heather stoutenburg

Client: Museum of Vancouver

Agency: Switch United

Role: UI Copywriting

Vancouver has a complicated history with neon. Once home to 20,000 neon signs, they gradually disappeared – only to make a resurgence with changing attitudes and aesthetics. But it’s the stories behind the signs that make them interesting. 

In this mobile walking tour app, Switch United helped the Museum of Vancouver tell that narrative through the eyes of Vancouverites. With archival photos, audio interviews, bilingual text, augmented reality, and user-generated content, this first-of-its-kind virtual exhibit blends a city’s storied past with its digital future.

Strongly appeals to closet history nerds. Want it? Get it here. 

Client: Save-On-Foods

Agency: Invoke

Role: Content Strategy/Model

Invoke & TAXI joined forces with Save-On-Foods to show customers how employees go the extra mile. The content roll-out actually happened in three phases; I chose to highlight this one, because if you look closely, you might recognize those tattoos. Visit the whole site in its current state here.

Client: WIRELESSWAVE

Agency: Invoke

Role: Copywriting & creative direction

To promote WIRELESSWAVE's trade-in offer, we personified your old phone as shaking in its boots; terrified you'd swap it for a younger model. Our execution included in-store posters and radio spots, while smart mobile targeting meant our social ads referenced the device in the user's hand. Spooky. 

Client: The Jim Pattison Group

Agency: Invoke

Role: Branding, copywriting & content strategy

It's not every day you write a website for an octogenarian billionaire. This wasn't a super sexy project, but I'm pretty jazzed that we added a human element to the corporate machine. Check it out here.

Client: CBC

Agency: Switch United

Role: Concept, copy & content strategy

CBC's successful* drama had a 60-minute story to tell in 45. We spent two days on-set shooting a parallel storyline that was released online, in segments, during commercial breaks. Then, we wrapped it all up in a neat little legacy piece that lets users interact with the story -- through text messages, video content, voicemails and more. Check it out here -- ladies, sorry, no Adam Beach. 

*By Canadian content standards. So, you know.

Client: Paperny Entertainment/Food Network

Agency: Invoke 

Role: UI copywriting; content strategy

Growing up, my dad called food carts "botulism wagons." Nowadays, people line up around the block for a $9 organic fair trade gluten free non-GMO vegan taco from these things. Capitalizing on street food mania, Paperny Films asked Invoke for a promo site for their new Food Network show, Eat St.

We took it a step further: a mobile app lets users find street food in any North American city. The app hit 50,000 downloads in 8 days and had coverage in TechVibes, Mashable, insert buzzy blog here. Hungry? Go get it.

Client: Omnifilm/SPACE Channel

Agency: Switch United

Role: Copywriting & content strategy

Primeval: New World is a Canadian spin-off of a popular British television series. They have a rabid fan base across the pond, and Switch United was tasked with reaching them. We did so through apps; user-generated content; behind-the-scenes photos; Easter eggs in the form of 'real' fake websites from the show; and social media; all of which we pulled into a robust digital strategy centered on a pretty bad-ass site. 

It only drew the ire of a few uber dinosaur nerds, who are willing to accept a show premise involving time travelling model/scientists but NOT a theropod with pronated hands. Ok then.

Client: Thunderbird Films/YTV

Agency: Switch United

Role: Concept, copy & content strategy

Mr. Young is a YTV sitcom aimed at youth aged 9-13. The producers, Thunderbird Films, came to us for a game that would be both fun to play, and riff off the rich story world.

I don't know anything about 'tweens.' But when I was that age, I was really into two things: Tiger Beat and Mario Kart. So by setting our heartthrob actors loose in the studio to create their own soapbox derby cars -- and rendering those into 3D for a Unity-based racing game -- I really think we covered our bases. 

Watch the case study, produced by Switch United, below. Want to lose an hour of your life? Go play the game.

Client: TELUS
Agency: TAXI
Role: Copy/Concept

The brief? Promote the TELUS Karaoke app online. Don't make a microsite, because that's expensive. Don't use any actual karaoke music, because that's expensive too. Don't use any professional actors or singers, because... ditto. So we did this.

I consider it an outstanding success: we made a TELUS ad and there's no dumb animal in it.

(AD: Chairman Ting) 

Client: National Abortion Federation

Collaborators: Leslie Strudwick (concept); Sasha Cameron; Dana Deschene; Grace Lau; Bryan Loewen

Role: Strategy; copywriting

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Morgentaler decision, the National Abortion Federation fundraised thrity grand and a great team of people donated their services to get this ad in the Globe & Mail. I haven't received any hate mail re: this yet, so go ahead and be the first.

Client: Fortis Alberta

Agency: Evans Hunt

Role: Copywriting/Content Strategy Support

I had the pleasure of working with the folks at EH on the Fortis Alberta redesign. EH's in-house team worked with the client's committee on a massive content prioritization exercise; I was tasked with applying a citizen-centric and human approach to very complex, very technical content across the entire site. 

Client: Trū Ride

Agency: Creative Fit

Role: Copy & brand strategy

On the North Shore of Vancouver, there exists a magical little agency that works exclusively with fitness studios. I've worked with its proprietor, Raphael, for several years to help these studios get started and hit the ground running. Trū Ride is one of my favourite examples of our work; its lovely founder had a great vision and placed a ton of trust in us as we brought it to life across a website, app, email marketing channels, and on a 30-foot wall manifesto. 

Images provided by Creative Fit. 

Clients: Honda Dealers of BC, WIRELESSWAVE, Gimbel Eye Centre

Agencies: Elvis, Invoke, William Joseph

This has NOTHING to do with the internet. But I like writing radio.

Unfortunately, this Squarespace template doesn't accommodate mp3 files and I'm too lazy to iMovie that shit. So go listen here.

Client: Destination BC

Agency: Level Eleven

Role: Copywriting/Content Strategy 

While working with Level Eleven I became something of an email [insert whatever the not-overused version of "guru" is].  I had the pleasure of leading the creative for a very successful email program, but I suppose my job wasn't so hard when our lovely province practically sells itself.