RECESS

Recess is a CBD-infused sparkling water brand making it easier to be human, even if you’re an aluminum can. As one of two in-house writers, I helped expand the Recess universe via long form copy, unexpected emails, digital and IRL campaigns, and more. 

︎︎︎ SOCIAL
We took concepts and ran with them as far as marketing would allow. Here are some of my efforts that helped us get nominated for a 2020 Webby for Best Overall Social Presence which we lost to NASA (no hard feelings).

“they said it couldn’t be done”

“good old fashioned from-a-considerable-distance fun”

“flat label in 90 days or your money back”

︎ EMAIL 

We found skyrocketting DTC sales in an underused place. Our original email content helped grow Recess’ e-commerce by 600% and subscriber count by 700%. Turns out, the silly stuff that made people think but not too hard did the best. Digiday covered our efforts ︎here︎.
 

︎ ASK BLACKBERRY CHAI
Blackberry Chai is a sentient sparkling water by day, all-knowing guru by night. We helped quench our subscribers’ desire for advice and gave them a fun, silly reason to keep coming back.

︎ DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS
How would Recess celebrate Valentine’s Day? Launch product in a new US city? Uplift a lockdown-era community of creatives? Hmmmm I’m thinking......

︎ VALENTINE’S DAY
I helped turn not having V-Day plans into an opportunity to fall in love with a brand and win some free Recess along the way.

(submissions from our fans who actually participated)

︎AUSTIN LAUNCH

We had to make new friends in a new place with our Austin launch. I helped craft a story of wayward adventure, which enticed our followers to tag their Austinite pals. We got over 300 email replies from our excited new neighbors. 

︎ VENMO BLACK FRIDAY

We had to figure out a way to partake in Black Friday since CBD brands aren’t allowed to advertise on Instagram. The solution: make a viral chain text with a Recess discount in it and pay people $3 to share it. Our post was reshared 1100 times within 6 hours and made for an increased conversion rate by over 500%. Venmo blocked us for spam so we did it the old-fashioned way, from our own accounts. Adweek covered this stunt.

︎DIGITAL ARTSHOW

The 2020 lockdown left many in search of socially distanced connection. To help, we created Recess’ first and only Creative Roll Call. We asked our community to send us what they’ve been working on and we sent free Recess to some of our favs (and discounts to all who submitted). We earned 39,500 impressions, 63,776 organic reach, and 1,556 new followers in a few days with $0 ad spend.