Melis is an accomplished brand, marketing, and communications leader with nearly two decades of experience developing corporate and product brands and award-winning projects. She has successfully managed in-house and agency teams remotely for 18 years in startups, Fortune 500 brands, and BrandPartners Collective, the brand and creative agency she co-founded in 2012.

Her work includes developing integrated brand, marketing, and communications strategies, global campaigns, and delightful customer experiences. Melis’s soft skills and genuine care for her team, clients, and customers enable her to build trust, elevate brand reputations, and create memorable brand experiences.

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Brand Strategy Process

Creative Production Studio

Influencer Case Study

Content Marketing

Recommendations

Clients & Brands

Over the past 18 years, Melis has worked with a diverse range of brands across the beauty, fashion, CPG, e-commerce, advertising, publishing, and technology industries.

 
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Brand Strategy Process

Brand strategy is defined in various ways and may encompass different levels of detail. Below is an example of a typical brand strategy process that Melis would implement to provide greater clarity. Expand each step to learn more.

  • Melis is a proactive strategist, always seeking opportunities to develop and optimize corporate and product brands. Simplification, clarity, impact, differentiation, and excitement are always top of mind when exploring brand solutions.

    Brand projects originate in various ways:

    • Executive sponsorship

    • Product roadmap changes

    • New products, generations, and releases

    • Challenges faced by business units, marketing, sales, and other teams

    • Partner requests

    • Research findings

    • Customer feedback

    • Ideas pitched by the brand team

    Whatever the origin, Melis ensures that a standardized brand intake process is completed. This guides the strategic work and identifies details like key stakeholders, the decision-maker, timing, purpose, goals, brand investment, prioritization, use and visibility, and relevant insights. Elements of this brief can be transferred to naming and creative briefs later with the right processes and automations in place.

  • Melis begins the discovery phase by conducting listening tours with key stakeholders across the organization to understand the project needs, goals, and challenges from a 360-degree perspective. There are typically representatives from product engineering, sales, marketing, communications, and events.

  • Melis directs and collaborates with research and insights teams to understand the data behind challenges, assumptions, and goals and conduct competitive audits. Research is driven by information gathered during the discovery phase and Melis’s expertise and experience.

  • Once the discovery and insights phases are complete, Melis develops the initial brand strategy.

    In this context, brand strategy work includes:

    • Architecture

    • Promise

    • Positioning

    • Values

    • Attributes

    • Messaging

    • Frameworks for naming, brand strings, and nomenclature

    • Guidelines

    Melis prepares several options for concept testing and workshops later in the process. She ensures each option is backed by sound logic and accomplishes a specific goal, so stakeholders can understand the implications of choosing each option and what it would achieve.

  • Melis has experience developing names and managing internal naming teams and naming agency partners, depending on the importance of the brand and the budget.

    For tier-one, business-critical projects, Melis partners with agencies to develop an initial list of names based on the brand strategy. She provides the teams with clear guidance through naming briefs that guide the exploration, including goals, desired perceptions, attributes, competitors, geographies, timelines, and investment.

    Names can range from simple descriptive names that require lower investment to coined names that can require millions of dollars to create, test, and run through trademark legal reviews and filings.

    Early testing helps to mitigate global linguistic issues, trademark concerns, and other red flags. Final testing happens after a final name and backup name are selected to reduce costs and save time.

  • Melis directs internal creative studios and agency partners to explore visual identity directions based on the brand strategy. As a strategist and creative, Melis is skilled at translating business concepts into creative requests. She provides clear, comprehensive creative briefs that ensure alignment on scope, resources, budget, and timing.

    Beyond the basics, Melis often communicates with creative teams using a visual language, providing mood boards and both analogous and "no-go" examples to explain the vision and facilitate a smoother process. Visual identity work often runs in parallel to ongoing strategy work to make the most of real-time feedback and hit timeline goals.

    MVP options are brought into workshops to review with key stakeholders before diving into full development to gain early feedback, remain agile, and preserve budgets.

  • Melis works with research teams to gain inputs from internal and external audiences, including qualitative and quantitative research with customers, partners, and analysts.

    The findings support the brand strategies, names, and visual identity options Melis recommends. She uses this information in workshops to educate stakeholders and gain alignment.

