THE STORY BEHIND THE CAMPAIGN
How One Insight Became a National Retail Partnership with OfficeMax
Every great campaign starts with a story worth telling.
This one started with a simple human truth: a school locker is the first space a kid truly gets to call their own. Not their bedroom , that’s shared, assigned, inherited. The locker is theirs. Chosen, designed, expressed. It’s where identity starts to take up physical space in the world. That’s the story I brought to OfficeMax. And it became the foundation of a national back-to-school campaign that appeared in their stores and online across the country.
HOW THE STORY GOT STARTED
Good storytelling creates compounding momentum.
It started with a book. Cube Chic was my published guide to personalizing the spaces we inhabit at work,, the idea being that when you make your environment your own, you show up differently. The book established me as a national authority on creative workspace design and personal expression through space. The book opened the door to national television. I developed the creative concept, produced the content, and appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show as the lifestyle expert, pitching the idea directly to a massive national audience. That broadcast reach and media credibility built the platform that made brands take notice. OfficeMax came next. They were planning one of their biggest back-to-school campaigns, a multi-channel initiative featuring a partnership with Disney-owned ABC Family, pop star Jesse McCartney, and Google Video. They needed an authentic storytelling voice with real authority in the creative space. They found it in me.
THE STORY I CREATED FOR OFFICEMAX
The campaign concept: a locker is a kid’s first canvas.
The strategic insight I brought to OfficeMax was this: every kid walks into school on the first day carrying a version of who they want to be. The locker is where that identity gets to live. It’s not just storage, it’s self-expression. Decorate it right, and you walk the halls feeling like yourself. That’s a story parents connect with emotionally and kids respond to viscerally. It reframes a back-to-school supply purchase as something more meaningful, an act of self-expression, a small but real assertion of identity. And it gave OfficeMax a narrative reason to be in that moment beyond just selling products. I translated that story into practical, inspiring locker-decorating content ideas, designs, and editorial direction that gave families a vision to work toward and the products to get there. The content appeared both in-store at OfficeMax locations nationwide and online, carrying the story into every touchpoint of the campaign.
MY ROLE IN THE CAMPAIGN
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Campaign concept & story strategy — Originated the locker-as-first-canvas insight and built the complete narrative strategy around it, connecting personal identity and self-expression to a retail back-to-school moment.
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Editorial content creation — Wrote and developed all locker-decorating ideas and creative content that appeared in OfficeMax stores and online, turning the concept into practical, inspiring storytelling.
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Product design — Designed the actual products that brought the campaign to life on shelves in OfficeMax stores across the country.
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Brand authority & positioning — Leveraged existing media credibility, published author, national broadcast appearances, to give the campaign instant authenticity.
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On-camera talent & spokesperson — Appeared as the lifestyle and design expert, embodying the campaign’s creative vision on screen.
National Retail Footprint
OfficeMax Stores
Across the Country
In-Store & Online
Dual Channel Campaign
Reaching Millions
ABC Family TV Partnership
Dual Channel Campaign
Reaching Millions
THE SAME STORYTELLING INSTINCT, NOW WITH DATA
The platforms have changed The way I think about stories hasn't.
What made the OfficeMax campaign work, a sharp human insight, a concept that earns emotional buy-in, content that lives across multiple channels, is exactly what I bring to digital content today. The difference is that now I can measure it in real time. When I grew Microsoft’s M365 Developer YouTube channel 40% in subscribers and 20% in engagement, the strategic foundation was the same: find the story that the audience actually needs, build content around that, and use data, watch time curves, retention drop-off, click-through rates,to continuously sharpen the storytelling. Same instinct. Sharper tools.That’s the through-line across 15+ years of work: I find the human truth in a brief, build a story around it, and then make sure that story finds its audience, whether that’s a retail shelf, a national broadcast, or a YouTube channel growing week over week.
ADDIONTAL BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
I created campaigns, strategy, and production for the following:
Amazon, Microsoft, 3M, ABC, CBS, Discovery Plus, General Growth, Mont Blanc, Benjamin Moore, Macy's Anheuser-Busch, Lexus, McDonalds, Walmart, Office Max