Assistant Media Strategist for Volkswagen
As a driving force behind Volkswagen’s most high-profile campaigns at PHD Media NYC, I didn’t just meet expectations—I rewrote the playbook. In just over a year, I became a trusted strategist for VW’s biggest moments: orchestrating the 2024 Super Bowl campaign, co-developing the ID.Buzz launch that put electric vehicles back in the cultural conversation, and navigating the complex ecosystem of the Paris Olympics partnership. While my title was Assistant Media Strategist, my impact was anything but "assistant"—I led meetings with VW’s Global CMO, transformed raw data into compelling executive briefs, and became the go-to problem solver when campaigns hit crunch time and plans needed execution. When the timelines threatened to derail, I redesigned workflows to keep 7+ teams in sync while negotiating vendor deals, tracking spend, and approving budgets. For the ID.Buzz launch, I helped bridge nostalgia and innovation, developing media plans that made a heritage brand feel groundbreaking again. Beyond the brief, I became PHD’s secret weapon—training senior hires, spotting budget risks before they escalated, and pitching bold ideas that expanded creative possibilities. My proudest achievement? Seeing our work on a national stage directly contribute to a measurable surge in EV sales and brand affinity—proof that when you combine strategic rigor with creative audacity, you don’t just make ads, you make cultural moments.
Volkswagen ID.BUZZ New Model Launch
As the strategic backbone of Volkswagen’s ID.Buzz launch, I was pivotal in reinventing an icon for the electric age. From day one, I spearheaded audience insights — mining data to identify nostalgic millennials and eco-conscious families as key targets — then turned those findings into actionable plans. I led vendor negotiations, securing partnerships that amplified the Buzz’s retro-futuristic vibe, while acting as the bridge between VW’s global team, creative agency Johannes Leonardo (JL), and our media planners. When JL dreamed up campaigns tapping into the original Bus’s free-spirited legacy, I ensured the media math matched the magic—aligning budgets, timelines, and KPIs to ensure success. My obsession with campaign details (like coordinating pre-launch events and influencer collabs) and knack for communicating with clients to manage concerns and meet expectations helped build unprecedented success, transforming what could’ve been another car launch into a cultural moment. By the campaign’s peak, we weren’t just selling a vehicle. We’d reignited love for an icon, with our work directly contributing to the ID.Buzz becoming one of VW’s most talked-about EV debuts.
Volkswagen in the 2024 Paris Olympics
As a linchpin of Volkswagen’s 2024 Paris Olympics campaign, my team transformed the Atlas from a family SUV into the unofficial mascot of team spirit. I built media blueprints from scratch, using MRI Simmons data to pinpoint Olympics-watching families as our core audience to designing hyper-targeted budgets to meet them across streaming, social, and primetime. When creative agency Johannes Leonardo (JL) dreamed up heartwarming spots showing the Atlas as the ultimate "family MVP," I became the glue between big ideas and flawless execution—coordinating activations with national networks, social media, and local dealerships to make every touchpoint feel cohesive. Behind the scenes, I troubleshooted real-time hurdles and turned client feedback into campaign fuel. The result? We didn’t just ride the Olympic wave—we owned it, with post-campaign surveys showing a lift in brand love and share of market growth. Proof that when strategy and storytelling sync up, even a family SUV can feel like a gold-medal winner.
Volkswagen in the 2024 Super Bowl
For Volkswagen’s "Love Letter to America" Super Bowl spot—the standout tearjerker of the game—I didn’t just plan media; I helped craft a cultural moment. Partnering with Johannes Leonardo (JL), we flipped the script on car ads: instead of selling features, we celebrated how generations of Americans turned VW into a symbol of freedom. My role? Architect of an emotion-packed masterpiece—building the media strategy that ensured this nostalgic moment reached out audience at scale. I designed the audience roadmap (using social sentiment data to target multi-gen families), then created the master deck that aligned VW executives, JL’s creatives, and our buying teams around one goal: own the emotional pulse of the game. Post-kickoff, the numbers sang: record site traffic, surging share of voice (with fans calling it one of the best ads of the game), and online chatter that went on long after other ads of the night had been forgotten. Not bad for 120 seconds.