  • Melis brings options and test results into workshops with executives and key stakeholders to share the strategic recommendations and implications of potential decisions.

    Her approach encourages healthy discussions, tests the validity of information gained during discovery, and uncovers recent changes or red flags that may require additional strategic refinement.

    The ultimate goal is to gain alignment and a green light from the decision-maker in a timely manner. If additional refinement is necessary, Melis makes the changes and proceeds with approvals via another meeting or email.

  • Once alignment is gained on the various strategic elements, name, and visual identity, Melis works with agency partners and teams to complete the project.

    That final output is incorporated into brand guidelines with comprehensive examples to facilitate on-brand activation for marketing, communications, sales, and events teams, as well as ecosystem and agency partners.

  • Melis works closely with sales, marketing, communications, events, partners, and product business units to ensure that brand guidelines are followed. Her approach is one of a partner rather than the “brand police,” making it easy for internal and external teams to stay on brand and consistent.

 
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Creative production Studio

E-commerce, retail, & consumer marketing

Melis has over 12 years of experience in photo and video production, casting, and creative direction as part of the art duo, Melis+Dainon, which represents a blend of her and her husband’s artistic talents. Her work has been featured internationally in Condé Nast and Hearst media publications, as well as on television, billboards, and storefronts in the US, Europe, Australia, and Asia.

She collaborates with brilliant artists and creative teams to produce high-end media content for clients across various industries, including fashion, beauty, architecture, sports, and travel. Her photography archives are represented by the Trunk Archive family of brands in NYC.

Actress Sibylla Deen
Melis+Dainon

Campaign ft. Barbara Fialho
Tiger House Films

Travel: France & Spain
Melis+Dainon

NEXT Models: Rania Benchegra
Dylan Thomas Film

Campaign ft. Fred Juneau
Dylan Thomas Film

The Lions Agency: Jess Miller
Melis+Dainon

Campaign ft. Marta Bez
Dylan Thomas Film

Freedom & JAG Models: TJ
Melis+Dainon

Campaign ft. Carola & Apoorva
Tiger House Films

New York Models: Nils Schoof
Melis+Dainon

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MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN: SOCIAL, EVENT, RETAIL, & E-COMMERCE

A well-known fashion brand hired BrandPartners to create a multi-channel marketing campaign with a budget of around $500k. The campaign centered around a photo and video shoot with a model and influencer with a following that perfectly suited the brand.

The campaign would run on print and digital billboards in Times Square, window and in-store displays at national retailers, social media, and across the Google display network. The brand would also host events with fans and media at retailers nationwide, which required the selected talent to have excellent interpersonal and interview skills.

PROJECT DETAILS

    • Over 1 million followers comprised of girls and women ages 12-30

    • Aesthetic fit with the brand

    • Specific height and measurements to fit the clothing

    • Friendly, sweet personality that would convey the brand voice

    • Able to handle media interviews with charisma

    • Excels with in-person fan engagement

  • The project would include:

    • digital advertising

    • social media influencer posts

    • print advertising—billboards, direct mail

    • multi-store events with press in attendance

    • retail displays

  • BrandPartners leveraged its relationships with elite model agencies and knowledge of social media influencer technologies to create a list of 50 qualified models based on audience data, previous campaign success rates, and brand fit. Then, we narrowed them down to a final list of 6 influencers, each with a unique offering.

    Nina Agdal was the final pick. She is a celebrity model known best for her multi-year features on covers and in magazines like Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and had 1.6 Million followers at the time of the campaign. Her stance on body positivity and focus on humorous, light-hearted content attracted the perfect audience for this brand.

  • Our team worked closely with the model agency, creative agency, client, and marketing partners to deliver full-scale production of this campaign, including:

    • Influencer discovery & qualification

    • Casting

    • Rate and contract negotiations

    • Location scouting

    • Selection and hiring of the creative team

    • Production

    • Photography

    • Graphic design for final advertisements

    • Preparation of all print graphics

    • Project management

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Melis’s Recommendations

Use the navigation arrows to scroll through a selection of recognitions and recommendations that Melis has received from Intel leaders and BrandPartners clients. Please feel free to explore many more recommendations (and connect!) here on her LinkedIn profile.

 
 
 
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