Buildipedia.com

Digital marketing, brand development, and launching a startup

Even though Buildipedia.com was a client, I was embedded as the in-house marketing director. For a web media startup that had never been marketed and no monetization strategy. For over three years, I built and managed multiple social media presences that gained major traction within the architecture, engineering, and home remodeling & DIY universes. I was responsible for developing, creating, managing, and optimizing over $360K per year ($30k per month) of digital advertising through Google’s DoubleClick platform and Facebook Advertising, and negotiated and managed media sponsorships and content partnerships within the industry. Both marketing-driven and organic traffic increased by a factor of several hundred under my tenure.

One of the first obstacles, however, was letting the incredibly vast audience of architects, engineers, contractors, urban planners, and private homeowners know what to expect from a website publishing original stories and videos for all of them on one url. Buildipedia’s brand voice needed to help explain the site in simple terms, as the site’s lofty goals of covering anything related to architecture, construction, and the “built environment” were proving to be a major challenge.

Creative brief

Since the focus of Buildipedia’s coverage was essentially a facet of the human experience (shelter is high on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), a broad, global, monolithic voice helped provide simple description, friendly and accessible to everyone.  This was a case where universal imagery would take the lead, with copy adding emotional direction.  I concepted out a piece that began with cavemen, flew through Stonehenge, the pyramids, footage of the Empire State Building being constructed.  The concept of “building” is as old as humanity, and the internet is here to document, appreciate, and lead the dialogue on our efforts to better our efforts.  Appropriate stock clips, as well as original video segments from Buildipedia’s existing editorial video pieces were cut together to advance the history of American architecture in an emotional montage.  The site’s mission statement serves as a fitting climax.