Lindsey Canant Brand & Marketing

Brand strategy | Voice & tone | Messaging & brand storytelling | B2C and B2B2C campaigns | Marketing channel playbooks | Editorial themes and marketing/merchandising narratives | Cultural & competitive analysis | Coaching & workshops 

SELECT RESULTS: 
• Served as a trusted advisor, coach, and sounding board for visionary leaders in e-commerce, retail, tech, fashion, beauty, lifestyle, manufacturing, and more. 
• Overhauled the voice, tone, and messaging for fashion label Jude Connally, helping the eponymous designer nail her story for the "first time" after 14 years of business through revised brand positioning, omnichannel campaign concepts, and editorial/cultural marketing narratives
• Crafted brand positioning, strategy, verbal identity, and omnichannel copy for Hollis Loudon Interiors – earning a 2022 Web Excellence Award
• Oversaw the launch of an award-winning leggings brand – from initial strategy, competitive/consumer research, and voice/visual identity to a social media, press, and influencer outreach playbook
• Created awareness strategy and partnership outreach messaging for a direct-to-consumer luxury shoe brand, resulting in a boutique hotel pop-up shop and interest from premier global retailers  

FROM MY CLIENTS:
• "She took my gut instinct/inkling of an idea and turned it into an actual brand." 
• "Lindsey 'gets it.' When I'm at a loss for words, she finds them and takes the idea to the next level."
• "Because of Lindsey, we have the tools to achieve our positioning. Now we can get to where we want to be in the long run."
• "Lindsey has helped me define the 'who' and 'what' of my brand in a way that is bigger than words."

Owner, Brand Marketing Consultant

Bizee

• Developed and executed global brand strategy, including brand positioning, messaging, and visual identity.
• Partnered with product, revenue, content, sales, and customer service teams to achieve brand integration throughout every touchpoint. 
• Piloted strategic, big swing initiatives designed to create a 360°, omnichannel lifestyle experience
• Owned P&L for Brand initiatives, including UI/UX resources, designers, writers, and content creators

*From 3/23 to 12/23, I was employed by an agency full-time for their largest client. When my role was eliminated due to agency-wide layoffs, the client bought my employment contract and brought me in-house.

📌 Building the first lifestyle brand for the Everyday Entrepreneur

Head of Brand

First Page Strategy

(Role/function eliminated due to agency-wide RIFs)
• Spearheaded corporate brand strategy, brand marketing, and customer retention for the agency's largest account – a tech brand on the Inc5000
• Served as right hand and advisor to CEO, translating his vision into a large-scale corporate rebrand
• Developed new brand book, including positioning, personas, creative guidelines, brand voice, AI photography art direction, and omnichannel activations
• Acted as the voice, vision, and steward of the brand, guiding and evangelizing it to partners and teams
• Directly managed email marketing, organic social, customer lifecycle and retention marketing, and video teams – including setting and managing KPIs, reporting, and budgets
• Owned relationship with external PR agency partner – including overseeing KPIs, reporting, and budgets
• Consistently exceeded Brand Division channel KPIs and revenue goals each month

🗨️ Transforming an Inc5000 tech company into a culturally relevant, first-of-its-kind lifestyle brand

Head of Brand & Customer (Inc5000 Tech Client)

Summit Strategy

• Supported general brand strategy efforts and employer branding for the agency's roster of architecture, construction, and engineering firm clients
• Crafted client surveys, conducted both written and video interviews, summarized key insights, and presented findings to agency and client leadership
• Wrote positioning messaging for brand projects and provided briefs to marketing and design teams
• Received praise from agency founder and executive leadership team for impactful work and executive presence

Brand Strategist

Global CPG Brand

• Worked with the president, CEO, and product lead of a Miami-based brand carried by national grocers as part of the Babson Consulting Experience
• Proposed annual marketing budget and fully integrated marketing mix including digital, OOH, partnerships, experiential, and influencer marketing
• Based on research and consumer trend data, proposed new product line that has entered development
• Received kudos from client and teammates for outstanding individual impact on the project, including data analysis and client delivery

MBA Marketing Consultant

Wayfair

• Partnered with CMO and GM to develop new positioning, tagline, voice, visuals, and customer persona
• Wrote 30-second national TV commercial, driving +300% response rate vs. comparable Wayfair ads
• Served as brand steward and evangelist internally and externally
• Collaborated with storefront to concept, prototype, and launch a new homepage experience
• Championed customer research, including calls, user tests, and shop-alongs/home visits

Head of Brand/Copy, Joss & Main

• Established new voice direction and campaign concepts informed by customer insights
• Led Black Friday campaign, generating +223% revenue YOY and +128% lift in email visits
• Partnered with email marketing team to develop “persona-based” content for customer segments
• Introduced lifestyle storytelling – including editorial Color Crush and Style Destination email series

Head of Copy, Birch Lane

• Executed full brand reposition in 90 days, working closely with senior-level stakeholders
• Mapped customer journeys and developed communications plans tailored to audience segments 
• Developed customer personas based on sales trends, social media monitoring, survey data, customer call transcripts, site traffic, and market research
• Used A/B testing and research to create brand’s messaging playbook
• Drove copy and design initiatives in response to customer intent signals and inflection points

Brand/Copy Lead, Joss & Main

Launched Wayfair Inc.'s first luxury brand in just 90 days, including naming, positioning, customer research, brand voice, and all messaging.

• Crafted all pre-launch copy, including brand name, vision, value props, and go-to-market messaging
• Post-launch, developed and pitched 5 brand iterations for C-level and executive-level consideration
• Created an award-winning direct mail piece (2018 Gold Ink Silver Award, 2018 Premier Print Award Certificate of Merit Honoree, 2018 Graphic Excellence Award – Best of Direct Mail)

Brand/Copy Lead, Perigold

Oversaw all copy initiatives, including web, UX, email, direct mail, online advertising, push notifications, promotions, and more.

Copy Team Lead, Joss & Main

Product descriptions, editorial content, and themed romance copy. Managed a team of 8 direct reports.

Copywriter, Joss & Main

Product descriptions, editorial content, and themed romance copy.

Junior Copywriter, Joss & Main

The Improper Bostonian

Covered fashion, beauty, bridal, interiors, travel, and cocktails.

Assistant Editor

PinkMemo.com

Covered fashion and beauty stories out of New York and Paris – including in-person reporting on Paris Fashion Week and interviews with Oscar Blandi, Jonathan Adler, Lauren Santo Domingo, and more.

International Fashion & Features Writer

Head of Brand at Bizee (formerly Incfile) | Marketing MBA | Wayfair Alum

For a lifetime, "brand" has been my calling. And for 15+ years, it's been my professional call-to-arms. Combining an MA, MBA, journalism career, 7 years at a unicorn company, 4 years of running my own business, and leading an audacious rebrand for a company that's served over 1M entrepreneurs, I've got 💪s for storytelling and spreadsheets.

From the bootstrapped to the Fortune 500, B2Bs to DTCs, and companies that range from full luxury to full-on functional, I've always been able to find a fresh angle, concept, or truth that unlocks differentiation and connection. 

—

For many companies, those things feel just out of reach. 

💬 Throughout my career, I've heard: 
» “What we’ve done so far got us here. But, it won’t take us where we want to go.”
» “We have a big opportunity in front of us. But, we're inconsistent in meeting the mark."
» “My team is doing their best, but we’re either making it up as we go or stuck on repeat.”
» “I struggle to know if what we have makes sense. We're spinning a lot of plates, but what’s the big picture?”

—
•• WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT ••
In short? I can see a brand's latent potential and bring it to life.

