Four working artifacts: what I saw, why it mattered, and the decision or test that followed.
01 · EffyDesk · live DTC account
Did creator identity behave like a performance lever?
I rebuilt this account read for the portfolio from my seven-month campaign reporting workbook.
$491,358CAD total spend analyzed — ~$70K/month
4.99xblended account ROAS
3,012purchases in the reporting period
$2.45MCAD attributed revenue
Comparison
Creator-whitelisted7.47x
Brand-owned prospecting4.60x
A 62% difference across $64,840 CAD in spend. During BFCM, whitelisted ads reached 12.28x—above retargeting at 11.38x and catalog at 11.88x.
Pattern
Whitelisting spend moved from $12,915 → $3,004 → $0 → $0 from January through April. Blended ROAS moved 4.69 → 3.57 → 3.48 → 3.09 across the same months.
DecisionProtect creator whitelisting as a dedicated performance lane.
Test creator identity against brand-owned delivery while holding offer and format as constant as possible.
Client account. I owned the reporting and findings; the consultancy ran execution.
02 · Scratch Event DJs · owned channel
We were renting attention. So I built a channel we owned.
Outbound bought every conversation one at a time. A publication with its own name and a quarterly rhythm compounds instead.
Owned channel · The Scratch Dispatch
I argued for years that Scratch needed a channel it owned rather than renting attention through outbound. I ideated it, developed the format, designed and assembled it in Figma, wrote and structured every issue, and established it as a recurring quarterly send to roughly 1,800 contacts. It got its own masthead, because a channel with a name gets opened and a “company update” does not.
Masthead and cover. The publication gets its own wordmark, separate from the company logo.One section, end to end: header, proof imagery, the argument, single CTA.
The angle
“Not every brand has $8 million to spend on a Super Bowl ad—the truth is that you can make that your advantage.”
The issue takes the reader’s biggest objection—we cannot compete at that budget—and reframes it as the strategy: activate around the moment, where the audience is already gathered. Then it proves it with what Scratch actually did at Super Bowl LIX and New York Fashion Week, and closes on “let’s turn your next activation into the real main event.” One CTA: Book a DJ.
What I owned
The proposal — a channel we own, not attention we rent
Masthead, format and editorial structure
Design and assembly in Figma
The writing — hook, argument, proof, CTA
Cadence — quarterly, ~4 sends a year to ~1,800 contacts
What the channel returned
Commission-qualified revenue
$34,250
Client accounts sourced
4
Largest single account
$22,000
Period
Jan–Sep 2025
Client names withheld.
Where this channel sat
Across three years, Scratch’s final commission records credited $201,146 in qualified booked revenue across 40 accounts I sourced or reactivated—12.3% of the client book. The newsletter was one channel inside that portfolio, and the cheapest one to run.
LinkedIn ads$113,5167 accounts
The Dispatch$34,2504 accounts · 4 sends a year
Email$22,0504 accounts
Four sends a year produced revenue within reach of a paid channel running continuously.
Three years of B2B demand generation at Scratch Event DJs. Sales closed and serviced the accounts.
03 · Creator operating system · independent build
A creator brief is a spec, not a wish.
Four layers—strategy, leads, creator brief, editor brief—built so a creator can work from it without a call and an editor can cut from it without a second conversation. Brand-agnostic by design.
The layer above the brief · creative strategy
A brief that starts at “here are the scenes” is a shot list. Before any of it gets written, the concept has to name who it is for, what they already believe, and what is actually being tested—otherwise three ads come back and nobody can say what was learned. This is the block that sits at the top of every brief.
Ideal buyer avatar
The “Exhausted Dieter”
Awareness level
Solution aware
Desire
8/10 — comfortable living, freedom from pain and fear
Desire influence
Comfort & ease
What we’re testing
The “Effortless Switch” positioning — the product framed as the natural, modern upgrade, convincing the viewer that the method was the problem all along.
The angle
She realises she does not have to keep suffering through diets, pills or injections — other women have already switched to a simpler way.
How the desire gets addressed
Remove the effort barriers rather than add a new discipline, and validate the past struggle before offering the replacement—so the switch costs her nothing, including pride.
Worked example from a brief for a GLP-1 weight-management patch. Solution aware is the decision that shapes everything downstream: she already knows products like this exist, so the ad cannot spend its opening explaining the category—it has to argue against the method she is currently using.
From strategy to shot list
Four layers, each one answering the layer above it. Nothing in the shot list exists because it looked good; it exists because the strategy asked for it.
01Strategy
Avatar, awareness level, desire, the angle, and the single thing being tested.
02Leads
Three competing openings written against the same body, each with its own visual direction.
03Creator brief
Scene, line, action, visual reference — plus the named b-roll the edit will need.
04Editor brief
Format, safe zone, variation count, sound, and whether the face is a creator, an avatar or a voiceover.
Lead testing
Three leads over one body, written to compete rather than to coexist: the product named plainly, the problem dramatised, and the rejection of the alternative. Same body, same end card—so the opening is the only thing under test, and one shoot yields three ads.
The end card is conditional rather than fixed: on-brand traffic gets the offer and a buy action; top-of-funnel gets learn more. Sending a cold viewer to a discount is how a good hook gets blamed for a bad conversion rate.
Editor brief9:16, with everything that matters inside the 4:5 safe zone.
Three ads, three hooks, one body. Upbeat or trending sound. The brief also specifies whether the face is a real creator, an AI avatar or voiceover only—and if so, the ethnicity, gender, age and accent being cast for.
