Story Above All Else
I'm a weird artsy, band nerd, that really digs being out in nature. I also love impacting how humans think and feel when interacting with brands. It is the philosophical juice that I live on. Crafting meaningful stories that please, persuade, and generally make people happier is my game.
Since college I have written fiction as a hobby (another excuse to study story telling) I live my life in stories, and seek to in work them as well. I didn’t study marketing or design in school, instead I gravitated towards psychology, pr, and social communication (In between lots of hours of playing in a folk band, sketching, painting murals, wilderness training, and failing Latin).
I might not have the shiny “art degree” of some of my peers but studying the psychological aspects of what marketing can do has made me darn good at helping brands connect to their customers in a meaningful, human way without being clouded by souless highbrow techniques. The art & design training came later studying color theory, typography and even CSS & HTML in order to birth real psychologically backed aesthetics into the world.
One Central Truth: Betray Convention
The industry “norms” aren’t your friend.
I've spent about half my career in-house, and the other half in agencies across dozens of industries and verticals. I've learned this central truth. Big marketing usually misses the mark by simply forgetting how to be human themselves. I strive to trim the fat on bloated campaigns, and streamline half-baked branding strategies by cutting through the noise that every vertical struggles with from national brands, to small businesses. Extracting fresh and solid authenticity from the brand (and harnessing its' power of persuasion) is always the answer. Not the same old, same old in a different jacket.
To all the agencies I've loved before...
I’ve had the great honor to rebrand/reposition the last, and only two agencies I’ve worked for. Both were struggling to find their core purpose and meaning. I am extremely grateful to have influenced their brand impact by being a "mirror" with which to see themselves in.
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