Cross-Platform Activation (XPA) — Retail Media Creative Leadership
WMC
Executive Summary
As Senior Design Director, I helped launch and scale a new Cross-Platform Activation (XPA) initiative focused on retail media creative across Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, and Costco. From 2023–2025, I led all creative execution for the initiative while helping establish creative guardrails, templates, documentation, pricing structure support, and workflow standards that allowed the business to scale rapidly across multiple clients, retailers, and campaign types.
While brands could work directly with retailers or platforms like The Trade Desk for media buying, many lacked strong hands-on creative support tailored specifically for retail media environments. XPA helped fill that gap by providing clients with high-touch creative partnership and platform-specific execution designed to support ROAS and retail sales performance.
Acting as both a creative lead and hands-on contributor, I oversaw campaign execution across display, interactive, rich media, and video while working closely with internal media, account, and production teams as well as direct client partners.
The Challenge
As retail media investment rapidly expanded across Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, and Costco, brands had multiple options for buying media — including working directly with retailers or through platforms like The Trade Desk. What many clients lacked, however, was strong creative support built specifically for retail media environments.
The opportunity for XPA was not simply media placement, but providing high-quality creative partnership as a value-add service that helped campaigns feel cohesive, retailer-appropriate, visually polished, and performance-focused across fragmented retail ecosystems.
At the same time, the initiative was scaling rapidly across multiple retailers, campaign formats, and industries. The challenge became maintaining consistency, speed, and creative quality across increasingly high-volume deliverables while supporting the evolving needs of both clients and internal teams.
My Role: Senior Design Director
Responsibilities
Led all creative execution across the XPA initiative
Helped establish pricing support, templates, guardrails, and workflow documentation
Oversaw creative quality across multiple retail media platforms
Directed and contributed to hands-on design execution
Partnered closely with media, account, and production teams
Worked directly with clients and brand teams
Led the majority of Walmart Connect and Kroger Precision Marketing creative campaigns
Cross-Platform Creative Execution
A major focus of the initiative was leading creative execution across a wide range of retail media formats while ensuring campaigns remained visually cohesive across platforms, retailers, and placements.
Campaigns included:
Display banners
Interactive banners
Rich media
Video
Creative was designed to support both brand storytelling and retail performance goals, helping drive ROAS and shopper conversion across retailer ecosystems.
Because campaigns spanned multiple industries — including alcohol, CPG, food & beverage, wellness, household products, and pharma — each execution required adapting creative to different audiences, retailer specifications, compliance considerations, and platform requirements while maintaining strong visual consistency.
As the initiative expanded, I also helped develop templates, documentation, guardrails, and workflow standards that supported scalable creative production across the growing business.
Results & Impact
Business Growth
From 2024–2025, XPA revenue grew 150% year-over-year, expanding from $4.5M to over $12M as creative became a major value-add component of the retail media offering and touched nearly all revenue generated through Walmart Connect and Kroger Precision Marketing campaigns.
Creative Leadership
Helped launch and scale an entirely new business initiative
Creative became a major value-add service within the retail media offering
Helped establish scalable creative standards and workflows
Client Portfolio
Supported campaigns for nationally recognized brands including:
Cupcake Vineyards, UV Vodka, Nestlé Essentia, DiGiorno, Robert Mondavi, Evan Williams, Franzia, Woodbridge, Equate, Mionetto, Korbel, Elijah Craig, Colgate, Josh Cellars, Simply Organic, Ste. Michelle Wines, The Honey Pot, Nestlé Nido, and Yellow Tail.
Industries included:
Alcohol & beverage
Consumer packaged goods
Food & beverage
Wellness
Household products
Pharma
Key Takeaway
This work reflects my ability to help build and scale emerging creative business initiatives while remaining deeply involved in the craft itself. By combining hands-on creative leadership with retail media expertise, workflow development, and cross-functional collaboration, I helped transform XPA from a new offering into a major revenue-driving business initiative supporting a broad portfolio of national brands across multiple retailer ecosystems.
The Wine Group — Multi-Channel Retail Media Creative Leadership
The Wine Group
Executive Summary
As Senior Design Director, I led creative direction and hands-on execution for The Wine Group’s retail media business across a broad mix of digital channels and platforms. Working directly with the client and in close partnership with internal media, account, and production teams, I helped scale creative support across a multi-brand portfolio while maintaining cohesive storytelling across programmatic display, Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, CTV, rich media, interactive banners, and Meta campaigns.
Operating as both a creative lead and hands-on contributor, I partnered closely with designers Lamar Tittle and Danny Khan to deliver high-volume, performance-driven creative that became deeply embedded in the client relationship and supported a significant portion of account revenue.
From 2025 to 2026, the partnership saw substantial growth:
2025 revenue grew from $5.2M to over $5.8M (+12.5% YoY)
2026 pacing projected to exceed $10M
Expanded support across key portfolio brands including Meiomi, Cupcake Vineyards, and other core Wine Group labels
Delivered large-scale, always-on creative support across evolving retail media programs
The Challenge
The Wine Group portfolio required creative support across a rapidly expanding ecosystem of brands, retailers, channels, and campaign formats. Each platform carried unique technical requirements, audience behaviors, and creative constraints, while each brand required distinct visual positioning and messaging.
