SYNEK Beer & Wine

creative direction • content strategy

I worked with SYNEK, the scrappy startup behind “the Keurig for craft beer” (aka a countertop kegerator) and an IOT wine dispenser that makes wine recommendations as it “learns” your unique palate, then ships the perfect wines for you direct-to-door.

I came on as Creative Director with the goal of revitalizing a once-exuberant customer base who’d grown stale, increasing our sales to keep our heads above water, and paving the way for the wine product to launch once investment capital came in. With a team of 6, a budget of $0, and a life-or-death situation every day, my year with SYNEK was the most stressed out I’d ever been...and also the most fun I’ve ever had.

CONTENT STRATEGY & UX DESIGN

Web + UX Design: Optimized Check-Out Experience

• Wireframed and worked with dev team to reconstruct the entire 3-4 tier product catalogue, which resulted in

  • Improved UX & SEO

  • Increased website conversion rate

  • Decreased customer service tickets by 32%

  • (View the full redesigned product page here.)

• Introduced processes for conducting regular site-wide audits and handling bug fixes

Web + UX Design: Homebrew Product Launch

Homebrewing was a natural next step for Beer. We partnered with local Head Brewers from Mockery Brewing in Denver and others to develop recipes of beers on tap, scaled for homebrewers. We sold all the equipment, ingredients, and educational materials needed for our beer fanatics to try their hand at the craft and pour straight from their SYNEK. (My favorite? Mockery’s Salted Scotch Ale.)

• Project managed timelines for content development, marketing efforts, sales, and product roll-out

• Led the content strategy and designed the webpages for SYNEK’s homebrewing arm

• Collaborated with Head Brewers to develop a detailed How To educational series complete with photo and videos

• Results: Boost in sales, not just for the homebrewing products, but for the original SYNEK units and accessories too

Mobile + UX Design: Somm Wine Mobile App

I researched and created sketches for the first feature-limited mobile app to accompany the Somm smart wine dispenser. The app made it to the prototype stage to demo in investor pitches. (Sorry, screenshots of the finished project are unavailable.) Sketches include:

• Animated opening screen

• Navigation bar

• IOT dashboards

• 2 dynamic content screens

• Animated loading icon

• Functional account screen

• Real-time help chat interface

CREATIVE DIRECTION & COPYWRITING

Ongoing Content Creation, Marketing & Sales

As one half of the marketing team, I was the sole person responsible for the direction, creation, and project management of all assets from start to finish, including:

• Website and landing pages (including copywriting with considerations for SEO and UX, product photography, and campaign photography)

• Email copy, design, segmentation, and reporting

• Sales campaigns (including videography and video editing)

• Major content releases

• Revamped brand voice and brand standards

Email

• Developed a comprehensive lead + customer lifecycle email strategy for each segment of the email base

• Planned, wrote and designed email campaigns and flows:

  • Increased per email revenue by 88% (despite the company’s slumping overall sales)

  • Average open rate = 29.3% (high = 80.0%)

  • Average click through rate = 2.5% (high = 18.2%)

RESIST Big Beer

I launched RESIST Big Beer, a grassroots movement that promoted and preserved diversity, passion, and independence within the craft beer community by tackling the fight against Big Beer and its craft-killing acquisitions. RESIST was a perfect complement to SYNEK’s values and opened up plenty of cross-promotional good will and sales opportunities through a reinvigorated customer base, new leads, and new brewery support. Some of the activities I had planned:

• Community Building

  • Gamified fundraising in support of local independent breweries and the Brewers Association

  • Independence Parties with local breweries and their communities

  • Scholarships to brewing programs across the country

  • Street art and murals for beer communities

  • In-depth interviews, educational pieces, and other content for craft beer fanatics and independent brewery owners

• Calling Big Beer on Its BS

  • Text-replacement Chrome extension à la “Millennials-to-Snake People” for formerly craft breweries and Big Beer

    • Elysian Brewing Company → "Elysian Brewing Company, a disciple of Corporate Greed, has a new beer out this fall."

    • Anheuser-Busch → “A Wisconsin judge has ordered Ass Beer to stop running annoying corn-syrup ads.”

  • Anti-Big Beer mischief…please send all cease and desist letters to imacrappybigbeercompany@synek.co ;)

  • Acquisition Alerts for when Big Beer kills another craft brewery (pictured below with cross-promotion opportunities)

THE LAUNCH
Of course, in order to draw attention to RESIST and shake up our base…we needed to shake up our base.

The RESIST Big Beer launch email resulted in:

• 40% open rate; 4.4% click through rate

• Surpassed new subscriber goal by 38%

• Donations and social posts

• And the big guys were watching…

Wine Branding

While Beer already had a punchy and irreverent voice behind it, we wanted Wine to sound more polished and tech-y, yet still down-to-earth and respectful of the craft as before. I wrote and designed several marketing materials that introduced the Somm Elite Club to customers and illustrated the insights behind your wine shipments as your wineDNA takes shape.

Wine Shipping Box Copy + Design

A promotional campaign called for mini-wine bottle packaging design and copy. Since these wine tasters were our first tangible pre-launch touchpoint with the Somm Elite Club, the packaging had to make a solid first impression and spark excitement for future shipments and the full product launch.

More Portfolio: