Dale Conour
6841 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94121
+1 628-399-1690
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daleconour/
Summary
I’ve provided strategy and creative leadership across multiple industry categories in a wide range of programs, collaborating with teams from four studios and six media organizations.
Highlights
· Brand strategy – new Amazon health and wellness product
· Innovation strategy – Honda Design Group
· Experience strategy – Discount Tire
· Creative strategy – NIKE (IDEO)
· Content strategy – CA Technologies
· Marketing strategy – Burt’s Bees
Professional Experience
frog/Idean
Principal Brand Strategist
03/18 – 09/22
San Francisco, CA
• Called upon by frogs and Ideanists of these global design studios owned by Capgemini consulting to support (officially and unofficially) client and internal programs as a “triple threat” — thought leadership and strategy, presentations and storytelling, client relationship building
• Developed creative, brand, content, and customer experience strategies for both Fortune 500 and early-stage companies across the US\
• Programs include:
o AT&T
o Experience, Design Strategy
§ In support of new consumer offering, ensured service design work adhered to brand guidelines and addressed business challenges; led stakeholder interviews, engaged in customer research and insight development; defined what experience principles should guide all customer interactions
§ Worked with AT&T brand team to ensure new brand guidelines would be expressed through our new packaging design guidelines; led stakeholder interviews to ensure our new guidelines also met needs of multiple internal teams
o Amazon
o Brand, Design, Experience Strategy
§ In support of new health & wellness product, led stakeholder interviews, engaged in secondary research; developed competitive positioning, messaging, voice/tone, content strategy, and value proposition; defined experience principles for visual identity; oversaw follow-up package design project, ensuring design work expressed brand strategy and guidelines
§ Worked with the Amazon Search Team to explore customer experience innovations; facilitated and participated in multiple Idean- and Amazon-sponsored workshops in Bay Area and Seattle focused on discovery and ideation; synthesized customer, marketplace, and cultural research and ethnographic studies to produce discovery and strategic presentations and briefs to frame approaches to innovative new experiences
o Honda Design Group
o Product/Innovation Strategy
§ Brought in late to program to “bring it home” with only a few days till deadline (not unusual for me). In support of new creative product/service innovation, synthesized stakeholder and market research; engaged in additional design marketplace research; developed inspiring, brand-focused, creative opportunity for what would be an excited, inspired client team
o Discount Tire
o Experience Strategist
§ Over a two-year period, supported world’s largest tire retailer in its digital transformation, ensuring all new experiences continued to express what was critical to its brand and long-time success; leading senior stakeholder and customer interviews and engaging in cultural and market research to gain insight into brand’s relevance and positioning; ideated new innovative customer services interactions that would support the important shift in business strategy while expressing the brand in new exciting ways
o Major EU Telecom Technology Company
o Experience, Brand, Marketing Strategy
§ In support of the B2B organization’s first product for the consumer market, engaged in ethnographic research with potential customers, interviewing and observing their media consumption, habits and preferences; engaged in further market and cultural research, to develop customer personas, positioning, messaging framework with sample copy, and value proposition; ideated on naming with brand architecture considerations; guided Visual Design, UX/UI teams in expressing new brand through visual identity and screens and menus.
Independent Consultant
10/14 – present
San Francisco, CA
• Regularly sought after to provide strategy and creative inspiration to founders of early-stage companies, and have brought both higher-altitude thought leadership and an enthusiasm for doing the work as a one-person strategy and creative team to larger organizations, external and internal consultancies, and nonprofits.
• Programs include:
o NIKE, Clinique, for IDEO
o Creative Strategist
§ Provided thought leadership in retail trends and innovation
§ Performed brand, product philosophy, customer, and cultural secondary research, sharing insights with experience designers and guiding them toward new ways of seeing these brands and their potential roles with today’s younger customers.
§ Engaged in ideation, design, and presentation reviews
§ Elevated client engagements with compelling storytelling, editing/copywriting presentations
o Wells Fargo, for Comrade
o Experience Strategist
§ Leveraged banker, teller, and customer insights, including personal interviews and field observations of pilot programs in California and Arizona, market conditions, and competitor data
§ Led, without additional support, extensive, and intensive, stakeholder interviews — eighteen interviewees engaged in three days’ time
§ Developed strategic approach to the evolution of products, tools, and services in support of the banker-customer relationship within physical channels, as well as developing a strategic approach to services through mobility devices
o Wells Fargo
o Content Strategist
§ Developed scripts for the mobile app’s chatbot; supported marketing-comms team with customer-focused comms and messaging work
o Brooklyn Investment Group
o Brand Strategist
§ Worked with founders of this early-stage investment-tech on naming (formerly “SkopeAI”), and honing the expression of their business strategy to then develop their positioning, messaging, voice/tone, and brand statement, with a manifesto bringing it all together
o Gene Clinic X
o Brand Strategist
§ Developed a voice/tone and “persona” for this early-stage health & wellness product, as well as wrote a guiding manifesto
o CardioSignal
o Brand Strategist
§ Brought early-stage health & wellness app to life through founder interviews, secondary market and cultural research to identify deeper customer emotional need — manifesto brought CMO to tears (in a good way), and provided the foundation for subsequent marketing campaign and commercial
o Fend
o Brand Strategist
§ Through founder and stakeholder interviews, secondary research into market and culture, produced positioning, voice/tone, and experience guidelines for its visual identity and packaging; another emotional response, this time from the founder, for the manifesto
o Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute
o Director, Brand & Marketing (interim)
§ Envisioned new strategic directions and business opportunities in sustainability sector to increase brand awareness and revenue
§ Identified and prioritized marketing objectives and initiatives by defining audience, differentiating product, and improving partner and client relations to deliver best business value
§ Built relationships with multiple stakeholders across global nonprofit’s certification scheme to stay up to date on internal developments, product positioning, and external competitive intelligence specific to voluntary standards marketplace
John McNeil Studio
Senior Strategist
4/16 – 7/17
Berkeley, CA
• Provided strategy and creative inspiration to a creative agency of strategists, writers, designers, filmmakers, and technologists helping companies tell compelling stories and build brands
• Programs include:
o Microsoft
o Marketing Strategy
§ Led consumer insight workshops and produced subsequent insight and recommendation reports for Microsoft Surface marketing team
o CA Technologies
o Content, Communications, Marketing Strategy
§ Collaborated with the client web team on new content strategy, and development of content, to reflect strategic shift from B2B to B2B2C
§ Worked with multiple product teams to develop creative briefs to support brand effort
§ Supported creative teams producing marketing and advertising
§ Ideated with Communications team new approaches to train employees on new brand
§ Ideated a new executive briefing center experience
Dial House
Head of Strategy
03/10 – 09/14
San Francisco, CA
• Led highly creative and skilled designers, filmmakers and storytellers, strategists, and researchers in product innovation and cultural strategy-based brand and marketing programs; all of these “wins” were accomplished in collaboration; as head of strategy usually led communications with clients, provided key insights through connecting the dots of the research, and built narratives to cohere our work
• Programs include:
o Audi
o Experience, Innovation Strategy
§ Engaged in deep research into next-generation retail trends and possible new experiences for the “connected car” as part of the client’s first innovation centers in the US
o Coca-Cola
o Marketing Strategy (crisis management)
§ Researched market and cultural consumer trends, wrote and produced prototype marketing and campaign materials
o Nokia
o Brand, Marketing, Product/Innovation Strategy
§ Led product prototyping for “Digital Map of the Future,” working with internal Nokia Advance Design Team and external agency, based on my creative brief
§ Led new brand identity, naming, and marketing development for HERE mapping and navigation consumer play, including walking Nokia senior leadership through the entire brand positioning rationale at one of their global meetings
§ Developed marketing strategy, positioning, value proposition for new sensor-based product
o Microsoft
o Marketing Strategy
§ Developed marketing strategy and plan for Visual Studio software — praised as the “new standard here in marketing strategy” by client
§ Engaged in brand-naming research and ideation for a prototype financial payment service
o Cadbury
o Product Innovation, Design Strategy
§ Through deep consumer and culture research, developed a conceptual prototype to compete with a long-time category-leading competitor candy — through a whole new way to consider the usual “solutions to usage occasions” approach
o KC Masterpiece
o Marketing Strategy
§ Consumer and culture research revealed an entirely new customer and new way to consider usage occasions — though the product team thought the strategy and planning concepts were so good, they gave them away to a larger brand in the portfolio
o Kingsford
o Brand Extension Strategy
§ Provided the central insight into meeting this challenge — envisioning engagement with the brand at social occasions as a concentric circles of activity radiating from the grill
o Burt’s Bees
o Brand Extension Strategy
§ Contributed a critical insight into the appeal of the brand’s lead product (as credited by the chief innovation officer), allowing us to tie all of the research and insights into a strategy and compelling narrative for the brand owner to take forward
o Swedish Fish/Kraft
o Marketing Strategy, Planning, and Campaign Execution
§ Charged with championing the unorthodox marketing strategy, planning, and proposed execution to wary stakeholders — resulting in the execution winning Kraft’s internal, annual “Shark Tank” competition
Multiple Media Companies
Editorial Leadership
2004-2010
Bay Area, CA
• Held a number of creative leadership positions, largely focused on bringing innovative approaches to the presentation of editorial and communications.
• Roles include:
o Sunset Magazine
o Executive Editor
§ The new editor’s first hire to help architect a new brand and content strategy and guide innovative story packaging
o Booyah
o Content Designer
§ Recruited by “World of Warcraft” vets to bring gaming, lifestyle content, and social/location/mobile together in a cutting-edge app to “gamify life”)
o eHow
o Editorial Director
§ Member of original team tasked with building out 10,000 “how-tos” in dozens of subject categories in four months — nailed it
o TV.com
o Editorial Director (interim)
§ Hired gun tasked with boosting the content pipeline through new ideas and an expanded team of contributors
o The Industry Standard
o Senior Editor
§ Led the Tech team at the famed next-gen business magazine, assigning and editing multiple features and articles, as well as shepherding a regular special section explaining progressive new technologies and tools and their potential for CXOs.
o Parenting
o Senior Associate Editor
§ Ran the challenging upfront news and trends section, produced various digital projects