MAKING MEANING W/ MONKS
MAKING MEANING W/ MONKS
As a Strategy Director at Monks, I craft experiential, digital, and brand work that goes beyond the expected to connect with what people really care about and need.
Brands -> Life
From the world’s biggest tech brands to restaurants to sustainability initiatives and more, my work at Monks often feels like play. I lead strategy teams and collaborate with brilliant creatives, devs, and producers to cut to the core of what’s really needed for the brand, the client, and always primarily the customer. Whether we’re helping people understand and fall in love with a nascent tech product or reminding why they fell in love with a burger in the first place, strategy is at the heart of mindblowing execution.
Tech, but make it human
With AI glasses and mixed reality, Meta is inviting people into a whole new world of immersive and connected tech. But it’s still our world. Working on their ecommerce strategy, product launch campaigns, positioning, and creative production, my team and I help keep them laser focused on what remains most important: the humans who ultimately use the products. We help position these futuristic-feeling devices based on tangible, meaningful benefits, from fun to fitness to freedom from phones.
Client
Meta
Year
2022-2026
From promises to progress on climate
Amazon is one of the world’s biggest companies — and they know they have a massive responsibility to minimize the climate impact of their own business and to inspire (and offer tools to) other businesses around the world. We partner with them every day to bring those solutions to life digitally and help minimize carbon emissions, waste, negative social impacts and so much more.
Client
Amazon Sustainability
Year
2024-2025
Strategic Process @ Monks
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Good strategy comes from knowing what problem you’re really solving. That takes a lot of reading, thinking, talking, wondering, questioning, and exploring. But if you haven’t aligned and understood the ask behind the ask, you’ll never get the result that’s really needed.
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Once the brief is clear, it’s time to dive into… everything. Each project is different, but the aim is to use research, collaboration, and deep human insight to understand the needs of all stakeholders: the customer, the client, the team, the brand.
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With a strong hypothesis backed by deep research and deeper empathy, it’s time to set the frame for the work we’re going to make. This is about crafting an opportunity space and principles that will help the UX, creative, and dev teams spark something truly magical while always hewing to the spine of the strategic intent.
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Now it’s time to start building the thing itself. Strategy’s role in this phase is to offer guidance and feedback, and ensure that the strategic insight and guardrails are being embodied. We love to get our hands dirty and make alongside other disciplines, with massive respect for their subject matter expertise.
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Once we have a concept built, it’s time to share with client, receive feedback, and (depending on the project) potentially expose it to some customers or audience members to see how it works in the real world.
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This is where the rubber hits the road. With everything we’ve learned, we now make the things itself, with strategy keeping a close eye on the build to ensure it continues to represent the best version of the strategic approach (and advocating for the end user at every turn).
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Once we have an approved and tested product, campaign, or experience, it’s time to put it out into the world. But that’s never the end of the journey — it’s always just the beginning. We monitor performance and iterate and improve, as well as learning from what went well and could have gone better process-wise to inform our next project.
Your million-dollar burger is ready
We worked with Burger King to craft a contest like no other: the Million-Dollar Whopper leveraged AI in a fun, hilarious way and invited people to craft their own out-there but delicious sandwich for the chance to win a whole lot of money. Many people are still figuring out what AI is capable of and how to use it; but pretty much everyone understands a delicious burger and a pile of cash.
