Selectedwork.

Six projects: twenty-three years building one brand and the icon who fronted it, a planned national campaign with Barbara Eden, a documentary press push, and three websites built end to end, all live. Four beats each: the brief, the constraint, the decision, the proof. The decisions are the work; everything else is output.

Open the index

SceneI

ClientThe Lifeline Program

RoleCMO, 23 years

FaceBetty White, a decade

She trusted me withher name.

The brand

Brief: Take a two-person operation in a category most people had never heard of and make it a nationally recognised brand.
Constraint: Twenty-three years is long enough for every shortcut to be exposed. Nothing survives that horizon except a philosophy applied without interruption.
Decision: Direct-response television, brand positioning and national media strategy, run as one continuous argument rather than a sequence of campaigns.
Proof: Led integrated national advertising, PR and media partnerships for The Lifeline Program. Sixty-four employees built from zero. Coverage on Today, GMA, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and Forbes.

The face

Brief: Make a misunderstood financial product mainstream, in a category that had never been given a celebrity campaign.
Constraint: Betty White did not lend her name to financial services. And this was before the culture caught up — before Reuters was writing about her, before the polls crowned her America’s most trusted celebrity.
Decision: Contract her early, and build the relationship rather than the transaction. For a decade she put her face, her reputation and her voice behind the work — including a national radio spot we recorded together.
Proof: A ten-year partnership — not a campaign cycle. Reuters, January 2012. The full record is in Building an Industry.

Service demonstrated: Fractional CMO · Talent & brand pairing

Betty White on the Lifeline Program campaign — Betty White, The Lifeline Program

The Lifeline Program production shoot — The Lifeline Program, production

SceneII

ClientWeBuy75.com

PhotographyMike Ruiz

StatusPlanned national campaign

America dreamed of Jeannie.I put her to work.

Brief: A planned national campaign for WeBuy75.com fronted by an icon the country had known for sixty years.
Constraint: Familiarity is not the same as credibility. The recognition was already there; the reason to trust the offer was not.
Decision: Wrote it, directed it, and stepped back at the moment the performance took over. Knowing when to get out of the way is the whole job.
Proof: Written, cast and directed for a national launch, with photography by Mike Ruiz. The client pulled it for funding four months after the official launch date. The casting reasoning is set out in Casting.

Service demonstrated: Talent & brand pairing · Brand strategy

Barbara Eden, WeBuy75.com. Photography: Mike Ruiz

SceneIII

FilmCashing Out, The New Yorker

RoleLGBTQ+ press

RunSept 2025 – Jan 2026

The industry I marketedbecame the film.

Brief: Run the LGBTQ+ press push for a New Yorker documentary short about the AIDS-era viatical business — the industry I spent my career marketing, and whose archive the film draws on.
Constraint: Coverage proves publication, not who secured it. Every claim about my part had to rest on the campaign record, and nothing else.
Decision: Take the film to the press that community reads, and bring it to New York: I set up the screening at the Tribeca Screening Room on 6 December 2025, hosted by executive producer Matt Bomer.
Proof: Seventeen tear sheets across thirteen outlets. The campaign record names my outreach on Out, Attitude, Instinct and the Washington Blade; the rest is published coverage compiled in one place, not claimed. The film was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The full record is at Cashing Out.

Service demonstrated: Press and campaign leadership

Invitation to the New York screening of Cashing Out, hosted by Matt Bomer at the Tribeca Screening Room, 6 December 2025 — Cashing Out, New York screening invitation

SceneIV

PropertyResidence 2001, Atlanta

SaleOff-market

BuiltBrand, site and film

It was never listed.That was the strategy.

Brief: Sell a twentieth-floor Atlanta residence without listing it — a lifestyle site for a cash buyer, not a listing page.
Constraint: Real estate persuades with price, square footage and a floor plan. Withholding all three is the mechanism here, so the page has to hold attention on atmosphere and evidence alone.
Decision: Build the arrival rather than the pitch. Nothing runs until the visitor presses the call button; then a twenty-floor ride, a bell, and the doors part. Lamps come on over the fixtures as you scroll. The number is released at introduction.
Proof: Live at quietaboveatl.com. Identity, copy, photography direction, score and share film built as one piece. Sold direct by the owner — no listing commission priced into the number.

Service demonstrated: Brand strategy

QuietAboveATL.com — the residence hero, with the ascent rail at left — QuietAboveATL.com, brand, site and film

SceneV

Organisation501(c)(3)

RoleVolunteer creative director

ReachOhio, Florida, North Carolina

A nonprofit budget.No excuse for looking like one.

Brief: Project Noelle serves children affected by the opioid epidemic. One site had to ask for donations, recruit volunteers and county directors, and tell a family in crisis how to get help — without any of those audiences getting in each other’s way.
Constraint: Every dollar spent on the website is a dollar that does not reach a child. I work on this one as a volunteer, and the build had to carry no monthly cost.
Decision: Static HTML on a free tier — no platform licence, no subscription, nothing to renew. Get Help sits in the primary navigation ahead of Donate, because the person who needs it is not browsing.
Proof: Live at projectnoelle.com. Clothing, holiday support, peer groups and school-based prevention across three states.

Service demonstrated: Brand strategy

ProjectNoelle.com — the founder’s voice carrying the page — ProjectNoelle.com, volunteer creative direction

SceneVI

RoleCo-founder, editorial director

SiteMyLifeLonger.com

Rebrand fromLifeExpectancyCalculator.com

The domain said what it did.The brand had to say why it mattered.

Brief: Move LifeExpectancyCalculator.com to a name that could carry editorial authority, not just a utility.
Constraint: The old name was the traffic. Renaming means surrendering an exact-match domain that told a search engine precisely what the page did.
Decision: Demote the calculator from brand to mechanism. My Life Longer became the name; the Life Expectancy Calculator stayed on as the tool inside it — 33 factors, five actuarial sources, three minutes, no sign-up and no paywall.
Proof: Live at mylifelonger.com. Co-founded it; I run the editorial.

Service demonstrated: Brand reinvention

MyLifeLonger.com — the assessment dial as the hero — MyLifeLonger.com, rebrand and build

More of the record

End ofreel.

If your brand needs a name people trust, start with a conversation.

Email Stephen · Call 1-855-UNBLAND