STRATEGY
Creative Strategy Portfolio — 2026

AI-native ad systems
built to perform.

Most people making AI ads start with the image. I start with the brief. That's not a creative philosophy, it's a reflex built over seven-plus years of work where the details weren't optional.

Background Biotech · Health Systems · Clinical Research
Training Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamp
Tools Nano Banana · Flow · Photoshop · Claude
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Systems thinking
meets creative instinct.

My last role was managing enterprise partnerships across academic medical centers, federal institutions, legal teams, and clinical ops simultaneously. That included building marketing collateral with creative teams, developing partner-facing landing pages, and working with PMRC on content that had to be accurate, on-brand, and cleared fast. You learn quickly how to read what a stakeholder actually needs versus what they're asking for, and how to build systems that produce consistent output even when everything else is moving.

I bring that same approach to creative projects. Every piece in this portfolio starts with a research-backed brief, runs through a structured generation system, and produces output that can be evaluated, iterated, and scaled. I can tell you exactly what the strategic reasoning is behind every creative decision in here.

01
Hero Case Study
TOPICALS
Full AI creative system · DTC skincare

Topicals was founded because their founder spent years being told by dermatologists that they didn't know how to treat her skin. That's not a brand backstory, that's the brief. I built a full creative system for a BIPOC-founded skincare brand whose entire competitive edge is specificity. Real ingredients, real awards, the actual shades and skin conditions that mainstream beauty treated as an edge case.

Brand Spec Visual Style Card 7-Agent Copy System AI Image Generation Animation (Veo) Multi-Format Ads
The Strategy

Proof over promise.

This audience has spent years watching the beauty industry treat their skin as an afterthought — too deep, too textured, too specific to bother with. Generic "before and after" claims don't land here. This consumer is skeptical, informed, and done being marketed at by brands that discovered inclusivity as a trend. The winning angle isn't "this product works." It's "this brand was made for you, by people who actually know your skin." Every ad in this system leads with that proof: founder story, real ingredients, awards from press that covers BIPOC beauty. Health claims are the close, the specificity is the hook.
What I Built
01
Brand Spec Card
Full visual identity system for AI generation — typography, confirmed color palette, photography direction, casting rules, always/never list, AI generation notes. Uploaded with every prompt to keep outputs on-brand.
02
Visual Style Card
Brand essence, photography mood spectrum, product styling notes, background color rules. Uploaded alongside the brand spec so every generation starts from the same visual foundation.
03
7-Agent Copy System
Seven sequential copy review agents, each scoring one dimension. Output from one feeds the next. Built so any copy can be evaluated and improved without subjective guesswork.
04
Ad Portfolio
Multi-format set across two hero products: High Roller Ingrown Tonic and Faded Under Eye Masks. Editorial lifestyle, UGC-style, ingredient callout, and before/after formats.

7-Agent Sequential Copy Scoring System

Each agent scores one dimension → passes to next
01
Persona Fit
Does this speak to Topicals' actual customer — Gen Z, skin-aware, BS-detector on high?
02
Angle Fit
Is the creative angle differentiated from what every other skincare brand is running?
03
Emotional Fit
Does it land emotionally without being manipulative or patronizing?
04
Brand Fit
Does the copy sound like Topicals — specific, direct, a little irreverent?
05
Conversion
Does it give someone a reason to act — not just feel something?
06
Format
Is the structure right for the placement — hook, body, CTA proportions correct?
07
Grammar
Clean, intentional, no errors — unless the rule-break is deliberate and on-brand.
Ad Output — High Roller Ingrown Tonic + Faded Under Eye Masks
High Roller Never Was
High Roller — Problem Reframe ("Never Was")
High Roller Until Now
High Roller — Product in Use ("Until Now")
Faded Bodega
Faded — Cultural Lifestyle ("Get Faded" Bodega)

← Replace placeholder slots with your Topicals ad images

System Artifacts — Brand Spec Card + Visual Style Card

Every generation prompt was built on top of these two reference documents, uploaded alongside each Nano Banana prompt to enforce brand consistency across all outputs.

Topicals Brand Spec Card
Brand Spec Card — AI Generation Reference
Topicals Visual Style Card
Visual Style Card — Photography + Mood Direction
Supporting Case Studies
GRAMMARLY
Three-concept performance ad system · SaaS

Grammarly's challenge isn't awareness, it's a generation of their users who've decided ChatGPT is close enough. Each of the three concepts targets a distinct reason someone stays: behavioral habit (it lives in every app they already use), product proof (seeing it work in real time), and direct competitive positioning (what ChatGPT actually can't replicate). Three objections, three emotional entry points, one brief.

