true[X] (owned by Fox when I worked there) was an innovative ad-tech company focused on interactive advertising across mobile, desktop and OTT. Founded by Joe Marchese, it was, in many ways a philosophy first company which is why I enjoyed working there. It was his belief, and the company's, that digital advertising was fundamentally broken in terms of how it measured, sold and priced views and clicks instead of attention.
Thus, the entire company was focused on creating opt-in interactive ad experiences that provided value for viewers, publishers and advertisers.
In my role, I worked with media agencies, creative agencies, brands, and our own internal teams to develop new strategies and create best practices for interactive advertising. I also spent a lot of time traveling with our account and sales teams to client and agency meetings to lead discussions on creative and strategic best practices. In bullet points…
- Worked under VP to develop annual and quarterly departmental objectives
- Led the creation and rollout of materials to provide product best practices and onboarding for FNG sales and account teams
- Established recurring sessions between creative, product, engineering and research teams to share ideas and ensure all teams were up to speed on product functionality and capability to improve creative execution and performance
- Worked closely with the research team on A/B testing and other quantitative studies to improve campaign performance and identify potential testing opportunities across campaigns
- Worked on campaigns for most major brands across most categories. A few include T-Mobile, Chrysler, Truth campaign, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Marvel, Disney, Warner Brothers, Hotels.com and Fruit of the Loom
A few engagements from the hundreds I worked on are shown below. Additionally, much of my time was spent formalizing best practices and creating playbooks for different verticals (CPG, Auto, Entertainment, etc.) that broke down the most effective formats and functionality based on various KPIs.
IAC Award winner for best non-profit rich media online ad. We worked with 72 and Sunny to create an interactive ad that allowed users to create customizable shareable cat content and share on FB and Twitter from within the ad unit generating high engagement and share rates. You can interact here.
Working with FX, we create an interactive engagement that let users explore content from new and upcoming FX series, with unique interactions for each show. You can interact here.
Hovering over a show’s key art highlighted that show. A click or tap on mobile would take you into content for that series.
For Fargo, you were introduced to the Stussy brothers. By interacting with the slider in the center of the screen, you could trigger a video clip from each brother.
Tying into the noir season of Archer, users could control a magnifying glass and use it to uncover clues around the image, with each one launching specific clips.
For the final season of The Americans, users could view recap content from previous seasons, watch behind-the-scenes or preview the new season. Playing into the show’s marketing for the season, we displayed copy in Russian which then translated upon hover.
For this Mother’s Day unit, we replicated functionality from the Shutterfly site, enabling users to see their own images on specific products or set a reminder to buy a gift using calendar integration.
