Resume and Case Studies
ABOUT
Barbara Sweeney was born in New York City and shaped in California.
Her writing spans the worlds of advertising and marketing, as well as fiction, poetry and prose.
She's built businesses, raised children, climbed mountains, cooked feasts and spun tales.
She lives and writes in Los Angeles.
Advertising references:
Dreamworks/SKG, Los Angeles
Granada America, New York
Hallmark Channel, Los Angeles
History Channel, New York
La Agencia De Orci, Los Angeles
Poetry Published:
The American Scholar
The Arroyo Arts Council
Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry
The Connecticut River Review
The Climbing Art
The Malahat Review
The Washout Review
Yankee Magazine
Education:
University of Southern California, Fine Arts
Art Center College of Design, Advertising Design
Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca, Mexico, Spanish language.
Capabilities:
Advertising and marketing; copywriting; corporate themelines, films and image campaigns; creative development; product names; strategic planning.
Client collaborators:
Architecture: Designwork Studios (*CASE STUDY).
Automotive: Acura; American Honda Hispanic(*CASE STUDY); Honda Export Latin America, Indian Motorcycles.
Retail/Goods: Discovery Channel Stores; U.S. Borax (*CASE STUDY).
Entertainment: ABC-TV, AMC (*CASE STUDY),Discovery Channel (*CASE STUDY); DreamWorks/SKG (*CASE STUDY); Encore Media; Hallmark Channel (*CASE STUDY); Hallmark Movie Channel , History Channel, Metro TV NY (*CASE STUDY); PBS; Rainbow Media; TLC; Travel Channel; WE Women’s Entertainment
Network (*CASE STUDY).
Financial: American School of Mortgage Banking (*CASE STUDY), Allstate Insurance Co., Puerto Rico; California State Lottery, Seattle First National Bank, Security Pacific Bank.
Food: Acapulco Restaurant; Adhor Farms; El Pollo Loco; Mori-Nu Tofu; Nestle; Numero Uno Pizza; PepsiCo; A Thousand Cranes Restaurant; Velvet Turtle Restaurant; Winchell’s Donuts.
Online: Oriole Software, rideshare commute site.
Publishing: Addison Wesley Publishing.
Pro-Bono: Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF); Sisters Breast Cancer Survivors Network; 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign.
Real Estate: Century 21 Real Estate Corp.
Technical: Panavision, Inc. (*CASE STUDY); Tokina Optical.
Toys: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Travel: Air New Zealand; City of Glendale CA; Hilton Hotels; New Otani Hotel (*CASE STUDY); Sonora Mexico Board of Tourism; Western Airlines.
Awards:
CLIO, Public Service; McCann-Erickson Creative Director’s Award; LULU, Ethnic Advertising; Silver Medal, Houston Intl. Film Festival; Belding Finalist; Medalist, NY Film Festival; Chicago Film Festival INTERCOM Award, special venue films.
Seminars taught:
Advertising/Marketing, Creative Strategy and Production: Encore Media, Denver Creative Strategy and Production: Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
Econ Games (Advertising 101), The Open School, Los Angeles, 3rd grade.
Survived:
Colorado Outward Bound Wilderness Training.
Can Sing:
The Latin Mass.
DESIGNWORK STUDIOS
RJM client DWS built a solid architectural design business serving the powersport industry with such clients as Harley-Davidson and Arctic Cat. They felt that their talents, most importantly their ability to steward their client’s brands through the skilled application of retail design principles, could help them broaden their business into the wider retail arena. RJM developed a comprehensive communications platform for DWS and probed the areas of retail most likely to offer growth opportunities in today’s economy.
AMERICAN HONDA HISPANIC
Honda Motors has been pro-active is reaching out to the lucrative and underserved Hispanic market. Through La Agencia de Orci, Honda began a multi-pronged campaign to build auto sales with this segment. La Agencia’s plan started with community sponsorships for schools as well as the Ballet Folklorico and World Cup Soccer and went on to full-fledged advertising and collateral from the ground up. Their initial efforts required a mainstream English-language writer to work with their existing creative team.
U.S. BORAX
In an effort to invigorate its dying brand, McCann-Erickson’s long time client U.S. Borax decided to re-position the laundry product "Borateem" targeting younger users. This campaign helped Borateem compete more strategically for shelf pace and build new product loyalties.
AMERICAN MOVIE CLASSICS
Themeline development for AMC’s re-brand effort in May of 2002. The channel was aiming to change their programming and add commercials. With a new look, new theme and new promos, they sought to down-age their audience and attract more ad dollars.
DREAMWORKS/SKG CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Consumer products connected to feature films play an important role in the profit picture for a studio. Prior to the release of the animated feature Shrek, for example, DreamWorks faced strong resistance in creating important strategic merchandising partnerships from key national advertisers and toy manufacturers. Many seemed unwilling to gamble on a strange-looking, ill-mannered character with no track record. The lucky ones who shared the vision of Shrek’s creators have also shared in the most successful DreamWorks film in studio history.
Worked to develop stylebook, product, packaging and advertising editorial for several DreamWorks features, including Shrek 1 & 2, Spirit, Wallace & Gromit and Madagascar.
HALLMARK CHANNEL / HALLMARK MOVIE CHANNEL
Participated in 8-months of strategic team planning, positioning and creative marketing development to launch HC – the most successful network launch in television history.
Since 2000, created annual B-B communications for Advertising and Affiliate Sales groups, including print campaigns for 2004 through 2009.
Continue to consult on an annual contract.
METRO-TV NY
Cablevision’s New York Metro Channels run tri-state area programming for sports, weather and general entertainment. They wanted to capitalize on their New York exclusiveness, as well as build awareness, sampling and demand. The challenge came in creating a themeline for a channel not available in Los Angeles – the feel for which had to come from supplied programming tapes.
Developed a strategy, themeline and tune-in scripts for Metro-TV. "Turn On NY" became fully merchandised and appears on the New York/ Metro website shared with New York magazine.
WE – WOMEN’S ENTERTAINMENT
Provided tune-in copy for WE launch working with their existing themeline, "The space we share."
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF MORTGAGE BANKING
RJM client ASMB is the oldest and best-established mortgage training school in the country. They approached RJM Public Relations and Marketing to help them launch their post-secondary education services in Houston in April 2003. More importantly, ASMB needed to build a long-term, comprehensive marketing and public relations program that would help them grow their business in many other states.
PANAVISION, INC.
Panavision is considered by many to be the premier motion picture camera and equipment provider in the industry. When the company introduced their series of Primo lenses, they ran an ongoing campaign in American Cinematographer with the headlines "Achieve", "Excite" and "Succeed". The advertising was aimed at film directors and Director’s of Photography to inform them about the new equipment and persuade them to try it, as well as to remind them of Panavision’s history of leadership in the motion picture industry.
NEW OTANI HOTEL
An introductory small-space print campaign for the world-class Japanese hotel New Otani helped to take downtown Los Angeles off the never-never-land list for business travelers and locals. These ads worked to create business bookings for rooms, banquets and meetings as well as restaurant seatings beyond those of the New Otani’s loyal Japanese clientele.
DISCOVERY NETWORKS
More than a decade of experience writing for Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel Stores, TLC and Travel Channel: