Please share an example of a major brand launch or marketing campaign that you led. What were your key strategies, challenges, and measurable outcomes?
The Microsoft Gen Z Campaign is one that I remain most proud of for several reasons. In order to make this project as successful as it was, we needed to break things — we went against the grain and pushed the Microsoft brand into unfamiliar, slightly uncomfortable territory. It wasn’t easy and it took a lot of convincing, but I knew it was right and the performance of the campaign proved as much.
Here’s a breakdown of the process:
Microsoft submits a brief requesting a campaign appealing to a younger age demographic, specifically Gen Z age (born 1997-2012)
Awareness among this demographic is low for Microsoft, as much of this population has grown up with Google products
Microsoft’s brand is mature and refined, it appeals primarily to an audience that grew up with Word, Excel and PowerPoint
In our research, we found that Gen Zers respond to content that is, among other things, a little off-center — a little weird.
After researching the audience, we pitched and sold in the idea of “Fin and Tin”. We wanted to create 2 characters, a shark and a robot, who are friends who store their photos and memories on OneDrive. Why a shark and a robot? Because it’s unexpected and weird, and that’s the kind of thing Gen Z responds to according to our research.
We also created a pigeon and an octopus called “Bertie and the Govna” who collaborate on a PowerPoint document. Our client loved the idea, but we ran into a
Describe a time when you had to allocate limited resources across multiple brand initiatives.
Allocating limited resources across multiple brand initiatives was the norm during my time overseeing creative for the Microsoft account. I was responsible for managing five creative teams with upwards of 30 active projects at a time. Below is a slide from Microsoft’s FY23 Q1 (July - September 2022) outlining all of the projects my teams were working on across Lead Generation, Awareness, Direct Response, Early Funnel and App Download campaigns.
How did you prioritize these initiatives?
Prioritization depends on several factors including timeline (due date), scope of work, level of effort, level of visibility, as well as whether or not other departments will need to be engaged in order to execute the work (animation, dev, QA, etc).
All five teams under my direction specialize in a specific line of business — when a Microsoft 365 Consumer Direct brief comes in, it goes to Team DeFrank, Xbox goes to Team Rowe, so on. Although each team is specialized, everyone has broad knowledge and our design systems are set up so that we’re nimble and flexible and have the ability to shift and support one another as needed.
What factors did you consider to ensure maximum impact and alignment with the brand’s strategic goals?
To best answer this question, I’ll focus on a specific project.