JOHN LAMBIE

Freelance and contract copywriting and visual branding for local and overseas client. Projects include:

• Rebranding a large international emergency services company (with six operational divisions).
• Developing brand identities, logos, signage, livery and stationery; plus style guides and templates for business docs, presentations, web sites, digital collateral, promotional materials, ad units and corporate videos.
• Generating weekly social media and blog content, and optimise copy across their websites based on highest-ranking search terms.
• Assisting several overseas (USA & SE Asia) startups to create and customise their pitch decks.
• Running virtual workshops to develop their elevator pitches and a range of outbound marketing materials.
• I continue to write and design a range of B2B digital content for Dell Technologies, promoting their consulting services, cloud-based & big data solutions, and server/workstation offerings.

Launching Project Dextr: a global initiative to increase digital literacy and digital inclusion. Dextr is a text input app for mobile devices – i.e A virtual keyboard which I designed and patented, featuring a novel interface that improves the UX and radically increases texting speeds while reducing errors. I threw myself into:

• Market research on product viability, the competitive landscape, our target addressable markets (TAM), potential partners (telcos & device manufacturers), customer acquisition tactics, and a range of other key data.
• Product design, adopting the principles of Design Thinking and Lean Startup.
• Responsibilities included UI and UX design, drafting use cases, configuring a revenue stream, and writing the functional and technical specs.
• Protecting the IP by drafting patent submissions.
• We were granted 37 patents including AU, US & EU
• Assembling a virtual international team of designers, developers and testers – hiring troops-to-task based on skill and experience, not location.
• Conducting hands-on, in-market user acceptance tests in Australia, the Philippines, Kenya, Ghana, Chile and the US
• Raising funds for the project.
• This required writing a prospectus-level Information Memorandum and an ongoing series of pitch decks.
• Writing (and rewriting) the business plan to project app sales, revenue streams, growth targets, and reinvestment requirements.
• Planning and executing global strategies for branding, advertising, and content marketing.
• Converting this content into the vernacular for 13 languages across dozens of countries in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Africa.
• During this time, I also worked as a lecturer and tutor for final year students at the Queensland College of Art (Griffith University).
• I also co-authored a book, 'Digital Doesn’t Matter (and other advertising heresies)'.

In 2007, I was invited back to Asia to head an initiative to 'digitise' the Bates Asia advertising network. This was a roving role and involved:

• Auditing the digital skills and capabilities of their 15 offices.
• Developing a comprehensive training program to be conducted top-down and bottom-up for 800+ staff.
• Organising a 'Train the trainers' week.
• Flying to each centre to conduct the training in split shifts.
• In the middle of this project, a major opportunity arose within the network: At Dell’s behest, we were asked to assemble a global agency 'from scratch'.
• My new role was to be based in Austin Texas, with the responsibility for: Leading the digital creative team for all of Dell’s B2B business in the Americas.
• Defining the voice of Dell in these markets.
• Overseeing the creation and delivery of hundreds of PPC ad units and dozens of eDMs and landing pages every week.
• Pitching new digital initiatives for product launches.
• Directing their first ever global B2B branding campaign: 'Take Your Own Path'.
• A highlight was interviewing and shooting Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) and Tony Wheeler (founder of Lonely Planet).

Following a gap-year traveling the world, I landed a gig in the McCann’s Brisbane office. I was hired to:

• Brainstorm, pitch and present ideas to their client base.
• Key clients included Brisbane City Council, Queensland Water (this was during the big drought), Treasury Casino and Michael Hill.
• Design and write press ads, radio spots, TVCs, billboards, PSAs and a slew of direct marketing and educational materials.
• Queensland Water was our most challenging brief: Raise awareness of the region’s dwindling water supplies.

I started as a freelance copywriter in the Singapore office. It was a heady time, starting in the 'what’s this web thing?' days and progressing through the dot-com boom, the dot-com bust and onwards and upwards to Web 2.0. Our foundation clients were Heineken, Singtel and Nokia, and during my tenure we won Compaq (which went on to become HP), Coca-Cola, Singapore Airlines, Silk Air, Visa, Mercedes Benz, Audi, MTV and Nike. During the entire dot-com bust, we never lost a client and we never lost a pitch My responsibilities included:

• Creative direction, art direction and copywriting.
• Managing and mentoring a team of writers, designers, coders and animators.
• During this time, I also lectured at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, teaching visual communication, typography, Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver.

Managing, designing and producing multimedia projects on cutting edge soft-and hardware.

Designing content including fashion shoots & spreads, feature articles, advertisements, illustrations, and regular columns for the Singapore launch of ELLE magazine.

Designing and writing content including fashion shoots & spreads, feature articles, advertisements, illustrations, and regular columns for Beverly magazine.

Designing and managing regular and ad hoc market research campaigns. Analysing, reporting, visualising, and presenting the results.

A dual role covering marketing and market research, as well as art direction, graphic design, copywriting, and production.