Thrillist Los Angeles

Thrillist is a leading men's lifestyle brand that highlights new, unknown, or under-appreciated bars, restaurants, gadgets, and gear in various cities.

Since I call Los Angeles (Hollywood, specifically) home, I pitched and wrote a variety of L.A.-focused feature stories — including the coolest jobs in L.A., annoying things about living in Hollywood, where to find the longest happy hours, and more. It was extremely fun and inspiring to meet some of the people who've impacted L.A.'s fickle tastes with their talent and creativity — from bar owners and restauranteurs to artists and DJs.

Since these are fairly long "listicles," I've only included intros and snippets of the article to give my portfolio viewers an idea of what the full piece is about.

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ZipRecruiter

This web series shares the true, engaging stories of how business owners found and hired people for very specialized and/or unusual jobs through ZipRecruiter. I’m proud to be part of the team who created and launched this web series. Additionally, I wrote all of the web content, social media, and video cut-downs for it.

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ZipRecruiter + Minions: The Rise of Gru :30 TV Spot

Best Yourself, featuring Nick Cannon

This viral video launched the "Best Yourself" campaign. In it, Nick Cannon relays to the audience how, from the very beginning, he has continuously pushed himself to be better than he was the day before, much like the Honda Civic. I wrote this script from his point of view–designed to inspire and challenge viewers, while aligning his story with the 2013 Honda Civic.

Result: More than 1 million video views in less than 3 weeks. Increased Facebook engagement by 532%, 280% on Twitter, and 122% on Instagram.

Vanity Planet

Digital agency Lucid Fusion (who managed Vanity Planet’s website, email campaigns, and all of their social advertising) helped VP kick off 2017 with an eye-catching, new look for their homepage. As the writer for these pieces, I aligned New Year’s resolutions with various VP beauty products, but spun them in a way that spoke to our target–Millennial females.

The consumer emails were designed to tie a particular product or collection of products to themes/events that are relevant to our Millennial consumers. In these examples, those are music festivals and Super Bowl.

Lastly, the Facebook carousel ad is an example of one of the many promotional FB ads that I wrote. This particular one highlights Vanity Planet's array of hair tools.

Adrienne Williamson was the talented designer on these projects.

HowardStern.com

I researched, pitched, and wrote up breaking Stern Show-related news content for Howard Stern’s website. Topics ranged from upcoming album drops from some of Howard’s favorite bands to movie trailers from Stern Show guests to a Wack Pack-relevant cyber-hacking piece.

Agero MileUp App

Agero’s MileUp App was designed to make users aware of their driving behaviors and encourage them to drive safer. As an incentive to use the app, drivers earn a point for every mile driven, as well as additional points for participating in challenges. Once drivers earn an allotted amount of points, they’re automatically entered in a sweeps to win prizes.

The app rates drivers in three areas — handling, speed, and phone usage. Drivers can choose from one of three fun themes to see how they rate in these areas.

For this project, I wrote the screens that introduce the three themes, the various rating screens for each area in their corresponding theme, the coaching challenges, and the badges earned for completing these challenges.

Kaiser Permanente

Build-A-Meal Book

As part of Kaiser Permanente's "Maintain Don't Gain" program, this was designed to be a fun, engaging way to get KP members to fill their plate with vibrant, healthy food. The book is split into three sections — proteins, veggies, and carbs — so members can mix and match sections to come up with healthy meals for every night of the week. Cynthia Jacquette Hopkins was the talented designer/co-conceptor on this.

Relax and Nourish direct mail

These mailers were designed to generate awareness for Kaiser Permanente's Relax and Nourish programs. We related to the Millennial target through compelling imagery and empathetic copy that invited them to take advantage of these free online programs from KP. Tammy Park was the designer.

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LIVESTRONG

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Dame Magazine

For Dame magazine, I wrote several satirical pieces that were designed to resonate with smart, savvy females. Most of these focused on the very real struggle known as “dating in LA.”

I also had my own column as The Not-So-Consummate Hostess. As the NSCH, I’d rather imbibe than waste time worrying about hosting the perfect soiree. (Think Patsy or Edwina from AbFab.) Therefore, I consulted experts at various events/activities to help me fake my way to being the perfect hostess.

Branding — Various

Before you dive in, I want you to know that this isn't the "pretty pictures" section of my portfolio. You, my friend, are about to see the motherload of WORDS. Branding decks, full-blown campaigns to rebrand, and white paper names, positioning statements, and taglines to launch new brands. The thing is... when you're establishing a brand's place in the vast space of marketing, WORDS come first. And these WORDS help answer the following crucial questions:

Who's your target audience?