My specialties? Voice & tone | Omnichannel campaigns | Consumer and cultural insights | Cross-functional partnership | C-suite guidance

But, most importantly? I'm motivated by a conviction that great brands make things great – for everyone. Great brands: 
➡️ Engage us
➡️ Inspire us
➡️ Connect us to like minds
➡️ Help us communicate our uniqueness to the world

—
📈 MY PAST RESULTS 📈
•   A brand repositioning that grew sales by 46% and new customers by 267%
•   A Q4 omnichannel brand campaign that drove 223% more revenue YOY
•   A direct-to-consumer footwear brand pop-up in a luxury European hotel (plus: establishing prestige wholesale connections)
•   Helping an award-winning business clear two years of strategy and messaging roadblocks in a single day

—
📣 WHAT OTHERS SAY 📣
• “Because of Lindsey, we finally have the tools to achieve our positioning. Now we can get to where we want to be in the long run.” 
• “[She did] a beautiful job capturing our essence. She didn’t try to make us just like everyone else. People can finally see how we’re different and choose us BECAUSE of that.” 
• “Hire Lindsey if you’re looking for someone who can listen to your story, understand your customers, and create stories that connect them.”
• “She's like a Swiss Army Knife – something you always want in your pocket.”
• “Sure – everyone says they understand 'brand.' But Lindsey knows what can't be taught.”

Lindsey Canant, MA, MBA

Organizing to Win

Each month, the Organizing to Win newsletter contains three sections to help inspire your campaigns:

💡A story about a strategic organizing campaign that builds power
💡Recommended podcasts, videos or reading about justice
💡A Pro-tip of the Month that solves a little problem (maybe one you couldn't even name!)

"This is really great - short, sharp, inspiring and informative!"
- Lisa H., executive director

Great newsletter!! Not too long and full of interesting and useful stuff. Not going to unsubscribe! 😉
- Sara W., program manager

I share insights from thirty-five years of political and organizing campaigns, training and coaching organizers and disrupting white supremacy culture. (And sometimes a little joke.)

Subscribe at organizingtowin.net.

READ the Organizing to Win newsletter: tips, stories and suggestions for power-building campaigns

Organizing to Win - https://organizingtowin.net/services/

When you intentionally design campaigns to bring people together, you win more and build power for the next time.

If you're a social justice, union or political leader, maybe you're struggling with these issues on your campaigns:
😖You've won a lot, but the same few people do everything.
😖It's harder and harder to engage members in important campaigns.
😖You win, but it's a constant, draining scramble.
😖Burnout in staff, volunteers and leaders.
😖You start all over again when a staff member, leader or volunteer moves on.

To bring equity and transformation to our communities, we design campaigns with the objective of bringing people together to build power, using the opportunity of the campaign to do it. This approach is more fulfilling, sustainable and effective than constantly scrambling to win every time.

“Mira’s organizing plan for our midterms campaign not only helped us win in 89% of our targeted districts, but more members engaged in campaigns than ever before. Her focus on building relationships, then moving together to action, not only meant victory on election night – but also more inspired, engaged and fired up activists for everything that comes after.“
– Kris Brown, president, Brady United Against Gun Violence

To learn more, see the Services and Client Anecdotes page of the Organizing to Win website: organizingtowin.net.

BUILD POWER: Lead campaigns that do more than win

Organizing to Win - https://organizingtowin.net/spotlight/

Provide organizing and campaign education to your staff, members and leaders that inspires them to action. 

“Mira’s training smarts brought our program to the next level. She created or re-imagined sessions that helped members learn concepts and practice skills. Her creative, interactive curriculum made abstract concepts real. And every session included an actionable assignment so participants could put their new skills to work right away.“
- Brianna T., Vice President for Organizing

Several organizing directors have said that the organizers they're hiring - and even some of their leads - haven't learned the basic skills of organizing, like effective one-on-one meetings, identifying and developing leaders, creating a strategy, building equity into their campaigns, building strong organizing committees and more. 

If you're thinking about this problem, check out the Spotlight on Training page on the Organizing to Win website, to learn more about whether Organizing to Win training could help your organization or campaign build power. https://organizingtowin.net/spotlight/

LEARN: Customized, interactive organizing education that staff, leaders & members can use right now

Organizing to Win - organizingtowin.net

How would your campaigns be different if you had a thought partner with whom you could talk through strategy? Staff management issues? Goal-setting?

One-on-one and small group coaching provides perspective from outside the organization to help shape a strong strategy.

To learn more about how coaching can help your organizing team level up the work, let's connect! DM me here or organizing2win@gmail.com.

GROW: Personalized coaching to build strategy and people management skills

Organizing to Win - CMJ 

In social justice organizations, white supremacy culture manifests itself in many insidious ways, for example:
-the work feels incomplete, despite a comprehensive DEI values statement
-participants in programs and campaigns are mostly white, men or otherwise unrepresentative of the community
-board members, leaders and volunteers are almost all white, even if the work of the organization is centered in communities of color
-senior staff are all white and/or men
-staff of color turn over frequently
-staff of color are clustered in HR or "diversity" roles
-women and men of color are pigeon-holed in support roles

That's where my two collaborators and I come in. (Cat and Janedra, the C and J of CMJ) We work with organizations to identify the manifestations of white supremacy culture and develop strategies to disrupt it. We find the balance that keeps the skeptical in the room and respects the experiences of people who are the survivors of the oppressive culture. 

Participants have called our intro workshop, "Disrupting White Supremacy Culture in Nonprofits," their favorite at conferences. It opens up a space to talk about the culture we've inherited and internalized - and didn't even know it.

If you are interested in having difficult and liberating conversations within your organization, let's talk. DM me here or organizing2win@gmail.com

DISRUPT: White Supremacy Culture

Organizing to Win! - organizingtowin.net 

The first time I knocked on a door was 1988 - when I might have been the only person in America who thought Michael Dukakis could win the presidency. (Spoiler alert: He couldn't.) That experience - and 30 additional years of campaigns - taught me how to win.

Highlights include:
🗳️Electing a Jewish man in a city known for anti-mask rallies and white supremacist sympathies
🗳️First-round victory for a trans candidate in a city whose unofficial motto is "Don't change anything. Keep everything the same." 
🗳️14 votes shy of winning with a candidate who would have been the first non-binary city and first Black councilmember
🗳️Tripling the number of women in the Louisiana state legislature

“Mira’s approach to campaigns is exactly what our movement needs – she emphasizes bringing people together to build power, using the opportunity of the campaign to do it. Organizing, field, messaging, making the trains run on time – she does it all. Her combination of sharp political instincts and tactical skills make her an incredible strategist for campaigns and organizations that want to do more than win.”
– Ada Briceño, Orange County Democratic Party Chair and Co-President of UNITE HERE Local 11

WIN: Political strategy that wins and builds community

Brady United to Prevent Gun Violence

When I work with organizations to build strategic campaigns, I draw on thirty years of experience in political and organizing campaigns. Brady United is a good example.

Brady is a nationally-recognized gun violence prevention (GVP) policy organization, with a wide political network and chapters around the country. Although it began as a grass-roots, chapter-based organization, their policy and Washington DC political work has grown more prominent than their local organizing in many communities. 

When I met with the president, she said she wanted their midterms campaign to begin a process of "re-charging the grass roots."

The campaign I designed started from the idea that we wanted to build GVP power by bringing together gun violence prevention advocates, using the opportunity of the midterms to do it.

By the end of the election cycle, we'd blown past our goals for identifying new potential leaders, exceeded our targets for member involvement in campaigns and won in 89% of the targeted districts. Members loved the campaign and built stronger relationships with other GVP activists in their communities. 

We engaged more members in the midterms than the organization ever had - and the third piece of legislation the new House of Representatives passed was a comprehensive background check bill.

If your campaigns or structure could use a dose of power-building, message me here and let's chat about how to do it.