What I built
Full creative brief and brand spec (10 sections)
3 concepts with individual image generation prompts
Copy variants per concept with strategic rationale
Lifestyle, product demo, and competitive positioning formats
Grammarly lifestyle
Grammarly ChatGPT
System Artifacts
Grammarly Brand Spec
Brand Spec Card
Grammarly Visual Style
Visual Style Card
OLIPOP
Two-direction ad portfolio · DTC beverage

Nostalgia is Olipop's actual product and the soda is just the vehicle. Their creative strategy leans into that: a cream soda on a golden-hour porch after a long day at the beach isn't a health ad, it's the feeling of a summer you actually remember. The fiber count and lower sugar land as proof once you're already in that memory. Two directions were tested, lifestyle UGC to pull the emotional trigger and product hero to close with the ingredients, with format chosen before visual direction, not after.

What I built
7-phase brand research brief
Lifestyle/UGC direction — golden hour porch, cream soda
Product hero direction — Shirley Temple, pun headline
Portrait 9:16 format, all typography added post-generation
Olipop lifestyle
Olipop Shirley Temple
DRIPDROP
Micro-moments strategy — hydration / wellness

DripDrop markets to athletes and performance-seekers. The growth opportunity is everyone else. People who aren't hydrating for sport, but because there's always a next thing. Three underserved personas, three distinct creative angles, each built from real behavioral insight rather than category assumptions.

Strategic Reframe

"Not for performance. For everything after."

DripDrop's doctor-developed credibility and lower sugar positioning makes them uniquely suited to own the caregiver segment: an audience that doesn't see itself in sports drink ads but is chronically depleted.

Persona 01
"It's 5pm and she hasn't had a sip of water all day."
The Desk Worker. Dehydrated by default, not by choice. High output, low body awareness. Doesn't see herself in performance drink ads.
Persona 02
"She thought it was the weather."
The Seasonal Sufferer. Low energy every winter, never connects it to hydration. The insight reframes the symptom she already knows.
Persona 03
"Not for performance. For everything after."
The Perpetual Caregiver. Nurse, teacher, mom. Always on for someone else. She hydrates because there's always a next thing, never for herself.
Motion CS Bootcamp — Week 5
DATA ANALYSIS
Creative benchmarks + funnel diagnostics

Analyzed three real ad accounts from Motion's Creative Benchmarks and Content Engine reports. The goal: identify what actually drives performance, not just what looks good. Two clear principles emerged from the data.

Next Steps from the Data

Go face-first. Real person on camera within the first two seconds, every brief going forward. The more interesting test is what happens right after the hook. Eliah's numbers suggest there's conversion left on the table between seconds 4 and 15. Tightening that transition could close the gap between stopping power and actual conversion.

Learning 01 — Thumbstop

"The first frame is a human handshake, not branding."

Face-first hooks win. Every ad that opened with a real person on camera (Julia: 52.89%, Eliah: 60.7%) cleared 40%+ thumbstop. Text and graphic-led ads (Levi: 13.02%) barely broke 15%. Format is the first decision, not an afterthought.

Learning 02 — Hook vs. Funnel

"A monster hook can carry the whole funnel."

Eliah's hold rate was only 14.75% but still delivered the cheapest conversion in both reports at CA$2.98 per form. Volume of attention at the top compensated for mid-funnel drop-off. Hook quality is the highest leverage variable in the entire ad.

WHY THIS
PORTFOLIO
EXISTS.

I spent almost a decade in clinical research and enterprise partnerships, coordinating across academic medical centers, federal institutions, and health systems on work that couldn't afford to be wrong. Part of that was creative: building marketing collateral with agency and clinical teams, developing co-branded landing pages for research partnerships, and writing patient-facing health content that had to be accurate, approved, and actually readable by a real person. Translating complex, high-stakes information into something a human being will act on is exactly what performance creative asks you to do.

This portfolio is proof I can build the architecture behind creative, not just the output. The Y2K camcorder treatment on the Topicals animated piece wasn't a happy accident. It was a deliberate decision rooted in the brand's actual cultural DNA.

I don't confuse a pretty output for effective output. It's often treated as a tradeoff. I treat it as the brief.

All work is speculative. Not affiliated with or commissioned by Topicals, Grammarly, or Olipop.

Get in touch ↗

Tools & Skills

Nano Banana / Google Flow AI Image Generation
Veo / Google Flow AI Animation
Adobe Photoshop · Lightroom Photo Editing
Canva Typography & Layout
Claude Research & Systems
Creative Briefing & Brand Spec Strategy
Copy Scoring Frameworks Systems
Performance Ad Strategy Creative
Enterprise Stakeholder Management Operations
Motion CS Bootcamp Training — 2026
PMP Certification In Progress
CP — Creative Strategy · 2026 Hayward, CA · Open to remote
All work in this portfolio is speculative and not affiliated with or commissioned by any brand shown. Built using Nano Banana (via Google Flow), Canva, and Motion Creative Strategy Bootcamp frameworks.
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