Sage Rider

EXPERIENCE
2016 – Present, Associate Creative Director
Target, Target Creative, Minneapolis, MN
• Creative lead for Target Back to College campaign 2021
• Directed the creative team towards innovative ways to breakthrough to our younger guests using, a new partnership with up-coming content creators to help craft short bytes of video content and photography remotely.
The team delivered some killer creative – social, video, digital and Snapchat and serious results for back to college campaign $5.1B in sales, up $387M to LY leading to the most successful Back to College campaign in company history.

• Led creative partnership with Netflix and Target’s brand integration for Selena the series - fall 2020 launch - 2 seasons. Supported all creative research and development along multiple teams working across channels to make some magic.
• Creative lead 2020 Black Friday. Supported internal teams working across channels - Target Creative, Promo Marketing, SEM to design a flexible and connected message that is unmistakably Target. Implementing a strategic plan that led the team to “Black Friday Now”, under a ticking clock.
• Lead ACD Holiday 2020 Promo – Social, digital, radio, video. Promo accounted for over half of the media placements for Target Holiday. Flexed strategic thinking while managing tight timelines, re-work and business critical decisions that kept the team focused and within the swim lanes of the overall look and feel and voice of the Holiday campaign.
• Motivated all creative Target’s Holiday creative for all 2019 social videos and posts.
• Piloted the 2019 Target annual report creative from concept to pitch. The team created a bold new design direction to reflect our company's forward momentum.
• Lead writer ACD on 2018 Target Run campaign, video, social and all radio.
• Passionate leader that shaped and led the Garage, Target Creative’s internal innovation lab. Our safe place to do dangerous things.

CREATIVE THEATER
• Negotiated and pitched the idea of hiring actor, John Slattery from Mad Men fame to introduce our new Holiday campaign at our national sales meeting. I ideated and wrote the 3-minute script and the grey fox delivered. As he spoke my words, snow magically fell in the Target Center on to a packed house of Team Members.

• I crafted a short set for Jamie Foxx to perform at our national sales meeting, he was inappropriately awesome.

• Pioneered, concepted and created 3D renders of every person in the entire Target Creative studio as a holiday gift. Spearheaded efforts while working with our 3D print lab and CGI studio to scan and print mini figurines of all 300+ of our creatives.

• Created and emceed all content for a made-up game show for a United Way fundraising event with Target’s CMO on stage at the Target Center and again the following year on Target Field.

Writer and creative type with Target Creative, father of 3 boys and many questionable ideas, currently the reigning Target Marketing ping-pong champ.
Boo ya.

Instructing creative writing sessions and fireside advertising chats. Good times had by most.

My Fall 2014 Scriptwriting class of 4 students won 4 Pins @ MN Ad Fed "The Show"
• 1 Gold - Pantone - Poetry of Color - Carl Peterson
• 1 Silver - Pantone - The heart of color - Colleen Mulheran
• 1 Bronze - MN Made Hockey - We are made - Colleen Mulheran
• 1 Bronze - MN Made Hockey - Made into something greater - Hans Hamann

Classes taught: Radio, Long copy, Script writing, Short & Sweet, Headlines, Story writing, Portfolio Development, Editorial Writing, Wordsmithing, Social

Minneapolis ACCOUNTS: General Mills, Caribou Coffee, Nestle, Ecolab, Minnesota Roller Girls, Target, Nutrament

Minneapolis ACCOUNTS: Gingiss Formalwear, Jacob Wetterling Foundation, Lawson Software, Medica, Minnesota State Lottery, Mystic Lake, St Paul Pioneer Press

Young & Rubicam, New York City ACCOUNTS: AT&T, Sony, Bronx Zoo, Campbell's Soup, Burger King, Dr. Pepper, Computer Associates, V8