Marketing is a new area for me - well, that is unless you consider that being editor in chief of a consumer magazine is an ongoing effort to position and sell product to both readers and advertisers. What I actually mean is that developing concepts and copy for the express purpose of product sales is a new area for me.

I stepped into this field when, soon after I had left Future US in July of 2007, I received an email from a friend who is the chief creative officer of Firewood, a San Francisco marketing and communications firm. It seemed that he had a client - the Sacramento Kings - that needed some conceptual work done for their season ticket campaign, and since he knew me to be an avid sports fan, I might have some insight into what motivates a fan to move up to become a season ticket holder. I called him, we talked, and a new chapter in my career began.

For this client I developed 15 different themed concepts for their season ticket sales effort. Each concept was presented with a theme title, a description of the target audience for that concept, and a 50-75 word sample of ad copy based on that concept. Firewood's creative staff took those concepts, chose 12 of them, and created mockup ads based on them.

We then met with senior Sacramento Kings management, reviewed those dozen ads, and narrowed them to two for further development. I then created email, direct mail, and brochure copy for those two concepts, each with four variants based on market segmentation. The Kings management settled on one of the two concepts, and based their campaign around it. To see a spread from one brochure that used the final concept and copy I wrote, click here.

This was another client that I wrote for through Firewood - and an exceptionally fun project, I might add. However, since the campaign has not yet been released, I shouldn't discuss any details. Let's just say that my snarky humor-writing abilities were useful in creating this copy. When the campaign goes public, I'll add materials to this site.