Blockbuster

I know, I know. Sorry about your late fees. But I actually enjoyed much of my time working for Blockbuster. I was brought in as the first copywriter on the company's small internal agency, which was in charge of creative development for the by-mail and digital services. We got to build those brands from scratch like delicious biscuits, including voice guidelines. In addition to working on the brand and marketing campaigns, I directed a small team of writers, wrote UX/UI product copy, managed the editorial calendar, and ran the blog and social media. 

Tagline: Movie Night, Any Night

I created the tagline for our by-mail offering, which was later trademarked and used across all materials. Here it is in place on the site's splash page, because this is when splash pages were still a thing. 

Campaign: MovieClique

MovieClique was Blockbuster's Facebook app that allowed users to rate and recommend movies, see what movies their friends were watching and get ideas on what to watch next — all powered by the online catalog tied to our by-mail and digital products. I helped conceptualize the app and its functionality, then named the app and concepted/wrote the launch campaign. 

Media: Email, in-house banners, social media, print mailer inserts, landing page

Radio Spot: Combo Pass

I wrote and directed a national radio campaign to introduce the new Blockbuster Combo Pass. Not a lot of people still talking about their radio spots out there, but I love them. It's like making old-timey radio dramas.

Category and Collection Pages

Blockbuster.com had a number of pages to highlight movie genres or purpose-built collections for holidays, partnerships, etc. The banner headers on these pages were a great place to show off the enthusiastic, movie-geek voice I developed for the company. The creative team also got to help make selections for movie collections. Forcing my movie taste on an unwitting public is one of the highlights of my career.

Poll Pages

The creative team regularly concepted and built pages to improve our site engagement and encourage users to add older movies to their queues, including a series of polls used for bracket-syle contests. Polls were promoted via email and social media. 

Print Pieces Galore

The creative team at Blockbuster had the pleasure of working on a ton of sweet, sweet print. Below is just a sampling of direct mail, ValPak coupons, event handouts and DVD mailer ads.