Big Ten Network “Bobblethon” social campaign

Worked with Concept One Communications and Akavit to promote the Big Ten Network series “Big Ten Icons” online with an emphasis on Facebook. The original series, hosted by Keith Jackson, will count down the top Big Ten student-athletes of all time (Fall 2010).

Big Ten Network had already decided to use old-school bobblehead dolls representing iconic Big Ten athletes to promote the series. The question was how. I helped Concept One brainstorm overall campaign ideas and, once they chose a direction, led the interactive brainstorming with Akavit. The result was the months-long Big Ten Network “Bobblethon.”

The core idea was competition. We invited Big Ten students and alumni to participate in a Bobblethon that allowed any registered user to virtually “tap” their school’s bobblehead doll once a day. By tapping to show support for a school, each user was entered to win actual dolls each week. Each tap also counted toward a grand prize for that school. The school with the most taps at the end of the Bobblethon (SPOILER ALERT: Penn State) was awarded $10,000 in scholarship money for their school (read the story here).

Since the campaign would extend past the school year, Big Ten Network wanted to use social media to keep momentum for the program going until the premier in the fall. I delivered a social media “roadmap” with an emphasis on Facebook that they could execute in-house. The results were above-average “likes” on the Big Ten Network brand page, lots of dialogue, trash-talking and content sharing, and blog/press coverage across the Big Ten network.

MICROSITE:

FACEBOOK ACTIVITY:


BUZZ:



CableLabs.com

CableLabs is a non-profit organization developing new technologies for the cable industry at large. You know that cable modem that provides your zippy Internet connection at home? Thank CableLabs.

Treble Red won the assignment to revamp the creative design and usability of five affiliated CableLabs websites to better communicate the company’s position as an industry technology leader. I was the lead information architect and content strategist, completely reorganizing the website around user needs while eliminating redundancies and simplifying paths to content. In the end, all content remained the same but the presentation layer (navigation and visual design) was radically updated. Check it out.

BEFORE:

CableLabs Home before

AFTER:

CableLabs home after

CableLabs Secondary

CableLabs Tertiary

Western Union mobile campaign

Worked with FL2 to help Western Union increase awareness and usage of mobile money transfers in the USA. Western Union is an early leader in mobile money transfer and wanted to support an existing price promotion (transfer $50 for just $5) with a mobile opt-in campaign to build their database quickly.

My role was to brainstorm creative concepts that would complement the existing price promotion campaign and then write the copy for the text messages delivered during mobile interactions. The Yes! Box promotion is a daily mobile sweepstakes customers can play online (pictured below) or via mobile and share with their friends. It’s the first step toward a broader effort to establish WU as the leader in MMT.

Yes Box microsite

ESPN Deportes

Worked with Concept One Communications on a Comcast promotion for Hispanic Heritage Month. ESPN Deportes is the Hispanic-focused ESPN property and is included in the service upgrade package this work promotes. I never knew how much I don’t know about soccer.

My role was to brainstorm concepts that could translate to TV and in-store executions and then write a script treatment and in-store copy for each. We had some previous work for Hispanic Heritage Month to reference but in the end came up with three unique directions, one of which (“Hall of Fans”) moved forward into production. The samples below are first-round spec of the print work – not final. Scripts available upon request.

Name Day Concept Hall of Fans Concept

Silk Road Creative Rally

Self-employment means never having to complete a Time Off Request. Then again, there’s no such thing as paid time off. This self-promotion tried to balance the two. Presenting the Silk Road Creative Rally.

Silk Road Creative Rally web page

Prior to a recent road trip to southwestern Colorado, my wife and I offered our driving time to agencies and clients for brainstorming, copywriting, or any other creative exercise. After all, we’re both marketing creative types, we’d both be trapped in the car for hours, and we’d done it before, quietly. This time we named it, built a page promoting it (I wanted to try Squarespace), and contacted lots of colleagues. The response was great, the Denver Egotist and Minds for Rent picked it up, and we had a great time.

Nothing like discussing gastrointestinal ailments for pay on the open road.

Kasasa.com

Kasasa is a completely new kind of banking that lets you choose the checking account that’s right for you and then choose a community bank or credit union to service it. Plus, the accounts reward you in new ways with iTunes downloads, charitable donations or good old fashioned cash — not free toasters or unnoticeable interest.

