Elaine Knowles

Sometimes, even with the best resources, marketing teams and agencies need a little dig out. If your team needs a seasoned professional to get stuck in, lead a team, pitch for new business or roll out a campaign, I can help.

I'm good with all stakeholders (internal corporate & external client side).
I'm professional.
I stick to budget.

Get the best work from your agencies, teams or teams within agencies. All channels are just different routes to your consumer. Some require more listening than others. All need specialist treatment.


Brand
- Digital Strategy
- Advertising & Brand
- Innovation Projects / Proposition Refinement
- Copywriting
- Communications Planning
- Mentoring, Training, Communciations workshops

Agency
- Project Management
- New Business Development
- Pitches
- Account Director
- Management (mentoring, training on how the client side operates)
- Defining Client Strategy
- Creative Process workshops

For more on my career history, click here

 

Having worked on the agency side for 7+ years, I understand and love the pace of it.  I enjoy pulling a team together for a pitch, taking charge of an important client relationships or running workshops for clients and internal teams to ensure relationships kick off with a great start.

I manage the process from taking a brief, developing costings, managing the planning and creative process to presenting concepts to clients and subsequently rollout. 

Copywriting is also an area I enjoy for ATL campaigns, digital landing pages and digital ads.  I have also have expertise on B2B copy.

I'm available for agency projects, large and small, of any duration and have excellent Project Management experience and qualifications.

A good idea is the best starting point. But how that idea or creative lives in all communications channels should be carefully mapped out. So if it's a killer TV idea that you need to make come alive through different media like outdoor, press, digital, direct and even how it lives and breathes through your sponsorship assets, that makes for great advertising project management and communications planning. 

I’ve worked with start ups on developing brands and all related assets from TVCs to retail fit outs, to t-shirts for employees.

For one campaign, I was responsible for rolling out a multi million euro budget with 52 media formats. That's 52 different types of communications being used to get out 3 messages. It was pretty complex, I had lots of stakeholders and a great team supporting me. I managed these big campaign rollouts a lot. This is just one example.

I suppose the moral of the story here is that it can be done. But it takes exceptional project management, stakeholder engagement and an all round positive attitude to make it happen with no hitches.

From an agency perspective, I am a solid project manager with a professional qualification. I understand what it takes to complete a project, managing multiple teams, budgets and stakeholders.
 

Launching a new product into the market that your customers actually want can be a game changer. It takes a robust process, from understanding consumer behaviours to insight development, to product development, testing, brand and communications strategies.

I can help with this process; I’ve worked on segment and product development projects. I enjoy the process of bringing the best people, ideas and solutions together to collectively interrupt a category norm.

Youth Project, Major Bank
I managed a proposition development roadmap (ideation through to brand launch) for a major bank who were missing the mark with the youth market. This process was robust, used the greatest research and planning agencies in Dublin, along with some of the most creative thinkers. I’m happy to talk more about this in person.

The O2, Dublin

I was part of the Project Implementation team to bring the O2 to life for our customers. This was one proposition that was a true emotive asset. From managing the initial press launch event with Edelmen through to activating this sponsorship asset and using it as a leverage with customers, it was a true game changer.

These are just two examples. I've worked on a range of projects from youth and consumer segments right through to identifying product opportunities for brands, as well as activating sponsorships for business, corporate and specific segments within each.

Digital moves fast. I've worked on a range of digital strategies, SEM, SEO projects for brand consideration, leads, charity participation, youth banking, app awareness and lots of other stuff.

I could talk about it here but by the time I press 'publish', it's already out of date. I also do copywriting for digital; from blog posts to content to digital brochures. Drop me a line for a coffee. I'll see if it's my gig and, if it's not, I know lots of people who might be able to help so nothing lost there.

ALIV Digital
One of our clients in the Bahamas, is Telco start up ALIV. A beautiful brand, it's strategy has been awareness and acquisition to gain market share, fast. Since launch 16 months ago, we've been providing paid digital media support. Which is fun for a brand who put offers into the market every 2-4 weeks. I'd like to tell you of the amazing results, but it's confidential. But's it's been very good.

Case Study - O2 Think Big

In 2011, I managed the communications for a pan European CSR programme for O2 called Think Big. Lots of local and international stakeholders, all trying to rollout a cohesive brand strategy with local activation. The programme was a big initiative, whereby O2 pledged to support mental health issues of young people in Ireland. But mental health is a serious issue and Think Big needed to amplify a complex situation positively.

With our agency, Brando, we came up with an initiative to 'Share a Happy Thought', digitally. O2 pledged 1 euro towards Headstrong for anyone who participated and shared their happy thought through any of the tracked digital platforms (o2thingbig website, and # all social networks). Results were amazing with over 100,000 interactions within 3 months. But, more importantly, it was a programme that felt good.

Case Study - O2 Ideas Room

Back in the day, when no one was blogging because it was deemed too 'risky', we on the business side set up just that. A community of SMEs who could provide advice, support and comment on each others' challenges through the O2 Ideas Room. It later developed into a CRM programme which you can check out in the direct marketing section.
It was fun writing content, developing relationships with SMEs to contribute and moderating all the good stuff on this blog and throughout all the digital channels.

Case Study - TV3 Showpal App

While at Image Now, we worked with TV3 to deliver a digital launch for their new app, Showpal.  It's a funky little app that adds to the experience of watching TV - users had to experience it to believe it. So we developed a fun, fast competition for the launch - 10 clues, 10 days, €10,000, all pushed through digital. I recommend you check it out http://getshowpal.com/
 

Direct is a powerful medium still. Despite what they say. It particularly resonates with businesses and also, oddly, the youth market. If you're 16 and have only ever received post digitally, a letter arriving on your doorstep, addressed to you will get noticed.

So keep that in mind for your next direct marketing activity. And when it's coupled with digital, it gets even better.

I've rolled out large and small direct, digital and CRM campaigns for all types of categories. So I should be able to help you out.

Case Study - B2B CRM, Direct & Digital Programme

An award winning direct and digital CRM programme rollout for business customers of O2 had a few hard objectives:

- Engage with business decision makers in an emotive, proactive manner

- Gather further contact information for ongoing CRM activity

- Core objective of reducing churn (switching networks)

Based on insights, I worked with Goosebump to roll out a multi tiered channel and communications CRM strategy, which was aligned with all sales teams activity. The programme all started with Brian O'Driscoll asking business customers of O2 if he could 'have a word'.

All objectives were met and this programme was nominated for MII awards and won a number of IDMA and APMC awards.