wordplay

What’s the Good Word?

Brand, Emails, Social media

When I first joined Urban Ladder, I didn’t know many design and decor terms. So, chenille meant nothing to me. Neither did console table, sectional, armoire, or chaise. We knew that many of our customers would be in the same boat and would appreciate a simple, pithy explanation for such “technical” terms. From that thought came a series of creatives that we put out through our (then) wildly popular newsletters and social media channels.

We called the series What’s the Good Word? It featured a helpful bunny (why not!) who would explain lesser-known terms to our readers. Design credits: Rumman Rizvi

When the Urban Ladder rebrand happened in 2017, we upgraded the design to something even cute and with two bunnies. This series got good feedback, so I have no idea why we didn’t do many more of them!

Creative strategy for shumee toys

Brand, Social media

shumee is a sustainable toy brand that aims to bring back the joy of play through simple, colourful wooden toys that nudge children’s creativity. They help children develop age-appropriate skills subconsciously during play, without thrusting the mandate of learning on them.

I’ve been a creative consultant for shumee since August 2018, mentoring the amazingly talented in-house team (a trio of writer, designer & social media manager.) Together, we create play ideas for moms in many fun formats, send out a popular weekly newsletter (30K loyal readers, 35% open rate and 0.15% unsubscribes), share resources on our blog, and during the pandemic, ran a parenting podcast.

Here’s one of my favourite campaigns from the many we’ve done.

shumee’s audience is almost entirely composed of parents, particularly moms. The focus for the brand is to have conversations around parenting and play that are relatable and meaningful to them. #Momspeak was a social media feature we created to give a light spin on parenting young children, particularly toddlers and pre-schoolers.

The series was well-received on social media, with many readers coining their own #Momspeak words including Mombie and Momogram!