Case Study 03
InvestorPlace Media
Where design
beats the control.
A multi-channel campaign creative leadership role — print, digital, email, and motion — directing four analyst franchise brands across a $4M+ annual campaign budget at one of America's leading financial publishing companies.
Role
Associate Creative Director
Scope
Print · Digital · Email · Motion
Duration
February 2012 — October 2019
Result
40%+ Lift Over Control
01 — The Brief
The persuasion game.
InvestorPlace Media is one of the largest financial newsletter publishers in the United States. Revenue depends entirely on conversion — getting subscribers to upgrade, renew, and buy premium products. In this world, design is not branding. Design is a direct sales tool, measured by response rates, tested against controls, and judged by one metric: did it beat the last version?
The World of Direct Response Financial Publishing
Long-form magalogs. 16–24 page direct mail packages. Video sales letters. Email campaigns. Advertorials. Every piece engineered to move a specific reader from skepticism to action — often in a single sitting. The copy is ruthless. The design must match it.
Four Franchise Briefs — Four Distinct Worlds
Louis Navellier
The mathematician. The quant. The man who beat Buffett.
Navellier's brand demanded precision and authority. Sophisticated investor audience. Visual language had to communicate credibility and analytical rigor while still converting aggressively.
Hilary Kramer
The market insider. The Wall Street veteran.
Kramer's brand required a different kind of authority — experiential rather than mathematical. The design had to feel like advice from someone who'd been in the room where it happens.
Matt McCall
"Mr. 10x." The growth stock specialist.
McCall's audience was more aggressive — younger, more risk-tolerant. Bolder visual language, higher energy, urgency-forward design. The 5G, AI, and battery tech campaigns were his.
Charles Payne
The Fox Business commentator. The Main Street investor.
Payne's brand was aspirational and populist. Every regular person deserved access to the same opportunities as the wealthy. The design had to feel like an invitation, not an analysis.
02 — My Role
The creative lead.
The trusted one.
As Associate Creative Director, I directed all visual creative for four analyst franchises — the highest-revenue accounts in the publishing group. I led a team of three designers and a video creator, collaborated directly with copywriters, researchers, and the web development team, and reported to the President of Publishing for final sign-off.
“She tested other covers against mine and my design always won. Even after I was assigned to another team, she requested an exception so I could still design her print packages.”
Publishing President, on Brock's print design work
Campaign Direction
Visual creative leadership
- ·Directed all creative for 4 franchise brands
- ·Briefed and reviewed team output
- ·Final creative before publishing president sign-off
- ·Maintained franchise visual consistency
Print Design
Magalogs & direct mail packages
- ·16–24 page long-form magalogs
- ·Direct mail outer envelopes & covers
- ·A/B test variant design
- ·Report covers and premium inserts
Digital & Email
Web advertorials & campaigns
- ·HTML/CSS email campaigns
- ·Web advertorial design & production
- ·Landing page design
- ·Seasonal campaign executions
Motion
Video sales letters & animation
- ·Kinetic typography for 30+ min VSLs
- ·Animated stock charts
- ·Report cover animations
- ·After Effects & Premiere production
Team Leadership
Building capability
- ·Led team of 3 designers + video creator
- ·Created templates & standardized workflows
- ·Taught HTML/CSS to designer — 60% efficiency gain
- ·Improved team production 30–40%
Client Relations
Publishing president partnership
- ·Direct relationship with publishing president
- ·Understood franchise brand voice deeply
- ·Requested by name after team reassignment
- ·Trusted instinct over committee feedback
03 — The Work
Persuasion in print and pixels.
Print — Magalogs & Direct Mail Packages
Two covers for the same Young's Intelligence Report magalog — an A/B control test. “The Day of Reckoning Is Upon Us” versus “A Financial Storm Is Coming.” Identical interior. Different emotional approach. Same question: which cover makes the reader open it?
Email — Seasonal Campaigns & Product Launches
Email campaigns adapted the franchise voice to seasonal moments — renewal cycles, holiday sales, and time-limited offers — while maintaining conversion architecture: clear offer, urgency trigger, single CTA.
Digital — Web Advertorials & HTML Production
HTML advertorials for the 5G, AI, and battery tech campaigns (Matt McCall) and Louis Navellier's AI Master Key — hand-coded in HTML/CSS, responsive, conversion-optimized. Email banners using urgency design — seasonal triggers, typographic tension, single-frame emotional hits.
04 — The Outcome
The outcome.
40%+
Lift over control
Print packages consistently beat control groups by up to 40% in revenue benchmarks. The publishing president requested Brock by name after reassignment.
$4M+
Campaign budget directed
Led visual creative across a multi-channel annual campaign budget spanning print, email, web, and video production.
60%
Team efficiency gained
Taught HTML/CSS to a team designer. Workflow improvement measured at up to 60%. Templates and standardized processes compounded across the team.
7yr
Creative leadership tenure
February 2012 to October 2019. Sustained creative leadership across four franchise brands through multiple platform and market shifts.
What This Demonstrates
01
Campaign creative leadership
Directing multi-channel campaigns across four distinct brand identities simultaneously — print, digital, email, motion. Every channel coordinated toward a single conversion goal.
02
Persuasion architecture
Direct response design is the most disciplined form of creative work. Every visual decision is hypothesized, tested, and measured. Beating control by 40% is not luck. It is craft applied to psychology.
03
Multi-channel fluency
Print magalogs, HTML email, web advertorials, kinetic type video. The same campaign idea expressed across every medium available — each adapted to its format without losing its essential persuasive logic.
04
Leadership that builds capability
Leading a team, standardizing workflows, teaching skills that compound. The 60% efficiency gain from teaching HTML/CSS is not a footnote — it is evidence of a creative leader who makes the people around them better.
“In direct response, the design either converts or it doesn't. For seven years, mine did.”