The challenge was not only producing work at scale, but ensuring that every execution felt cohesive, polished, and platform-native across an increasingly fragmented retail media landscape.
My Role: Senior Design Director
Responsibilities
Led creative direction across The Wine Group portfolio
Established and maintained visual consistency across multiple digital channels and retail media platforms
Directed and contributed to hands-on creative execution
Partnered directly with client stakeholders and brand teams
Collaborated cross-functionally with media, account, and production teams
Helped drive growth within retail media and XPA initiatives
Managed high-volume, always-on campaign execution across simultaneous launches
Mentored and collaborated closely with designers Lamar Tittle and Danny Khan
Creative Consistency Across Channels
A core focus of the work was maintaining creative cohesion across highly varied retail media environments while adapting assets to the requirements of each platform.
Campaigns spanned:
Programmatic display
Walmart Connect
Kroger Precision Marketing
Connected TV (CTV)
Rich media
Interactive banners
Meta / social campaigns
This required balancing brand consistency with platform-native execution—ensuring creative remained visually unified while still adapting appropriately to placement, format, and audience context.
Results & Impact
Business Growth
Grew partnership revenue from $5.2M to $5.8M in 2025 (+12.5% YoY)
2026 pacing projected to exceed $10M
Creative Scale & Output
Instead of anchoring on a fixed asset count, reframed for longevity:
Produced continuous high-volume creative across always-on retail media programs
Supported hundreds of campaign executions across multiple brands and platforms
Built scalable creative systems enabling rapid adaptation across formats and retailers
Sustained ongoing creative output across evolving multi-brand, multi-channel needs
Expanded Client Partnership
Supported major launches across core Wine Group portfolio brands including Meiomi and Cupcake Vineyards
Became deeply integrated into the client’s ongoing retail media ecosystem
Creative work directly supported a majority of account revenue contribution
Key Takeaway
This work demonstrates my ability to lead large-scale creative execution across complex, multi-brand retail media ecosystems while remaining deeply involved in the craft itself. By balancing hands-on design leadership with cross-functional collaboration and direct client partnership, I helped scale a growing retail media relationship into a major revenue-driving account while maintaining creative quality, consistency, and adaptability across channels and formats.
National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) — Public Safety Campaigns Across Emerging Media
NHTSA
Executive Summary
Since 2023, I led creative direction for NHTSA digital awareness campaigns focused on impaired driving, traffic safety, and public education across display, connected TV, DCO, and interactive media.
Working closely with the client and their media agency, I oversaw campaign creative across bilingual executions designed to communicate serious public safety messaging while still earning attention in crowded digital environments.
The work required balancing strict government guidelines, accessibility standards, and bilingual requirements with more modern, engaging approaches to storytelling, including motion-led creative, gamified formats, and select interactive and emerging media executions such as an augmented reality unit built for Cadent.
Beyond execution, the partnership became a long-term account relationship that contributed to the agency’s successful rebid for continued business.
The Challenge
Public safety advertising presents a core creative challenge: how to get audiences to engage with messaging they are conditioned to ignore.
For NHTSA, every concept had to meet strict government standards and accessibility requirements while working across English and Spanish versions without losing clarity or consistency.
At the same time, the campaigns carried real-world stakes. The objective was not just engagement, but increasing awareness around impaired driving and traffic safety behaviors through work that felt clear, memorable, and emotionally resonant without becoming overly fear-based or clinical.
My Role: Senior Design Director
I led creative direction across the account, managing and reviewing campaign execution in close collaboration with the client, internal teams, and the media agency.
My responsibilities included:
Guiding creative across display, DCO, CTV, and interactive formats
Developing concepts that balanced engagement with strict government requirements
Overseeing bilingual creative execution (English/Spanish)
Reviewing and refining campaign creative across multiple formats
Collaborating directly with the media agency’s creative team
Participating in production for the 2023 impaired driving campaign shoot
Supporting the long-term client relationship that contributed to the agency’s rebid
Results & Impact
From 2024–2025, the NHTSA account grew 12.8% year-over-year, increasing from $5.6M to $6.3M. Creative work directly supported approximately $4.5M in annual revenue and played a key role in sustaining the long-term client partnership.
The work also helped:
Strengthen the agency’s ongoing relationship with NHTSA
Support the agency’s successful rebid for continued business
Expand capabilities in interactive and emerging media within government campaigns
Demonstrate how awareness campaigns can remain engaging within highly regulated environments
Key Takeaway
This work reflects my ability to lead creative within highly regulated environments while still pushing for ideas that feel modern and audience-aware. By balancing compliance requirements with strong storytelling and selective use of interactive and emerging formats, I helped evolve public safety messaging into more engaging digital campaign work across multiple platforms.