It was a huge opportunity for National Geographic when the members of the Outdoor Advertisers Association of America (OAAA) donated more than $45M worth of prime billboards, bus shelters, and digital signage across the country. We launched the campaign on Endangered Species Day in Times Square with an hour-long takeover of key video screens, multiple bus shelters and phone kiosks, and an on-the-ground activation area to raise awareness of the PhotoArk initiative to save endangered species. The campaign continued throughout the summer on over 72,000 billboards and signs across the country.

Nat Geo PhotoArk Event in Time Square

The campaign’s goal was to raise awareness of the endangered animals featured in the campaign and what PhotoArk and National Geographic are doing to save them. We came up with the tagline of “See what we can #SaveTogether” and encouraged people to take selfies with the animals and spread the word. The campaign was a huge success by all metrics: over 10K mentions of the hashtag, 18K pageviews in ONE day (compared to the average 2K per week,) 120K pageviews May-Sept 4 (compared to 46K in prior year,) and we raised more than $60K from May-Sept 4.

Another fun component of the campaign was partnering with X Ambassadors to use their song “Hoping” in a music video that aired on social media to further spread awareness.

Explorers Festival is the biggest event at National Geographic each year. It brings together scientists, educators, and explorers to share and celebrate their work. In 2017, we decided to expand the gathering to include more public facing components, like a Bright Young Things party, an all-day panel discussion highlighted by a live taping of Neil deGrasse-Tyson’s show “Star Talk,” and a sold-out gala/awards show. I led the entire creative direction of the event. Working with both our internal design team and external vendors, we created the creative theme of the event, the logo, all signage and on-stage and environmental graphics, digital and print invitations, the program for the gala, an app, all marketing for the event, and even the awards trophies.

This campaign was to promote an exhibit of Brian Skerry’s shark photography at the National Geographic Museum. We wanted to steer clear of the “Sharks are scary!” trope because the exhibit tried to highlight that sharks are beautiful and in need of protection. Instead, we used Brian’s photography and a headline that promised to go “beyond the fear and behind the scenes”  of how Brian captured the photos and his passion for sharks.

We created multiple print and digital ads, rack cards, metro signage and a really fun bus wrap that put the upper deck riders into a boat while a shark and diver swam around underneath them.

We were tasked with coming up with a branding campaign for the travel division that focused on the emotional benefits of traveling with National Geographic and also identified that there were many ways to experience the world through us.  The fine print on these lists out the many ways to “travel” with National Geographic: Magazine, Trips, Books, Digital, Workshops, and Maps.