William Thames Blacklock

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?

Since its founding, Umbel has become the standard for sports and entertainment brands in understanding and reaching their audiences, amassing over 10 billion data points on over 150 million fans. Simultaneously, MVPindex became the currency for social influence across sports, entertainment, and content creators, tracking over 80,000 entities over hundreds of millions of social posts. While respectively, Umbel owned the world of fans and MVPindex the world of sponsorships, together, we provide an unprecedented— and actionable—view of the intersection of brands, influencers, and fans on and offline. In 2018, the companies came together to measure and drive the real-time value of social engagement for global brands and their audiences.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Staff and supervise the Creative Services Team comprised of Art Director, Designer, Full Stack Web Developer, and Project Manager
– Responsible for combining research, customer and internal campaign goals, messaging priorities, platform limitations and growth opportunities into creative briefs and campaign playbooks
– Concept new activation platform improvements showcasing UI and UX enhancements alongside user acceptance criteria for coordinating internal development sprints
– Establish consistent methodology for delivering data implementation services including pre-sale discovery, client expectation setting, data import processes, data-specific best practices and results
– Support internal Marketing, Client Partner, Digital Media Services, and Sales departments with design/strategy/messaging for collateral, reports, presentations and marketing campaigns
– Lead all aspects of the rebranding process, including design and implementation, following the merger between MVPindex and Umbel
– Arrange partnership with third-party SaaS platform for continuation of Lodestone’s product offerings after sunset of the Lodestone platform

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?
SUCCESSFULLY EXITED OUR STARTUP THROUGH ACQUISITION TO UMBEL IN 2016

Lodestone’s Multichannel Engagement platform is a turn-key, white-labeled platform that enables brands, teams, broadcasters and agencies to engage, motivate, curate, analyze and monetize the anytime, anywhere consumer.

Some of the largest brands, agencies, broadcasters and teams in the world utilize Lodestone’s OMNI-Engagement platform including: Fox Sports (Fox Florida/BTN), MLB, Zaxby’s Chicken, C Spire Wireless, The Golf Channel, OKC Thunder, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Orange Bowl/BCS Championship, The Paralympics-PBS, and many more.

Lodestone’s platform provides over 50+ API’s/Javascript or Mobile Responsive Design Template modules to amplify and unite any marketing campaign into an OMNI-Channel experience. Unite your existing native mobile applications, social media, in-store activation, purchases, TV, radio, POP materials, sweepstakes, website and more.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Completed 4 iterations of UI/UX (frontend and backend experience) for Lodestone web app
– UX, development acceptance criteria, and template rendering for each activation (polls, scratch-offs, personality quizzes, image memes, text memes, social walls, loyalty rewards, codes, voting, league activations, forms, surveys, social auth, social rewards, coupons, and more)
– Oversaw all creative execution and managed pre-program insight gathering, project management, and campaign wrap up (report generation/key takeaways)
– Commanded complete internal branding, positioning, and marketing

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?

We are TwinB. A front to back, full service, user-centric, creative agency. From influential branding to insightful interactive experiences, we work on-line and off-line wonders.

We share a passion for simple, smart and innovative design. That doesn’t only fulfill the glory-eyed pursuits of the creative psyche but dials into what matters most…the user. A creative agency that believes there is a time and place for flashy and loud or for low-key and meaningful – for edgy Flash-based campaigns or strategic well-crafted search optimized sites.

We listen, we learn and we connect – to clients, to customers, to people. Then we work wonders.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Focusing on small to medium businesses, I was responsible for the creative strategy to the delivery of creative and digital executions.
– Business development
– Management of Creative stable of freelancers from offshore and onshore sources

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?
MANAGED THROUGH ASSOCIATION WITH TWINB CREATIVE, LLC

What started as Turn2Live through the University of Texas Business Acceleration program. Soon became Moodfish. A contextual search engine that takes traditional contextual and demographic relevance and expands on it.

We are quantifying what has traditionally been a subjective-only metric. By connecting with users at an emotional level, we are able to deliver content to them at the peak of their decision-making process. To help them make the decisions to buy a ticket to attend a show, a movie, or any relevant event.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Creating the identity, UI/UX of the app, and overall brand market presence
– Headed the rebranding and positioning when the company was renamed to Moodfish

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?
DEMAND GENERATION SERVICES FOR ACCELERATED GROWTH

Great marketing always starts with the customer. Who is the target buyer? What are their key behaviors? What really motivates them? We partner with marketers to drive business results by leveraging customer insights, content and performance media to generate demand and accelerate your sales cycle.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Developed compelling multi-channel creative campaigns
– Directed cross-departmental collaboration on digital and traditional media executions
– Designed UI/UX executions
– Provided video and digital experience storyboarding and production management
– Concepted and created logo and package design

WHAT IS THIS PLACE?
NOW Y&R AUSTIN

Y&R Austin is known for tackling the tough stuff. The smart stuff. The complex products and complicated marketing challenges that most agencies shy away from. That’s why industry-leading B2B and B2C brands in everything from high tech to healthcare have counted on us for close to 30 years. Looking for innovators? Masterminds? Instigators? Nice to meet you.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

– Develop compelling creative and discover the BIG idea
– Cross-departmental collaboration on digital and traditional media executions
– Storyboarding and production management
– Logo design
– UI/UX work
– Traditional media campaigns
– Flash-based design direction

W³ Award – Silver
JAN 2009 • International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA)

CONCEPT • ART DIRECTION • DESIGN

The website for Wilshire Homes’ “Sheila, Your Wilshire New Homes Consultant” won silver in the Real Estate category. The website features a virtual new home consultant who asks questions of potential home buyers to come up with the perfect home design for each user.

ADDY Awards – District, Judge Favorite
FEB 2007 • AdFed

CONCEPT • ART DIRECTION • DESIGN

Hill Country Ride for AIDS, poster, bike shirt, and multiple collateral executions.

ADDY Awards – District, Gold
NOV 2006 • ADFED

CONCEPT • ART DIRECTION • DESIGN

Advergame, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, 2006

W³ Award – Best in Show
OCT 2006 • International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA)

CONCEPT • ART DIRECTION • DESIGN

Art direction, concept, & development requirements for an advergame Adopt-A-Sloth, created to promote 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s DVD release of Ice Age 2: The Meltdown in 2006.

The University of Texas at Austin
Advertising – Bachelor of Science – BS

1997 – 2003
GPA: 3.8

Creative sequence through the College of Communication’s School of Advertising, began my student career majoring in Microbiology.

Activities: Longhorn Singers, Schrodinger’s Cat Acapella Group, Student Plays, Madrigal Dinner, Intramural Sports, Advanced Creative Workshop, and Vespa Club.

General Assembly
Front End Development Course

March 2017
License 1496243245

Learned to leverage HTML, CSS, and JavaScript through hands-on projects and real-world scenarios.