Campaign Director, 2018 Midterms 

Cisneros for Congress

Gil Cisneros challenged the orthodoxy that a Democrat couldn't win in Orange County. In a primary with 17 opponents, we won 43% of the Democratic votes, winning a place in the general election, eventually leading to a Democratic victory for the first time in decades in that district.

I directed the field strategy that included a multi-lingual team of over 60 paid canvassers and phoners, six team leads and the director of the volunteer program. Also:
✅Wrote or rebooted comprehensive staff training
✅Oversaw installation and operation of on-site predictive dialer system
✅Provided nightly analysis of data and voter contact results
✅Coached first-time campaign staffer who went on to co-found the Orange County Lavender Democratic Club and run for city council

Field Director

Leadership for Educational Equity

Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) is a leadership development organization that helps members have impact for education justice in their communities. 

As an organizing strategy director at LEE, I worked one-on-one with leaders statewide to identify barriers to educational equity and develop campaigns to overcome them. I also identified and developed new leaders and contributed organizing expertise to regional staff teams.

I developed and led training on organizing strategy and techniques for 500+ teachers at regional and national workshops.

Director of Organizing Strategy

WestEd

WestEd is a nationally-known provider of education services to school districts and states. I joined the project management team for a consortium of 17 states with a multi-million dollar contract to develop standardized assessments following the Common Core State Standards.

I provided project management leadership for a consortium of states that developed the next generation of adaptive, online student assessments to measure progress toward college and career-readiness.  Major responsibilities included supporting the work of five technology contracts worth over $24 million and overseeing planning, logistics and communication for all in-person meetings. Other projects included overseeing the work of dispersed content experts, designers and other production personnel. I also managed logistics and document production on a project to design a framework for innovative science assessment.

Senior Project Coordinator

Sustainable power. Continuous momentum. A growing movement. That's what we all want to build right?

In the back of your mind, have you ever thought:

"How do we maintain the momentum and leadership of our last campaign without burning out the few leaders who do it all?"
"How do we create a truly member-driven culture?"
"We win most of the time, but I feel like we're still struggling to really WIN."
"We're just not making the systemic change we need, even when we win a campaign."
"I feel like we have to start all over again to engage members every time, even if we won the last time."

Few social justice and political leaders voice these concerns out loud. But we all have them right?

That's why I design campaigns and training, coach and develop white supremacy disruption programs that build power in addition to winning.

When organizations work with me to design campaigns or training, coach their staff or develop white supremacy disruption programs:
⭐They win greater victories.
⭐Members are more engaged.
⭐Staff, leaders and members build stronger skills.
⭐Organizations can live out their DEI values statements.
⭐Actions are more effective and powerful.

When these stars align, we create a movement for now and the future.

I work with organizers, organizing directors, social justice leaders, candidates and nonprofits that want to transform their communities and disrupt white supremacy culture.

I focus on bringing people together to build power, using the opportunity of a strategic campaign to do it. A strategic campaign, training or coaching program accomplishes two purposes:

✊🏻Wins victories for working people
✊🏻Builds power and relationships for the future

⭐“Mira’s organizing plan for our midterms campaign not only helped us win in 89% of our targeted districts, but more members engaged in campaigns than ever before. Her focus on building relationships, then moving together to action, not only meant victory on election night – but also more inspired, engaged and fired up activists for everything that comes after.“
– Kris Brown, President, Brady United Against Gun Violence

⭐"Mira led a great strategy. . . and wrangled together a team like no one I’ve ever seen. By election day, we’d exceeded our goal for contacts, built a team of over 100 volunteers and won decisively. Her field, messaging and relationship-building expertise made the difference in my campaign.”
– Huntington Beach City Councilmember Dan Kalmick

If you want to build power in addition to win, email me at mira@organizingtowin.net or message me here to schedule time to connect.

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The Battle

Lindsey Canant, MA, MBA

Mira Weinstein

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