New clients were sent a Welcome Kit with a leather notebook sleeve as a gift.
We were asked to create a set of materials that welcomed new clients to this higher level of wealth management. This kit needed to include a welcome letter, benefits guide, a slot for the debit card envelopes, and a space for a small token of appreciation — a leather iPad sleeve.
The client would receive this welcome kit either in person or in the mail. The outside was varnished with soft touch, except the area that is embossed in gold foil. It is embossed with the line, “Welcome to Citigold Private Client.” A magnetic flap keeps the box shut.
Once opened, a pearlescent varnish coats the interior. The pocket holds up to five envelopes with debit cards. Finally, the double well contains the welcome letter, benefits guide, and a piece of vellum that protects the leather iPad sleeve.
As of January 2021, “A Wealth of Opportunity” campaign successfully converted thousands of new clients with $1 million or more in deposits during the pandemic. It has also earned two 1st Place 2021 Tempo Awards from the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing for Best Financial Services Campaign and Best Art Direction.
Natural wood with hand-painted mandalas on ads, POS and DM, gifts, birthday cards and emails for NAS.
Natural American Spirit needed to better reflect the uniqueness of their brand in their direct communications with their customers and potential customers. I was brought in to do just that. Originally the need was for direct mail, but I stayed on and developed point of sale, ads, emails and worked on special projects.
NAS cigarettes contain only tobacco, water and natural flavors. No chemicals. Their farming methods are eco-friendly. No chemicals. The hand painted mandala on various natural wood boards became the basis for the DM and POS. The photography showed the all-natural farming methods.
Specially designed gifts, birthday cards and emails followed along the natural look and feel.
Embossed leather, chrome and an all-American feel across bi-lingual brochures, newsletters, dealer kits, sweepstakes, card offers and calendars.
We pitched and won the Harley Davidson Credit & Insurance account with an embossed, leather-bound presentation book with a chrome binder bar. Everything about this account pushed that “Harley Spirit.” Leather, chrome and glistening paint permeated all our work.
My partner and I ran the creative and played to the stereotypical Harley rider, with an upscale twist. No drinking, no lewd behaviors, no wild women – just all-American riders enjoying the freedom a Harley brings them.
Besides materials for the dealers to push credit and insurance, we also launched the Harley Davidson Chrome Visa Card. To promote this new chapter in Harley Davidson’s history, they gave away a bike a week for an entire year!
Humalog Mix 75/25 launch ads and video, plus informative and educational newsletters, brochures and 2 patient education books.
Eli Lilly was a “smaller” client of ours and I was given a lot of freedom on the account. I worked closely with the client and made sure what was produced was not only falling within regulatory guidelines, but also looked good.
The initial foray with Eli Lilly was helping them promote their new Humalog Mix 75/25, injected with their new insulin pen. We did that with trade ads, a video and welcome kit. To keep them engaged we started sending quarterly newsletters. And to educate them we created 2 guides: a 60-page comprehensive one for people with diabetes and their health care professionals, and a 40-page basic facts one for the patients only.
It was a very mentally rewarding account. It felt good to create work that would help millions of people in their daily lives. And the clients themselves trusted us as a partner, leaning on us for the best ways to disseminate important information.
Vibrant designs celebrating purely Mexican culture through flyers, posters, ads and a yearly calendar
Kenworth Mexico material had always been handled as an afterthought. The SOP was to translate the English versions into Spanish. What started happening was the dealers began “creating” their own materials, mostly not adhering to brand standards thus weakening the brand. They were desperate to get more marketing materials to help their business grow.
My suggestion was to create materials specifically for them. Hire a native language copywriter, tie the monthly materials to monthly events and celebrations in Mexico, shoot and use Mexican people in the photography and design the work to better reflect the vibrant Mexican culture.
In January we focused on a calendar for the New Year’s celebrations. The image is a very recognizable plaza in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Vibrant yellows, oranges and reds were used in a posterized photo to emphasize the new year and new look for KW Mexico. February saw the Mexican flag flying over Constitution Square in Mexico City, celebrating Constitution Day. For March we focused on Benito Juarez, featuring a bust of him over the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, in the town of his birth, Oaxaca. And again using vibrant color to better draw attention.
This new look was so successful our agency was able to add two additional creatives to the team, and it had the dealers excited and energized.
A comprehensive program supporting dealers through flyers, web pages, banner ads, emails, mobile apps and card designs.
PACCAR sells Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks, as well as thousands of parts for them, and every other truck brand. I worked on the parts division. PACCAR Parts sold their house brand TRP parts and parts from every manufacturer through their dealerships and the work we did supported the dealers efforts.
Every month we produced a parts flyer, parts poster, service poster and emails for both Peterbilt and Kenworth dealers. We also supported various incentive programs for the dealers and their customers. The first monthly mailing included a calendar.
Unique and Versatile formats that stood out from any competitors and made our clients extremely happy.
Citi/American Airlines Welcome Kit
American Airlines wanted a unique Welcome Kit to send to their new Platinum Card holders.
This kit features floods of Metallic Silver with a soft-touch varnish to give it a lux feel. The images and card product have an aqueous coating to pop from the paper. The carrier has a contour line (from the card art) die cut to show a hint of the beautiful image inside. The 20 page brochure also has contour line die cuts to engage the card holder and draw them to the next, and next pages.
Overall the kit was well received and remained in production until the campaign was upgraded.
Citi/American Airlines Platinum Card Versatile Format
American Airlines has a Platinum Select Card for everyone and a Platinum Select Business Card only for business owners. They wanted a mailing that would be similar for both, but also different enough so as to not confuse the two.
My answer was to create an inline format that could be used both horizontally and vertically. All the information occupied the same place, but with different colors and photography, plus different directions, we were able to outperform the clients expectations. These pieces also did very well.
Citi/American Airlines MileUp Card Introduction
American Airlines wanted to introduce a new card, aimed at families. We were charged with introducing the MileUp card. The new look needed to differentiate this card from the other AA brands, and from all other travel cards. The dynamic, directional, overlapping angles provided them with exactly what they were looking for. The energy of the design was able to be applied to many forms of media and the MileUp card became the “new card to get.”
Fun, hard-working designs for cards offers, a HELOC self mailer, emails and a financial advisor guide/folder.
Citibank has a large portfolio of credit cards plus a full suite of banking products and services for both personal and business needs. They include wealth management, home loans, personal loans, checking accounts and savings accounts. Citibank always wanted unique formats to stand out from the competition so I always enjoyed working on these projects.
We don’t always get the opportunity to create whatever we want for a client, and sometimes all we get to do is jump in and help out on a single project. Or maybe a friend needs help with some design work. Or a pro-bono project comes up. This page consists of those one-off projects that I had fun with.
I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I enjoyed working on them.
