Championing ‘Brave Women’ to Drive Winter Tourism

My creative partner and I were challenged to come up with a big idea to drive tourism to the Finger Lakes region – in the MIDDLE. OF. WINTER.

Using the 2020 centennial of the 19th Amendment as a backdrop, we reframed the stories of nine famous abolitionists, suffragists, and all-around trailblazers to inspire a new generation of badass women to come and pay homage. We lead a fully integrated campaign featuring a bold, modern illustration style and a fresh, contemporary voice that would resonate with a younger audience.

In 2022, our agency, Three Needs Creative was presented with an “Excellence in Marketing” Award for this campaign by the New York State Tourism Industry Alliance.

CD/Copwriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman | Illustrator: Kirsten Ulve/Mendola Artists

Making ‘Love City’ – the first-ever hard seltzer crafted on St. John

What does a well-established craft brewery in the Virgin Islands do during a global pandemic? Well, if you’re St. John Brewers, you go ahead and dive into the highly competitive hard seltzer category. The pressure was on to create an ownable brand and tag line that would allow SJB to make a splash in the space against category giant, Truly. And make a splash they did. Introducing Love City, ‘A Tropical Kind of Tipsy’.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman | Photographer: Sarah B. Swan | Video Editor & Motion Graphics Artist: Athena Karper

Business Challenge: How do you keep Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail top of mind all year round?

Creative Solution: You make a whole bunch of quick, fun TV spots, highlighting tasty new flavors and drink recipes to match every  occasion. Here are a few of mine.

ACD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard  | Art Director: Janeen Ritson | Creative Director: John Petruney

How do you carve out an entirely new product category? Well, for starters, you hire Sofia Vergara. Then you give her a really rich story to tell. All she had to do was be honest about the Ninja Coffee Bar's amazing quality, groundbreaking technology, and life-changing versatility and voila, success! 

Here are a few spreads from the cookbook that went from the necessary "infomercial upsell" to the creative foundation for the entire launch. Positioning, color palette, typography, and voice were all developed here and extended throughout the integrated campaign, including the informercial and the Ogilvy-produced TV spot. Not bad for a little cookbook project. 

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | ACD/Art Director: Lauren Wiernasz

Hibercation: A Cozy New Take on a Winter Getaway

In spring, summer, and fall, New York’s Finger Lakes region is a magnet for tourists and day trippers. My creative partner and I were given the challenge of attracting tourists to Cayuga County in the dead of winter. As native upstate New Yorkers, we were all too familiar with the innate urge to curl up under a blanket from January until April. For this campaign, we turned that barrier into an asset by redefining the cozy winter getaway and coining a new term in the process. Hibercation – it’s part hibernation, part vacation, and 100% good for the soul.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman

The Ninja product team had their annual presentation to a premier retail partner coming up fast and they needed to convince them to increase Ninja's share of shelf with a new blending product.

Our creative challenge was to prove that this was not just another blender, but a whole new category. We introduced a modular system that promised to multi-task as hard as the busy, high-achieving moms in our target audience. As a card-carrying member of this target, I felt it only appropriate that I give it a voice that spoke my language. This was hands-down the busiest (and most fun) first week on any job I had ever had.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Keith Manning

Helping Kids Grow Through the Power of Play

As this important nonprofit entered year three, the leadership was ready to elevate and coordinate the organization’s communications approach. My partner and I created their first annual marcom plan, recommending strategies and tactics that clearly aligned with their mission and values. Then we got busy executing the plan, including website updates, fundraising letters, a full calendar of social media posts, monthly e-newsletters, and more. As moms ourselves, we feel great pride being associated with the Play Space’s mission to support children’s development through the power of play.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman

Embracing change amid pandemic paralysis.

If there was anything we learned by fall of 2020, it was that plans change. With the tourism industry basically at a standstill due to Covid, our client asked us to come up with an idea to get people traveling again. We created “(Un)Plan a Getaway”— a social and digital ad campaign encouraging New York Staters to take spontaneous trips to explore the abundance of natural beauty and attractions in their own ‘backyard’. Targeting people within a few hours’ drive of Cayuga County, we used a three-pronged communication strategy of “educate, inspire, and empower”, and countered the heaviness of the time with some much-needed lightheartedness. Because why not enjoy all the fun of a well-planned trip without all the, well…planning?

