Comcast Technology Solutions

Comcast Technology Solutions was presenting a new face to the world around “What’s your possible?” and needed its team to follow suit. But with the guiding language so intentionally open-ended, Comcast had to spell out what was possible for its marketing team. To sell “What’s your possible?”, Comcast needed to be grounded in what was possible.  

I conducted in-depth interviews with the client to get a sense of how Comcast’s mission had evolved and how that would be reflected in the marketplace. Working side-by-side with the strategy team, I defined Comcast’s values and its brand promise. Because these deliverables were designed to be pillars for future marketing efforts, the creative director, strategist, and I scrutinized each word.

This type of deliverable can quickly make writing feel like math. Cramming in specific and approved language can sometimes seem like solving for X. But ultimately, the audience is looking for inspiration, not key phrases. My lesson was don’t make a brand guide a game of Mad Libs. Have the key words serve the story.

Intel

Intel came to my team with a problem: its marketers had many tools, but not one North Star. For the marketers to tell the same story, Intel needed to simplify its messaging.

Understanding where the company was today, and the story the brand wanted to put into the marketplace tomorrow, required many long conversations with the client team. Probing questions and deep dives into the troves of background materials gave me the understanding I needed to help Intel articulate its values, purpose, and priorities.

Working on a thought leadership piece of this size, the project team kept me on task. Clear milestones and engagement points with the client ensured I never strayed from Intel’s vision. The scope of this project also demanded thinking ahead for design considerations. I structured the copy document around the anticipated designed layout, including page breaks.

Over the course of creating this guide, I realized how important grounding new messaging in the past is. Even as Intel was trying to shed some of its outdated resources, familiar case studies and tools still had their value. These tried-and-true touchpoints made this guide feel like a continuation of Intel’s brand. Ultimately, creating a softer shift in Intel’s story led to greater buy-in from the guide’s audience.

IBM

A bonus thought: thought leadership doesn’t have to be long, and in this attention economy, it probably shouldn’t be.

IBM wanted to tell a story about analytics and the insurance industry, but what they had was a set of facts, not a narrative. The right framing device could make this infographic come to life. The idea for using “tailor” as the organizing metaphor came from the project manager, and with that spark, I was off. Here’s a learning: sometimes one good idea can unlock a whole deliverable.

Knowing how integrated the design and the copy needed to be, I wrote most of my draft in a three-column document to make sure the copy would be balanced for the designer. I also highlighted copy in the draft that I wanted to pop in the laid-out version, and added suggestions for icons as well.

This infographic was one of our fastest turns with IBM—they liked what they saw and approved the deliverable almost immediately.