Creator content guidelines · the standing rules
Eleven pages of standing rules a creator can work from without a call. It is brand-agnostic by design—drop in the product, the dates and the usage term and it ships. Four pages below; the rest cover the photo set, the clip structure, the b-roll, and the shooting conditions.
Hook, demo, payoff. Three separate clips, with visual references showing what each needs to deliver.Before & after. The pair only works if nothing else changed. Mark the spot, shoot the same hour, send both raw.Safe zone. 9:16 at 1080×1920 with the caption and UI bands marked. We can crop in; we can’t crop out.Compliance. The page most briefs skip. A claim in the creator’s voice is still the brand’s claim—and it is what keeps the ad running.
The per-concept brief
The guidelines are the standing rules a creator gets once. The brief is the job: one concept, scene by scene, with a reference to match and a separate column for what happens in the edit. It carries the concept overview, tone notes, shooting specs, the script table, and a named b-roll list so nothing is discovered missing at assembly.
Scene
Line
Action
Visual reference for the creator
Direction for editor in production
Hook 1
“The thing that finally cleared my skin? It wasn’t what I started doing. It’s what I stopped.”
Direct to camera, slightly frustrated.
Close-up, natural light, minimal makeup so real texture reads.
Open on a comment overlay, top left. Cut to a before/after close-up.
Hook 2
Same body, different opening — delivered while taking off a jacket.
Hook 3
Same body again — mirror selfie, standing.
2
The old routine, named and rejected.
Counting on fingers, old products visible behind.
Medium shot, cluttered bathroom counter.
Hold on the clutter — it is the before state.
8
The close, warm rather than urgent.
Smile, point down to the link.
End card.
Logo and URL overlay.
Hook. Demo. Payoff. is the testing design, not a nicety: the demo and payoff are held constant so the opening is the only variable, and one shoot produces three testable ads.
The b-roll list
Eleven named shots, five to seven seconds each, no speaking — product arranged, hands opening the package, dispensing onto fingertips, application in a mirror, water and patting dry, skin in natural light, the counter setup, the label being read, the night routine, the morning routine, the reaction. These lie under the voice to hide cuts and keep the eye moving.
Why it is named“Send b-roll” returns nothing usable.
A numbered shot list returns an editable library. The cost of ambiguity is a re-shoot, and a re-shoot is a week.
The handoff page
The last page is operations, not creative: upload destination, deadline counted from product delivery, a file-naming convention so assets stay sortable at volume, the usage term, and a named contact. It closes with a pre-send checklist—because anything missing costs a week, and anything extra can be cut.
Independent system build, 2026. Designed as a reusable template rather than issued to a named roster.
04 · Scratch Event DJs · UGC creator program · independent build
We did not have a production problem. We had a collection problem.
The activations already generated the proof, every weekend, in a dozen cities. The program’s job was to make capturing it fast, repeatable, rights-safe, and useful to paid and organic teams.
The belief gap
What the buyer believes todayA DJ is ambience.
Somewhere near the bottom of the run of show — and booking talent across forty locations sounds like a logistics problem they do not want to own.
What they need to believeIt looks handled in every city, every time.
Scratch turns a store into an event, makes the day fun for everyone working it, and does it the same way in Philadelphia, Dallas and King of Prussia.
A buyer does not need to be told we operate at scale. They need to see the same transformation happen in three cities, with different DJs, on different weekends, with no production crew present.
Message territories · ranked
01 · lead territoryThe transformation
Empty store to full room. The before/after is the whole proposition in one scroll.
02Everybody has a better day
A marketer is buying a launch that does not feel like work. Store staff enjoying their shift is the most persuasive thing we can show.
03The DJ is the draw
Credible, camera-ready people — not a speaker with someone standing behind it. Featured by name and face.
04Proof of scale
Same energy, different city, every weekend. Multi-location capability shown rather than claimed.
01Before / after
Same place, height, and angle: empty room before doors, full room at peak.
02Room at peak
One wide shot and one closer pass; crowd energy must read without sound.
03Faces
Clients, staff, guests, and the moment a track lands.
04The DJ
Portrait stills, one working clip, and the moment the room turns.
Primary signal
Three-second view rate and hold rate versus brand-produced social.
Format test
Before/after pairs versus room-only versus DJ-forward.
Commercial signal
Profile visits, inbound DMs, and whether sales attaches clips unprompted.
Kill
If creator content loses on hold rate in 60 days, rewrite the brief, not the roster.
Where briefs actually break
Not on creativity—on the unglamorous things that are expensive to fix after the shoot. Files that arrived edited, with music baked in, sideways, cropped, or carrying a claim that gets the ad rejected. Every one of those is a re-shoot, and a re-shoot is a week.
The ruleSpecify what is costly to fix. Leave the rest free.
Framing, claims, raw files, naming, rights and deadline are non-negotiable. Everything else is the creator’s.
What the brief rules out
Music-led edits — the buyer is not buying music. DJ testimonials about Scratch — nobody believes a paid contractor talking to camera about the company. Staged crowds and re-shoots — the whole economic argument is that we are not paying for production; stage it and we have rebuilt the cost problem we were solving. Anything over ten minutes — compliance dies at minute eleven.
Non-negotiablesCapture freely. Publishing is gated.
No client brand identifiable in published content without that brand’s written approval. A verbal yes before filming staff closely, and who said yes noted. Talent usage rights confirmed in writing before any DJ appears in paid.
Independent build, 2026, for a former client’s context. I identified the opportunity at Scratch through direct relationships with its DJ roster and designed the program end to end. Not issued to the roster during my employment.
