As a marketing communications director, advertising manager and ad agency owner, I’ve made a career of executing the following responsibilities for organizations, associations and companies large and larger. And sometimes smaller.

• Brand Communications Mgt.
• Marketing Collateral Develop.
• Account Management
• Product Launches
• Lobbying Support
• Strategic Planning
• Business Development
• B2B / B2C Advertising
• Web-based Marketing
• Creative Design Management

As President of HanlonDorsey, an ad agency I founded in Baltimore, I learned that good clients care about creativity. But they care even more about how much the work sells.

The approach we took and the work we developed at HanlonDorsey sold like crazy. Here’s how we did it:

By developing creative and compelling advertising messaging.

By creating innovative, multi-media advertising strategies and marketing collateral materials to rapidly establish brand awareness.

By establishing lasting and profitable client and business relationships.

By building top-performing teams.

These days, I’m back in touch with the joys of not owning an ad agency, helping a variety of clients to maximize their sales potential across the country. To do so, I call upon all the strengths I’ve developed as an advertising creative director, copywriter, account manager, agency president and team leader.

I’ve compiled quite a few success stories in the marketing communications business, on projects that include everything from selling fertilizer (ironic, I know, for someone in the communications business) to helping to prevent nuclear war. While the jury’s still out on the nuclear war front, the programs I produced did manage to sell a heck of a lot of fertilizer, as well as innumerable other categories of products and services.

My work has won multiple creative awards, including about two dozen Addys, eight Gold Awards from the Television and Radio Advertising Association, and as a Clio finalist. As an agency president and creative director, I’ve overseen the administration of multimedia advertising efforts for MCI, ARINC, Liberty Mutual, DuPont, Joseph A. Bank and Princeton University. I also wrote a book on product launches and have delivered presentations at the National Press Club on maximizing marketing communications effectiveness.

But enough about me. Get in touch and let’s talk about helping you to get in touch with selling more of your product or service than you ever thought possible.

Meanwhile, take a look at the stories behind some of my proudest sales- or awareness-generating accomplishments.

Princeton University
I wrote, produced and directed a fundraising video for Princeton University, yielding $2.5M in funds raised. When a Princeton organization needed to raise funds for a major facilities renovation, they called HanlonDorsey. We sprang into action, as the promotional efforts needed to be completed and in the hands of alumni in a matter of weeks. I personally headed up the team to create a promotional video, interviewing dozens of students, alumni and university staff to develop video content. The presentation of the video at venues nationwide did more than successfully launch the fundraising campaign. We helped the university exceed the targeted goal of $500K five-fold.

Avatech Software
I developed a brand theme and ad campaign for the software development division of Avatech, a value added reseller. The theme was credited with helping to change the way the company’s associates thought about themselves, thus paving the way for the organization to expand as a result. Though Avatach was already an industry-leading design engineering software support company, they planned to enter the software development business. First on their list of needs was a brand theme to support the division launch. I led the team that created a uniform, design-driven theme and ad concept, fueling a successful division launch and unprecedented sales company-wide.

Joseph A. Bank Men’s Clothier
I managed the development of a multimedia advertising campaign for Joseph A. Bank that helped drive a 300% increase in B2C sales. I partnered in guiding the development of the marketing communications strategy and creative materials for a campaign that helped to continue growth for this national leader in retail sales of men’s clothing. Creative support tactics for the multimedia ad campaign included first class and e-mail content, and in-store promotions. Their web-based sales increased nearly ten-fold as a result.

Andrews Federal Credit Union
I led the development of marketing campaigns for Andrews Federal Credit Union, yielding 20% growth. Though it was one of the largest credit unions in the nation, Andrews Federal Credit Union’s underutilized marketing resources were sorely in need of effective promotion among customers. Working in concert with the credit union’s marketing director, I led the team that developed a number of product-specific marketing campaigns that included print advertising, direct mail, collateral and in-house branding. Within six months of the launch of what was at the time an unusual “retail-branding” approach, the various campaigns started yielding a sustained 20% increase in deposits. 

Physicians for Social Responsibility
I was instrumental in helping to capture congressional and nationwide attention for Physicians for Social Responsibility. PSR is an organization that views nuclear war as a health issue, and devotes the bulk of its resources to helping to prevent it. They were looking for a way to call attention to the fact that both the United States and Russia had thousands of nuclear missiles on high alert, aimed at each other, years after the end of the cold war. Each missile was capable of being launched with just a few minutes notice. As Creative Director, I developed the idea and led the team that delivered 535 toasters to the U.S. Capitol – one for every Senator and Representative of Congress. On the side of each toaster was emblazoned the theme “In the time it takes to make toast, we could all be toast.” When a button was pulled, the toaster popped up paper missiles to drive the point home.

With a press conference event held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, the effort received national coverage on the Monday morning on which it was launched, with numerous mentions in a variety of publications, including The Washington Post, Roll Call, the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times and others.

The client congratulated the agency on the remarkable success of its effort, and immediately began the follow-up lobbying campaign to change the status of the “high alert” program.

What makes this campaign a “spectacular failure” is that it was launched on Monday, September 10, 2001. With the next morning’s terrorist attack and collapse of the World Trade Center, the political climate changed so dramatically that the effort was temporarily abandoned in spite of everyone’s best efforts.