12 Things travelers forget (and How to make do without them)

Core objective: press pick up and referral traffic for brand awareness

Results:

• national media pick up including features in Out Traveler, and HuffPost  
• 55,000 visits

Video Samples

After getting my master's degree at Northwestern, I worked as a professional video journalist in Washington, D.C., before taking my video skills on the road (and into marketing). You can check out some of my video journalism work in the reporting, on-air and voice work section. But below you'll find a few samples of video stories I produced as well as videos I've overseen from the client side -- all slated to meet various content marketing objectives.  

Stunt video for Cheapflights

• developed project brief, commissioned video content, worked with external agency and internal team on concept development, oversaw shooting and editing process from the client side
• 1.2+ million views
• 10,000 social media engagements
• highly effective at driving viewers to search for flights at low cost

#ExportYourself hero video for Cheapflights.ca

• helped develop project brief, worked with external agency and internal team on concept development, oversaw shooting and editing process from the client side
• 6+ million Canadians reached (across campaign)
• 2 million social media engagements (across campaign)
• highly effective at driving brand engagement via 1-on-1 conversations on social media

STUDENT PROFILE for The Rivers School

• conceptualized, produced, shot and edited video in full
• intended to raise school profile among key constituents by highlighting a successful student

Digital Campaigns

I've played both strategic leader and tactical support on a number of digital campaigns across Cheapflights and KAYAK. Below are a few examples of digital campaigns I've worked on with my team.

#ExportYourself for Cheapflights.ca

Campaign overview:

#ExportYourself was designed to drive brand and product awareness, engagement and intent. Via a partnership with McCann London, we capitalized on the 2016 political climate and the idea that Canadians are universally known as super nice, kind people and encouraged them to “export themselves” to help save the world. To achieve this message, we created a series of three videos in which our hero told fellow Canadians it’s their patriotic duty to travel more and spread their awesomeness around the world. 

We chose an all-digital approach for easy delivery and straightforward measurement capabilities, looking to Facebook’s reach and frequency tool for a cutting edge approach to content delivery. Reach and frequency allowed us to buy media space up front and deliver content using a sequenced approach at a set frequency. Running the core portion of the campaign on Facebook also offered us brand loyalty development opportunities through direct engagement in 1-to-1 conversations, better establishing and propagating our unique Cheapflights tone of voice. The campaign was covered on strategyonline.ca, a Canadian marketing publication.

Results:

• 6+ million Canadians reached
• 75% uplift in monthly traffic year-over-year
• 2+ million social media engagements
• 50,000 newsletter leads
• 8+-point lift in ad recall, brand awareness and intent across Facebook brand lift study
• Awards:
  • Winner, Best Use of Content Marketing, Travolution Awards
  • Winner, Best Social Media Content, Canadian Online Publishing Awards
  • Finalist, Best Use of Facebook in Content Marketing, Content Marketing Awards
  • Outstanding Online Video, Internet Advertising Competition

Catflights filter for Cheapflights.com

Campaign overview:
To use April Fool's Day as a means of drawing attention to our brand and core flight search product, we ran a scrappy one-day content campaign. The campaign, which was fully developed and executed in-house, centered around a joke that we had developed a filter to allow users to search for flights that would have cats on board. With a landing page, video and plenty of cat puns, we worked closely with our wider marketing team to successfully drive a spike in brand awareness and engagement across PR, SEO and social media.
Results:

• 30 million media impressions
• 40 media placements including mentions in MSN and the Washington Post as well as several high-quality backlinks
• 265,000 video views
• 5,400 social media engagements

Spokeswoman and Travel expert

At Cheapflights, I acted as chief spokeswoman for our U.S. and Canadian markets, offering up travel advice in live, taped, phone and email interviews across a range of national and regional media outlets. Here are some of the places I've been quoted.

National

• NBC News
  • American Airlines plan for 'no frills' ticket is good news for fliers
• Condé Nast Traveler
  • Five destinations for awesome airfare deals this summer
  • Surprise: New TSA cell phone rules create confusion
  • Best fall travel values: Los Angeles, Charleston, and even the South Pacific
  • Unexpected deals in 8 great summer destinations 
• Money
  • Five awesome all-inclusive resort deals
• USA Today
  • Tips for finding airfare deals for Thanksgiving and the holiday season
• CNBC
  • It's July. Time to start thinking about this Christmas purchase
• Refinery29
  • 10 smart ways to travel without going broke
• Outside
  • What am I entitled to when my flight goes wrong?
• New York Post
  • 17 ways you can score an upgrade on a plane
• Toronto Sun
  • Canadians eye UK vacations after Brexit vote weakens pound
• BNN
  • One-way flight searches to Canada surge on election night

Regional

• CTV News Ottawa
  • CTV Morning Live
• New England Cable News (NECN)
  • jetBlue Baggage Fees
  • Money Saving Mondays: Summer travel
  • What does major airline merger mean for customers?
  • Money Saving Mondays: Frequent flyer plans

Strategic skills and experience:

• Managing both on-site and multi-location teams of up to 15 full-time employees

• Managing external freelancers and agencies

• Budget management

• Developing multi-channel, full-funnel content and social media marketing strategies aligned with wider business objectives

• Establishing brand content pillars (brand-owned themes)

• Tone of voice development

• Copywriting

• Video production

• Creative direction

• Content performance reporting and analysis

• Test-and-learn approach

Reporting, On-Air and Voice work

Before jumping into the world of content marketing, I worked as a "one-woman band" video journalist for United Press International in Washington, D.C. At UPI, I was on the ground producing stories at the 2008 DNC and RNC as well as President Obama's inauguration. I also produced and acted as fill-in anchor for our weekly webcast from the White House. Here are a few examples of my reporting, on-air and voice work.