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman

Offering the ‘canna-curious’ a light, low-key way to unwind – body and mind

When our clients at Kind Grade came to my creative partner and me, they were ready to enter the new and ever-evolving world of cannabis with their Delta-8 infused seltzer. The term ‘Cool Out’ means ‘to relax and become calm’, which aptly describes the effect the drink has on the body and mind. This product was destined for a chill vibe, with a color palette and tone of voice to match. It was a fun one to bring to life.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman

This scrappy, yet sophisticated Boston-based startup hired me to bring their brand voice to life while introducing a totally new way to drink wine at home. It was a unique and modern take on the wine club that not only delivered wine to your door, it let you enjoy it for weeks after opening. Cheers to that.

While the company unfortunately did not last, I think you’ll find the copy I wrote for Kuvee.com to be timeless.

Copywriter: Karen Bedard | Designer: David Chung

Giving ‘Our Best Shot’ to ensure our best days are still ahead.

When it comes to marketing touchy subjects, a delicate touch is certainly needed. But by no means does that require a brand or organization to downplay their message or position on the matter. Quite the contrary. We knew when we helped the Cayuga County Health Department wade into the controversial Covid 19 vaccine issue, they had to be considerate, but not apologetic. Our campaign had to be confident, inclusive, encouraging, and unifying. People were ready to move from ‘doom and gloom’ to ‘joy and hope’—and we were more than happy to oblige.

CD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Maggie Susman | Illustrator: Toby Triumph/Fillin Global Animator: Matt Petrocci/Piledriver

Taking the "Straight from the Bog" campaign global was an amazing opportunity, both for Ocean Spray and for Arnold. Creatively, we had to figure out how to translate the heart and soul of our campaign into multiple markets that were far less familiar with our brand and the cranberry than our domestic audience. A few lessons learned: "Bog" means toilet in the UK, American humor is NOT universal, and the French are way more risqué than we are, even when it comes to cranberry juice.

In order to move from the "FREE business cards!!!" company and garner brand loyalty, Vistaprint needed to reposition itself from its transactional roots to a customer-centric model. The executive team took a good hard look at things like transparency, pricing models, manufacturing, design studio, and customer service. Then, it invested in the necessary resources to start shifting both the reality and the perception.

Our job as the in-house creative agency was to partner with the brand gurus at Lippincott to translate our brand strategy into a new identity for Vistaprint – manifesto, logo, voice, visual language, the whole shebang. I was determined to give this brand the soul it has long been searching for. Even if that soul had to come in the form of a color-coded brand book. 

ACD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | CD/Art Director: Keith Manning | Copywriters: John Grillo, Meaghan Nooney

Research showed that Lean Cuisine’s target audience was craving healthy, calorie-conscious options, but wasn’t willing sacrifice taste to get it. The company needed to attract a new Lean Cuisine loyalist by taking a fresh approach to their frozen food menu – and their advertising. Here’s how we pitched it.

The custom holiday card market was getting more and more competitive by the year, so in 2013, Vistaprint decided to create a “Look book” to give customers a little peek behind the design curtain and highlight not only the current design trends, fresh content, and new features, but some of the designers themselves. We took many learnings from the app-creation experience, not the least of which was it’s a good idea to allow more than three weeks from conception to live date. 

ACD/Copywriter: Karen Bedard | Senior Designer: Talie Mangeym | Senior Copywriter: Jen Gibson

Your Best Life Is Our Life’s Work.

In 2021, Finger Lakes Realty Partners celebrated 10 successful years as a private, locally owned real estate company based in the village of Skaneateles. To mark this important milestone, we refreshed the brand with a new tagline “Your best life is our life’s work”, a new logo, an improved color palette, and custom branded templates for print and social. In 2023, they were selected to join Sotheby’s International Realty Network.

CD/CW: Karen Bedard | CD/AD: Maggie Susman