What sets your brand apart? How does your brand break through the clutter of the dozens of other brands like it?

Is your brand/product the first of its kind? Cool! How can we generate buzz for it in a HUGE way?

What's that one statement that says it all about your brand?

What's your catchy, clever sign-off?

And lastly, how can we build an emotional connection between your brand and your consumers? (This one's a tough one. That's where fully-integrated campaigns come in.)

So yeah, when I said there were going to be a lot of WORDS on this page, that's what I'm talking about. But I won't apologize for making you read...

Because WORDS are important in helping your brand make a COLOSSAL DENT in the minds and hearts of consumers.

Bacardi Silver Branding

The challenge was to establish Bacardi Silver's place in the flavored alcoholic beverage (FAB) category. Our creative team came up with concepts to generate an emotional connection between Bacardi Silver and the target audience, while delivering on the fun, "you never know where the night will take you" brand promise/positioning of Bacardi Silver.

I wrote this 27-page presentation deck to explain the thinking behind our concepts and how they carve out a distinct place for the Bacardi Silver brand, while staying true to the brand's core personality (a.k.a. "the donut" you see on the cover).

Here, you'll see several pages of our deck to give you an idea of what we presented to the Bacardi Silver branding team.

Everlast Rebranding

When I lived in St. Louis, I decided that I wanted to move to L.A. After a few interviews with the Catapult Marketing team in Los Angeles, this was their final test assignment to see what I could do with a brand.

The assignment: Rebrand Everlast to make it relevant to male millennials.

Everlast had established itself as the old school "boxing brand" of apparel. But that brand partnership/persona was getting stale, and Major League Combat (MLC; better known as MMA) was the cool, new kid on the scene. So, I was tasked with tying Everlast to MLC.

The result: I positioned Everlast as the brand that's true to you — just like MLC fighters stay true to their fighting style. Everything in my campaign stemmed from one simple tagline: Everlast. This is my style.

Did I know anything about MLC? Hell, no! But you'd better believe I knew everything about it by the time I gave this presentation.

Best of all, this assignment landed me the gig — and relocated me to L.A. [Happy dance]

AB Alcoholic Energy Drink — Naming + Taglines

Imagine... an alcoholic beverage from Anheuser-Busch that also gives you energy! Sounds magical, right?!

For this project, I was tasked to come up with names, positioning statements, and taglines for AB's new brand/product — a beverage containing alcohol, caffeine, guarine, and other stimulants. Because the target was predominantly males 21 - 30, the names could be edgy, fun, and imply invincibility. (Apparently stamina, in the "partying" sense, seems to be a thing with guys.)

You're probably wondering which name/tagline they landed on. Well, teens also love energy drinks — so it was eventually decided that marketing an alcoholic energy drink PROBABLY wasn't such a good idea because it encouraged those under the legal drinking age to imbibe.

But hey, I still had fun coming up with names, positioning statements, and taglines!

Social Media Ads

Here are various samples of Facebook and Instagram ads I wrote for online interior design agency Laurel & Wolf. The prospecting ads are designed to generate awareness and incite clicks to 'learn more,' while the retargeting ads prompt consumers to 'shop now.'

Merchandising Materials — Various

Moet's "Building the Legend" Promotion

For Moët, our “Building the Legend” promotion invited moet.com visitors to add a Tweet to help create a legendary story. On-premise, we encouraged guests to buy their friend a flute of Moët by texting a friend’s mobile number to a phrase so that a bar code worth one complimentary glass Moët would get sent to their friend’s phone.

SKYY Ginger Launch

To launch SKYY Ginger, bathroom mirror clings at upscale accounts, table tents and other POS enticed men (and curious women) to text Ginger for a good time. Then “Ginger” would send timed, provocative text responses that provided simple SKYY Ginger cocktail recipes.

Guess who got to write these flirty messages?

;)

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Fashion — Spec Work

AA Instagram Denim Campaign Contest

Denim is the ultimate form of self-expression. That was the idea behind this Instagram contest that aligned with American Apparel's upcoming denim campaign. The tone of the social posts had to be engaging, witty, direct, and speak to the fans of the brand.

Customers were invited to take a pic of themselves in one or multiple denim AA pieces and post it to Instagram to win a prize, plus possibly model in an upcoming campaign.

Reformation — Social Media

Reformation offers consumers stylish, sustainable fashion. Its imagery is simple, yet beautiful. Meanwhile, its brand voice is clever, punchy, with just a hint of attitude.

Here's a Facebook ad I wrote for Reformation that touts their take on the 2017 summer gingham trend.