Prior to working at MIT Technology Review, I worked for over six years at a design agency in Boston called Almighty - starting out on the account team, and eventually transitioning over to a research and strategy role. Please feel free to check out the work I've highlighted on this page and my resumé to learn more about my relevant work experience. 

Account Management/ Almighty / New Balance / Indoor & Outdoor T&F Nationals

The challenge:  New Balance was seeking to increase their business with High School Runners. They asked us to help to shift this target's mindset when they took over sponsorship of High School Track and Field Nationals from Nike in 2011. 

Our approach: Starting with the 2011 New Balance Indoor Nationals at The Armory in New York City, and lasting until I left in 2014, Almighty built an experience that connected the unique bib numbers of each competitor to that athlete’s Facebook ID, enabling us to post race times, videos, photographs and results to their friends and family at home. We were given access to the event and grounds, allowing us to integrate with timing systems, start lists, live event feeds and the full event registration data — delivering a near real-time view of the full event through our activation.

Together, we delivered a branded experience that was focused on celebrating the participants, rather than just the sponsor.

Since the first of these experiences, the New Balance Facebook coverage has become the place that spectators from home go for newsroom-style coverage: results, photos, and videos of the biannual three day-events. Additionally, by sponsoring these elite events, New Balance's business among the High School running target has increased exponentially year over year. 

My role: 

  • Strategy
  • Scoping
  • Budget management
  • Vendor management
  • Event production
  • Project management
  • Quality assurance
  • Yearly program optimization  

The team: 

  • Ian Fitzpatrick: Partner/Research
  • RJ Evans: Partner/Design Director
  • Jeff Wilder: Director of Technology
  • Mike Rubenstein: Production Director
  • Tom Gallo: Art Director
  • Alex Nelson: Copywriter
  • Jeff Pressner: Developer
  • Emily Cagwin: Account Director
  • Maria Fortuno: Account Supervisor
  • Lucia Corso: Editoral Content

 

Account Management / Almighty / New Balance / NB Minimus Launch

The challenge: In 2010, New Balance approached Almighty to help them launch NB Minimus - a line of shoes aimed at the growing numbers of minimalist runners, who, up until that point, largely were considered fringe and wore Vibram Five Fingers. Our response was high-quality feature content and serious community engagement that helped launch Minimus as New Balance’s surprise success of 2011 in ways that far exceeded any of our expectations — and set the groundwork for the kind of engagement the brand very much aspired to within this vocal and frequently-outspoken group of serious runners.

So in 2012, when they wanted to repeat this triumph with the zero-drop Minimus Zero, they approached us again. 


Our approach: From the commentary on the first launch, we knew that New Balance had a captive, vocal audience of people - both Minimus fans and critics. We mined comment threads from previous articles and Facebook posts in search of feedback on the design and construction of the first Minimus shoes. I lead a team which reached out to the commenters, sent them pre-release pairs of Minimus Zero, and put them on the phone with New Balance designers and ultramarathon champion Anton Krupicka, to share their observations. The resulting content, called Minimus Zero Conversations, represents the discussion at the heart of this community, and the conversations we facilitated helped launch this next generation of Minimus shoes to the world. 
 

Results: Our efforts resulted in one of the most-successful product line launches in New Balance history, launched initially with only a minimal paid media investment; the most-read and most-commented pages on newbalance.com; sold-out shoes at running speciality retailers around the country; a product platform that was successfully rolled out beyond running and into other categories, and a big win with an influential group of customers.

My role: 

  • Account management
  • Strategy
  • Project management
  • Quality assurance

The team: 

  • Ian Fitzpatrick: Partner/Research
  • RJ Evans: Partner/Design Director
  • Jeff Wilder: Director of Technology
  • Lucia Corso: Editoral Content

Screenshot of one of the Minimus Zero Conversations (no longer live on newbalance.com)