Stories About My Stories
The one where I make Pride 365
August 2022: My Art Director reminds me that we need to update our Hilton Pride landing page now that June is over. I can’t help but take it a step further and wonder what we can do to continue our story of inclusivity throughout the year.
September 2022: I prepare pitch decks, meet with leadership across marketing and content, craft our narrative, develop a content plan, draft a team, prepare more pitch decks, secure the budget, align my content with Hilton’s marketing strategy, and, yes, prepare more pitch decks.
October 2022: My courageous team and I land in Las Vegas and capture a weekend of stories with our Hilton Team Member host at the Virgin Las Vegas and a pair of influencers as we reflect on the importance of inclusivity and allyship and celebrate at Las Vegas Pride 2022.
The one where my first draft becomes a national commercial
POV: early summer 2021 in the travel industry.
Leadership is obsessed with the runaway success of Memorial Day—the biggest travel weekend since pre-pandemic times.
Media and consumers will not stop talking about the noticeable shortage of hotel staff and, therefore, services.
Hilton has been talking about making new memories for almost a year. And it’s time for a refresh.
So I sit down and write a couple of TV commercial concepts.
And then, things got exciting.
The one where I become the voice of a mental health brand
Like any creative with a profile in the world, I get cold calls. Small businesses, former colleagues, and marketing strategists with freelance writing needs bravely reach out to me.
Most of these are not the right fit. But every once in a while, a great one comes along that I am so excited about that I commit my evenings and weekends to help out.
ADHD Online is one of those great ones.
Like so many small businesses (and quite a few larger ones), ADHD Online had no tone of voice. In partnership with the Director of Acquisition and Retention, the COO, and the head of content, I crafted the organization’s witty, authentic, knowledgeable tone of voice and carried it through a variety of programmatic emails before digging in deeper with the team to stand up a monthly newsletter program, craft an award-winning campaign around ADHD Awareness Month, lead a complete re-brand, and take over the company’s social media marketing.
The one where I adopt, defend, and protect an email
In the very early days of the pandemic, the un-furloughed skeleton crew working in the Hilton Creative Studio gave the world a brave little email they affectionately named ‘Feel Good Friday.’ With recipes, fun illustrations, and lighthearted content, this monthly email gave the team an important creative outlet during a scary season and a way to connect with members while we all stayed home.
Fast forward to the middle of 2021. After a brief and embarrassing stint as an email named ‘Revenge Travel,’ our fearless Feel Good Friday had lost its way and its support. You’ve seen this film before. Formerly fun project becomes a resource drain and lacks clarity of purpose, so it slowly withers until some brave person either revives it or puts an end to the misery.
You see where this is going.
The one where I write Marriott’s favorite lines
Everyone loved the subject line of my Marriott Hotels M Club email when I first proposed it. But when the Director of Marketing for Marriott Hotels received the email in her personal inbox and commented that it caught her eye, made her feel good, and inspired her to open the email even before she realized it was ours, I knew I was onto something.
The data soon confirmed that I’d struck subject line gold.