I was part of the core creative team for the launch of kasasa.com. My role included concepting and copywriting, as well as collaborating on navigation/architecture and design. The site just launched on May 1st and is already showing impressive numbers for new accounts opened. Stick it to The Man and open your account today.

Kasasa ribbonkasasa explorekasasa petition

Google AdWords Training

google-adwords-logoI want to learn the mechanics of Google AdWords so I offered to evaluate and refine an existing campaign for a friend’s engineering firm. He set up the initial campaign without diving too deep and then never looked at it again. Still, those placements generate a majority of his leads. So the trick will be optimizing the campaign without jeopardizing lead volume.

One advantage is that I’m a writer and it’s a text-based system. So adjusting language (pre- and post-click) is an easy way to dramatically increase relevance. It’s also fun. Yes, you read that correctly. I find it fun to learn more about a new business, learn its language, and then apply that to concepts like keyword matching (which is more complex and powerful than I expected), ad text, and website copy. I’ve almost finished the new campaign and will post general results as we get them.

If you want to learn more about search, begin an AdWords campaign, or evaluate your existing campaign, I can help.

Faction Media

Faction Media logoI’ve worked with the fine peeps at Faction Media a few times in a sort of ACD/Writer role.

For one project, they asked me to evaluate a landing page video-in-progress for structure and flow. The video customized itself to the viewer, displaying his/her name at random points throughout. We had to make sure that surprise captured the viewer early while keeping a natural narrative flow. The finished product really is a great payoff for a B2B campaign.

A much larger effort is still underway — creating a series of beginner guides to interactive (and other) marketing practices for small and mid-size business owners. I either edited or wrote guides to:

  • Effective SEM/SEO
  • Email marketing
  • Mobile marketing
  • Landing page optimization
  • Writing a marketing plan

This work pushed me to learn more about search and landing pages and especially how they connect. I’m going to start testing some “post click marketing” tactics with a friend’s company to see it all in action. Stay tuned.

The Owner Center at MyGMLink

I was a core member of the creative team on the MyGMLink project at Modem Media. The Owner Center is a dynamically-driven loyalty website for owners of all brands of GM vehicles. The site “skins” itself and provides customized content based on your exact Vehicle Identification Number. So Cadillac owners get a Cadillac site and access to their chosen dealer, Chevrolet owners get the same, and so on.

I began as a Senior Copywriter on the project but over time the work (and my responsibilities) expanded. In addition to writing and maintaining a 200+ page copy deck (dynamic content, remember?), I brainstormed new content and functionality, created direct mail and email to drive registration, wrote and directed a dealer guide to marketing on the site, and eventually helped launch the site in Australia for the Holden brand.

mygmlink log inhummer homelease1direct_marketing1direct_marketing2marketing toolkit

Dell

Dell was a core client of the interactive team at McClain Finlon. For about a year we worked with the enterprise business group to help them launch and extend their new “Simplify IT” brand platform online.

The assignments were a great mix — new product microsites, banners, targeted dell.com usability refreshes, contact strategy, and more. So my role would change accordingly. I offered creative direction, brainstormed creative ideas, mapped out strategy, presented, managed freelancers, wrote copy, and whatever else the day brought.

The best part was that the size of the Dell account enabled us to hire two of my favorite peeps: Corien De Jong and Todd Violano.

Pictured below:

  • Dell Simplify IT landing page
  • Optiplex product launch on Dell.com
  • Storyboard for Flash tutorial
  • Storage Array Flash banner
  • Online lead “nurturing” strategic plan

dell-simplify-homedell-vpro-homedellos_0077_storyboardmamba-bannerdell_greenpage

Bee M.D. interactive concepts

Bee MD adWorked with Underdog Partners to help Bee M.D. natural throat drops build traffic and (sorry) buzz online. Timing and budget were tight so they had to be self-contained ideas that relied on word of mouth or PR for distribution.

The bee angle is unique. Not only are the drops made with organic honey but every purchase helps fund research into colony collapse disorder to save the bees.

The concepts we presented included users creating content that could then be used in future advertising, enabling groups of friends to “swarm” together on behalf of a sick friend, and a Facebook event that would have a bigger bang than the current FB Terms of Service brouhaha.

