired a collection of festival items that promoted a dark and twisted body of film work. Old and creepy hotels with smatterings of blood and humorous cows (from left field) inspired the design of the festival items. It’s the things you can’t see…
The festival title was revealed as twisted and perfectly captures the dark humor in the Coens’ films. The logo plays with this concept by incorporating a gun that twists in the wrong direction. In coen films, there is always a surprise or a twist that comes out of nowhere and the target is missed for someone or something else.
A festival guide was created to provide festival participants with an agenda and description of the films being shown. Utilizing illusions, the guide seeks to engage the viewer in seeing the unseen.
Tickets, a map/brochure, and small wayfinding posters contribute to an ad hoc/choose your own adventure experience. Films were planned throughout the city, and depending on the choices of the festival participant, they would be led to the appropriate film. No two festival experiences would be alike and the journey was meant to wind and twist through the host city.
Promotional items included a set of DVDs, a small and personal zoetrope and a pack of lightbulbs. The zoetrope uses film strips of key moments in the films such as a car driving into the distance of ____ and a guy falling to his death in ___. The lightbulbs emulate the “old creepy hotel” stylization of the films but also show the Coens to be a pair with endless bright ideas. The DVDs of the festival films were packaged in a long hardbound case.