Edelman: Strategy, Brand Experience & Communications

Creative leadership in a communications agency meant working side by side with people whose expertise shaped the idea. Research and planning clarified the audience’s needs. Earned, social, and media specialists showed us where the story could gain attention and what would make it worth sharing. From those perspectives, I shaped briefs, creative development, and client conversations to clarify key outcomes and ensure each voice informed the work.

Nuveen is a good example of that approach in practice. The assignment connected strategic direction and brand inputs with print and digital advertising. I kept the creative work anchored in the brief while the team navigated client questions, scope, timing, and campaign landing-page needs. Demand a New Perspective gave the investment message a clear visual form. Each deliverable served a purpose and fit the campaign’s intent.

For Humana, choosing insurance was a personal decision shaped by cost, family, and uncertainty. Our relationship expanded from public relations into content marketing. I connected member storytelling, enrollment communications, and national and local content planning, linking the national CVS Sign Up Saturday partnership, member-story films used online and at key-market events, and my content-mapping work for HumanaHelps’ national and 29-market structure, so the audience could understand coverage and find a useful next step. Together, Covered and Sign Up Saturday created two complementary outcomes: make the value of coverage tangible and give people a practical opportunity to explore it. This work clarified how each piece supported enrollment understanding.

I requested audience and member demographics to guide casting and helped shape the interview questions. We asked what led someone to enroll, how they made their decision, and what coverage meant in daily life. I rewrote the participant explanation and clarified interview roles so people understood the process and felt at ease sharing their stories. From preparation to production, we developed English and Spanish content, viewing contexts, and production needs with a single plan and a clearer experience.

I set the creative strategy, connected documentary storytelling to enrollment goals, and worked with the team to shape briefs and reviews. Erin’s film carries that direction through her home, relationships, and community. Her story brings the subject to life and makes the enrollment experience personal and easier to understand.

Sign Up Saturday linked the communications effort with a national CVS partnership and local enrollment activity. HumanaHelps brought a different challenge: organizing national information alongside content for 29 markets. I led a content mapping workshop focused on common user journeys and helped build a more useful structure. That planning connected content, responsive templates, local pages, and tracking so the next step was clear no matter where someone started.

NFHS’s My Reason Why campaign gave students, families, and schools a shared way to express the value of high school sports and activities. The opportunity was to broaden the conversation around participation: the confidence a student gains, the relationships a team creates, and the place those experiences hold in a community. The campaign made that value more visible and invited more people into the story.

I led the participation strategy and connected digital storytelling with submission tools, content direction, and distribution across web, social, and school networks. A student’s reason could become a film, a school poster, or an invitation for someone else to share. This approach kept the audience central to both the message and the mechanics, shaping how the campaign moved from idea to participation.

All 51 state associations supported the launch. The campaign enabled a shared participation story, student-centered storytelling, and practical materials that schools and communities could adapt to their own needs. The creative system held together while leaving space for individual voices, which gave the idea its value and helped the launch move from national structure to local use.

Russell Stover wanted to reach younger shoppers, create more everyday occasions, strengthen holiday relevance, and grow Sugar Free. I led the creative vision and activation ideas for our Sincerely Good pitch, working with strategy, research, media, social, and account teams. The platform connected the care inside the candy with the sincere moments people share, setting up the next set of ideas and the work that followed.

That direction led to specific proposals. I suggested giving candymakers cameras so they could interview each other and make the craft visible. I created and presented Sincerely Good Moments, including a Hulu concept where viewers could choose an uplifting moment. From audience choice to viewing context to an everyday treat occasion, I clarified how the ideas worked together and made each one useful.

Sugar Free needed more focused work around taste, variety, and audience. I helped extend the platform through tailored content and distribution, working with channel leads to connect earned stories, influencer ideas, social, paid, owned, and retail activity. As the audience and occasion changed, the shared direction stayed recognizable, keeping the transition consistent across channels and preserving the intended result.

We reached the final round and developed deeper Sugar Free and CEO presentation materials. Russell Stover ultimately chose another agency. The proposal remains a clear example of my product-marketing contribution: turning audience insight and a brand platform into concrete content, channel, and activation decisions with a clear business purpose and intended outcome.

For Scrubbing Bubbles, I developed and executed Scrubbing the Comedic Dirt as a connected PR event and digital influencer program. The comedy gave the brand a lively setting, and the participation and distribution plan extended the event beyond the room. From live experience to shared content, the concept moved naturally.

Mom bloggers and their children joined the experience. The program was built for press coverage, sharing through influencer communities, and promoting social content from the star and the brand. Our team created the logo and set design, bringing the brand into the physical experience and the resulting video, so the live event carried cleanly into content and circulation.

The decisions were connected from the start: who would participate, what would be captured, and how the content could circulate. That is a part of creative direction I value: understanding how people encounter an idea well enough to shape the experience around them. It links the event to the final output and its reach, from first contact to distribution.

My experience in earned content strategy, influencer, and social marketing grew by working with top practitioners at Edelman. The firm’s gaming work made the relationship between earned attention, product and feature branding, and performance marketing especially clear. I contributed ideas and deck reviews to the Batman: Arkham Knight concept work as part of a larger team effort.

My training in writing press releases added another discipline: express the value clearly enough that someone outside the project can see why it matters. Learning from communications specialists sharpened my attention to the audience’s context, a story's credibility, and the next action it should support. I carried that discipline into product content strategy at Rocket. My team and I developed How It Works to explain the mortgage application process before a customer began, making the next step part of the product experience and helping customers understand what came next.

I brought that perspective into content strategy at Rocket. Content became part of how I thought about the product experience: what people need to understand, how we help them decide, and how the organization delivers on its promise. Edelman sharpened the connection between a compelling story and a useful experience, making the transition to product work feel natural.