About Banner

During a 30-year career in advertising. I’ve worked as a Copywriter and Creative Director at some of the best shops in New York, London, and Paris, among other places. But don’t go looking for Purple Prose in Midtown, the West End, or the 8ème arrondissement. Because I believe all those years practicing my craft in the world’s major agency hubs earned me the right to do it from wherever I want. And for whomever I want.

So that’s my approach. I work with clients I like and believe in. I have a firm no assholes policy. And I work from home as a solopreneur without the staff and eyewatering overhead it takes to run a full-service agency. Which not only makes Purple Prose more effective, it also makes us more cost effective. You get the quality of thinking you’d associate with the world’s largest shops at a cost only a home-based sole proprietor can provide.

Experience

My background includes extensive experience producing traditional, digital and cross-channel marketing for B2B and B2C products in the Automotive, Aviation & Aerospace, CPG, Financial Services, Health & Wellness, Tech & Telecom, and Travel & Hospitality categories, among others. I’ve been privileged to work on some great brands during my career. You may have heard of a few of them:
logo_ally
logo_boa
logo_chevrolet
logo_cocacola
logo_american_airlines
logo_3m
logo_hp
logo_british_airways
logo_hilton
logo_marriott
logo_mastercard
logo_mitsubishi_motors
logo_omni_hotels
logo_the_ritz_carlton
logo_td_bank
logo_travelocity
logo_united_airlines
logo_usaa
logo_visa
logo_wells_fargo

Recognition

Some of the agencies I’ve helped build and run have been widely recognized by industry authorities like Gartner and Forrester Research. Performance marketing agency iCrossing, where I spent eight years as a member of the leadership team, received the highest ranking from Forrester in their Search Wave Report, ahead of agencies like iProspect, and 360i. While pioneering digital agency imc2, where I was President, was ranked highest for Strategy in the Forrester Web Design Agency Wave Report, ahead of competitors like Sapient, Razorfish, R/GA, and Organic.
forrester_iCrossing
forrester_imc2

My creative work has been recognized with dozens of local, regional, national and international creative awards, and has been published in numerous advertising annuals and publications like the Art Directors Annual. I received an Effie Award for my launch campaign for the Piaggio Avanti executive aircraft. I’m particularly proud of that as the Effies are the only awards given for advertising effectiveness.

Speaking of Forrester, our work for Ally Bank — including the Ally blog and many of the campaign elements you’ll find in the Work section — received a Forrester Groundswell Award, judged by Forrester analysts to represent the best in social media marketing.

Testimonials

Perhaps the greatest testament a client can pay to an agency partner is to hire them more than once. I’ve been privileged to work with a number of serial clients who came back for more. My Bank of America client, for example, subsequently became my client at Ally. While another Ally client later hired me at TD Bank. And so on.

Given the average tenure of Fortune 500 CMOs is 3.3 years and falling, it’s not a bad agency growth strategy. Just do a great job, help your client get promoted into their next gig, and tag along when that happens. Here are some kind words people have said about us over the years.

“Solid cleverness”

Business Marketing Magazine

“Thank you for the wonderful role you played in helping us launch Ally Bank.”

Former Chief Marketing Officer, Ally

“What you and all the other talented Brits now do so well started right here.”

Larry Dobrow, author of When Advertising Tried Harder,
referring to New York in the 1960s