"We launched an entire prospect content plan that educated a first timer on what to expect. It not only resonated with our audience, but most importantly, it drove sales."
Welcome back to the Momentum Brands blog—your source for all things franchising, business, consumer marketing, and more. This week, we get to learn about the crazy intelligent author of the blog, Halle O’Neill, Brand Director at Momentum Brands.
After graduating from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film and Television Halle surprised her parents with a one-way ticket to Thailand. She was determined to live her best life, free of guidance and responsibility. That brave decision led her to teaching English and backpacking through Asia until further notice. This adventure of a lifetime, filled with a lot of learning moments, insane experiences, beautiful people, culture shock, a couple of regretted tattoos, and the biggest mosquitos she’d ever seen.
Most of all, this journey forced Halle into self-discovery and a new-found independence that altered the course of her life.
Following her year of travels, Halle landed back in her hometown of Kansas City, this time searching for a deeper meaning in her career.
She got her feet wet in social media marketing. Partnering with a female chef and entrepreneur mogul in town, she took on a new role of social marketing for two thriving healthy food concepts. Instantly, she fell in love with storytelling, learning how to grow an audience, and enhancing the customer journey through digital marketing. After starting her career in the food and beverage space, she eventually found her way to the TITLE Boxing Club marketing team.
In her interview, I distinctly remember her telling me that she had no ego, she was willing to do whatever it took to succeed, and that she was a fellow Kappa Kappa Gamma. I was smiling as I listened to her imaginative stories and related background. I was awestruck by her bravery, real world experience, and ability to inspire me with her big energy.
As I was explaining the responsibility of the role, which included things like branding, franchising and consumer relatability through social media, her response led me to believe she was the perfect person for the job. “That’s dope,” she said.
In all my years of managing teams I had never heard that before in an interview. And I knew it was exactly the kind of vibe we needed to transform our social channels.
So, we dug in and did “dope” things to really enhance the social media brand. This included tactics like member testimonials, holiday photo shoots, demographic representation, aligning bios, stories, links, chats, engagement, content plans, relevancy, and frequency to the social channels. She also wrote and managed a highly viewed weekly blog sharing fitness, health and consumer trends. One of the most-read articles: “I took my first boxing class and here’s what happened” taught us just how much our prospects were interested in learning more about their first-time class. So, we launched an entire prospect content plan that educated a first timer on what to expect. It not only resonated with our audience, but most importantly, it drove sales. Halle owned a variety of communication projects for our franchisees, elevated the consumer digital experience, and taught franchisees how to grow and optimize their own local store media channels.
When it came time for her next adventure, she took on a more traditional advertising role at VMLY&R where she was an e-commerce writer on the Performance Content Team. Now she was able to flex her copywriting and digital experience on big brand names including General Mills, Conagra Foods, Molson Coors, and John Deere. Her learning curve was high. She was challenged in new ways and homing in her skills. Yet she still wanted more. More freedom, more autonomy, more joy, less stress. She also realized the vast difference between working for a brand vs an agency and was ready to dive into a career of brand strategy.
And just like that, our paths realigned. At Momentum Brands, I was ready to start scaling. I knew I needed a like-minded individual and someone with different talents than me. Halle’s tenacity, humor, consumer intellect, social and digital experience, franchise experience and personality are the perfect fit. As the Brand Director she runs point on all things consumer. She lives, eats, sleeps, breathes all things related to the female buying demographic. She knows what they read, where they get their information from, who influences them, what celebrity news is trending and if it really matters. She has a pulse on politics, social sentiment, employment, and franchise industry trends like nothing I’ve ever seen. She applies that knowledge to helping our brand partners elevate their relatability to their buying demographic in a multi-media approach. Halle holds our clients accountable, follows up to ensure the momentum of key initiatives is being made, and even remembers client’s birthdays. She’s the best wing-woman I could ever imagine.
To put it in her words, she’s super dope.
"Halle’s tenacity, humor, consumer intellect, social and digital experience, franchise experience and personality are the perfect fit."
When Halle is not serving our clients, you can find her at local, unknown and fabulous restaurants with her boyfriend, traveling somewhere new, soaking up the sunshine, writing, listening to live music, meditating, or continuing her search for the world’s best margarita. She’s the spice of life. She seeks variety at the highest level. And she really is the best.
Get to know Halle and drop her a note at Halle@themomentumbrands.com
Brooke Budke Wiltse
Founder & CEO
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