McClain Finlon New Business

The fall of McClain Finlon is already ancient history in the Denver advertising community. As one of the last to leave, I was working on new business right until the end. You always swing for the fences in pitch work and I still believe the interactive work we showed was killer. I have complete presentations (animated in some cases) for all of this work and would prefer to show you in person. Still, here is a sampling of visuals to tide you over.

For some mean-spirited fun, compare the Culvers.com home page shown below to the site that actually got produced.

Culver'sQwest Tier 1Qwest Tier 1 altQwest Tier 2Moose Sightings websiteMoose Sightings Store Display

The Hobo Nickels

I play ukulele for The Hobo Nickels here in Denver. We call our music “Upbeat Americana” because you have to call it something. What that means is bluegrass, swing, folk, old-timey country, zydeco, polka, trucker tunes and more all mashed together with accordion, guitar, upright bass and uke. Fun stuff.

Here is our most recent performance opening the Denver Ukulele Festival on February 7th. It’s a new song by Tim called “Sweet Tea” and the people dug it. Still boggling at the fact that over 200 people paid to see ukulele music. Usually it’s us playing to a lot of puzzled looks. Enjoy.

Visit TheHoboNickels.com for music, images and other things that bands put on the Internets.

Delta Air Lines

skymiles logoAt Modem Digitas, I was one of three ACDs on the Delta account. My focus was Relationship and Direct Marketing, which meant acquiring, retaining, and rewarding millions of SkyMiles customers.

I seriously don’t remember everything we did. It was crazy. A typical campaign would include email, direct mail, banners, a promotional website, and a variable reward or incentive. Plus, we were responsible for the monthly SkyMiles newsletter (print and email) as well as global campaigns that required translation and massive lead times. To do it all, we had to build departments for print production and integrated database marketing while we were doing the actual work. So I can handle start-up and/or growing work environments.

Here is the video “yearbook” we made for Delta (in all its edited-whilst-learning-Final-Cut glory) that gives a much deeper look at all the campaigns we did. And yes, that’s me doing voiceover. Try not to swoon.


Delta RDM 2005 Yearbook from Rob Silk on Vimeo.

The samples below are just a taste of all the work.

1. Screen shot from a typical microsite on Delta.com. Shown here: the first Tickets for Life promotion we created.

2. “Sky.Q.” head-to-head game enabled members to play against each other live to earn actual SkyMiles for answering trivia questions correctly.

3. Gotta have banners. This one helped global customers calculate mileage they’d earn flying to the U.S.

4. Every targeted campaign had a direct mail piece for those who hadn’t opted in to email.

5. The monthly Insider newsletter was a combination of editorial copy and super-targeted offers and news based on customer data (geography, miles accrued, behavioral data, etc.).

Delta Tickets for Life

SkyQ GameDelta international banner

Direct MailSkymiles Insider

Scholar’s Walk Denver

Scholar's WalkWorked with Josh Fuller of Treble Red Media on a hardbound book for Scholar’s Walk – a luxury development in Denver across from the Newman Center for the Performing Arts.

Lots of evocative copy to convey the quality, the lifestyle and the details. So instead of a spa-like master bath with heated tile, you have “a sandbar of limestone [that] warms bare feet and resting arms.”  And a “rooftop retreat” that “serves up the outdoors as a cocktail. One part city hum, two parts mountain vista and a splash of rejuvenation.”

Scholar’s Walk Denver (PDF)

The good stuff, copy-wise, is in the first half. Or you can see the subject for yourself at 2304 South University Boulevard. And if you have to ask how much a unit costs, then you’re just as tactless as I was at the first meeting.

mix1 interactive pitch

mix1 bottles
mix1 bottles

Worked with Akavit as a creative and strategic partner for a successful new business pitch for mix1 2009 interactive marketing.

I led team brainstorming for ways to bring brand to life online, prioritized and mapped out the client’s goals (including website redesign, integration with event marketing, social media strategy, and CRM), wrote and presented new creative platforms for the brand to illustrate our approach, and presented as a member of the pitch team.

I have a t-shirt that complains “This was supposed to be the future” and asks “where is my meal in pill form?” Mix1 is pretty close – in a good way. Now where is my jetpack? Congrats to Akavit on the win.