Skills TEAM LEADERSHIP – Collaborative and Enthusiastic People Lead • Leading and developing high-performing, award-winning Creative teams for over 20 years • Embracing administrative duties to allow my teams to produce the best work with the fewest process obstructions • Setting the tone by encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work by being my authentic self • Supervising and project-managing remote teams across multiple cities, time zones and countries • Supervising and mentoring interns • Developing trust within teams to create confidence to work independently and not feel micro-managed • Collaborating across a variety of teams and functions in fast-paced, professional environments • Thriving in high-energy settings managing multiple work streams simultaneously • Presenting, communicating and thinking critically both internally and with clients • Directing agency partners / vendors / contractors through strong verbal and written communication • Jumping in at any level as needed to bring a project to completion CREATIVE – Detail-Oriented Art Director, Designer and Illustrator • Demonstrating strong creative and critical thinking by designing and building across a variety of touch points: point-of-purchase and retail; environmental / brick and mortar; experiential / trade shows; event activations; web/mobile UI and UX; infographics and data visualization; photography; packaging; identity and branding • Designing and building across a variety of media: digital, mobile, AR/VR, packaging, print, animation, paper craft, food • Utilizing compelling storytelling to create consistent, tailored Creative assets • Directing photo and video shoots with a singular artistic vision to meet the clients’ goals • Producing: estimating, designing for prepress / preparing final files, visiting sites, checking presses STRATEGY – Insights-Driven Trend Pusher • Turning research and intelligence into relevant, actionable insights for Creative and Marketing • Developing bespoke brand and market narratives based on data • Staying ahead of trends in technology through continuous research • Driving innovation and continuous improvement of process and desired business outcomes • Analyzing complex data sets and distilling findings into usable insights • Developing presentations and pitches to sell through big ideas • Watching trends and leading vision for content strategy, ideation, creation, photography and editing MARKETING – Adept Relationship Builder • Understanding of integrated marketing across the prospect life cycle and engagement funnel • Managing branded partnerships / cross-branded promotion marketing and licensing • Building relationships through client interaction, sales, negotiation and budget planning • Developing and launching products and solutions based on client and market needs • Meticulously planning, scheduling and executing both D2C and B2B campaigns for online and offline / out of home
The Home Depot - Halloween 2022 Interview Video Header 1920x540

The Home Depot - Halloween 2022

Trade School work for The Home Depot | July 2022

In late Spring 2022, The Home Depot's Organic Social Team approached Trade School about making two pieces of content to highlight the launch of their Halloween assortment:

  1. A "human interest video" about the team who makes the Holiday merchandise every year, specifically the Halloween assortment
  2. A video highlighting user-generated content around their 12-foot-skeleton, Skelly

The Home Depot doesn't run any paid ads for Halloween: it's a mark of the success of their products that they sell out as soon as the new assortment goes live online. The two videos we were making were literally to give the Organic Social Team content to post to drive engagement about how fanatical people are about Skelly.

The Human Interest Video: Interview with Lance Allen

Lance Allen is the "Decorative Holiday Merchant" at The Home Depot... and it's obvious from first meeting him that he LOVES Halloween.

We knew Lance could talk for days about every piece in the Halloween product assortment, so I chose to do his video as a live interview rather than write a script and have Lance memorize a bunch of lines. I'd ask him some fairly standard questions and we could do several takes to allow him to give us very short answers or extremely long ones. I would then take the transcript of the interview and build the video based on the sound bites we got from him.

And that's exactly what we did.

We ran this shoot with what Trade School refers to as a "Small Gear" team: me as Interviewer, Roger Okamoto as DP and Brandon Jones as Producer. We also managed to bring two of our Apprentices (Interns) to assist Roger moving the gear in and out and our Program Director, Christina Cilento. The clients from the Organic Social Team on set outnumbered the Trade School team almost two to one!

I think Kris had the most fun with this video... when the clients gave him free rein to add as much animation as he wanted on top of the scenic footage provided by Alderman, he had a blast.

The final video was cut to a 16:9 for YouTube, a 1:1 for Facebook and Instagram in-feed, and a 9:16 for IGTV (now Instagram Reels).

The UGC Video: Skelly's Photo Album

Skelly is a big part of The Home Depot's success at Halloween.

"Big" as in a 12-foot-tall part of it.

So big, in fact, that many people who own a Skelly leave him up year-round versus trying to find somewhere to store him. There are several Facebook groups dedicated to the owners of 12-foot Skeletons and what they do with them outside of Halloween.

Our clients contacted several people who had posted and tagged The Home Depot across Facebook and Instagram; and with their permission, we were asked to make a "slideshow" video. Allison did much better than that.

The only hitch in our storyboards was not having a good photo of Skelly's hand to start it off, so I took one on my iPhone the day we filmed Lance's interview.

The final video was cut to both a 16:9 for Facebook and Instagram in-feed and a 9:16 for IGTV (now Instagram Reels).

The Team

Scott Hunt, Creative Director

Allison Rose, Art Director

Reed Alliston, Copywriter

Roger Okamoto, Producer, Director of Photography, Editor

Brandon Jones, Sr. Producer

Ariel Thomas, Production Apprentice

Kris Boban, Animator, VFX Editor

Christina Cilento, Program Director

William Owusu, Partnerships Apprentice

← The Home Depot Organic DEI Content
→ The Home Depot – TikTok Channel Launch

Wanna find me elsewhere?

You'll get bored quickly... it's a lot of photos of my adorable husband, our kids and our rescue dog, Porter.