Your product is good.
So is the competition.
You can have a genuinely good product and still struggle to say something different about it. Especially when everyone in your category seems to be making the same promises.
I look at what influences people's buying decisions, including the motivations that aren't immediately obvious, and use those insights to develop campaign ideas that give them a reason to choose your brand.
10+ years in marketing, B2B and B2C, global audiences. Consumer insights, creative strategy, campaign concepts, creative direction, and messaging angles.
The problems worth solving.
You already have a product people want. You know who you're selling to.
But figuring out how to make people choose you over the competition, and keep doing that as the market changes, is another challenge.
“We're producing more ads, but we're not seeing much improvement.”
Everyone's watching the same competitors, borrowing similar hooks, and going after the same audience with slightly different versions of the same ideas.
So the content keeps coming, but there's not much new for people to respond to. At some point, producing more isn't going to solve that.
“Our campaign ideas are either too safe or too risky to run.”
You want to try something different, but the more interesting ideas keep raising compliance concerns. The safer options might get approved, but they don't feel particularly exciting either.
Finding a direction that gets attention without risking ad rejections or account restrictions is a challenge of its own.
“The brief looked good. So why didn't the creative turn out that way?”
The final output doesn't quite match what you had in mind. Maybe the direction wasn't specific enough, or the brief left too much room for interpretation.
Either way, something got lost between the idea and the execution, and another round of revisions isn't necessarily going to fix the underlying problem.
Good products deserve better ideas.
You don't always need a new brand story. Sometimes, you need a more interesting way to tell it.
Before coming up with campaign ideas, I want to understand the brand, who's buying from it, and what's already been tried.
From there, it's about finding an angle worth exploring, turning it into creative that can actually be produced, and learning from what happens when it goes live.
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01Discover
Understand the brand
I start by getting familiar with the product and why people buy it. I also look at how the brand currently positions itself and what it's trying to achieve.
Research the market
What are competitors talking about? Are they all making the same promises? And are there customer motivations or buying situations that no one seems to be addressing?
Analyze what's working
I look at existing campaigns and any available performance data to see which messages are getting a response. Just as importantly, I want to understand what's already been tested before suggesting something new.
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02Develop
Explore creative directions
This is where the findings start turning into ideas. I explore different angles, question the obvious ones, and look for concepts that are worth putting in front of an audience.
Build the briefs
Once there's a direction worth pursuing, I turn it into a brief that creators and editors can work from. The idea is to give them enough context to understand what we're trying to communicate without prescribing every creative decision.
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03Deliver
Guide production
I review the creative as it comes together and give feedback when something isn't quite landing. Sometimes it's the execution that needs adjusting. Other times, we might need to revisit the brief itself.
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04Learn & Improve
Evaluate the results
Once the creative goes live, I look at what happened. Which elements got a response? Did anything perform differently than expected? The data won't always tell us why, but it can help us decide what to investigate next.
Refine and iterate
Some ideas are worth developing further. Others might need a different approach. I use what we've learned to inform the next round rather than treating every campaign as a fresh start.
Selected Work
Most of my work has involved more than what ends up in the final deliverable. There were decisions to make along the way, often with constraints that aren't obvious when you're looking at the finished piece.
Here's a closer look at some of those projects and the thinking behind them.
Explore My PortfolioA few things I'll stand by.
There's usually more to the audience than the obvious pain points.
It's easy to stop at the first few things customers say they want. I think the more interesting creative opportunities often come from looking a little deeper into what influences their decisions.
Sometimes a small detail is what changes the direction of a campaign.
An idea is still a hunch until you test it.
You can have a convincing argument for why a concept should work, but the audience might respond differently.
I'd rather use the results to figure out what to explore next than keep defending an idea just because it made sense on paper.
Not every trend is worth following.
Just because a piece of content went viral doesn't mean copying it will get you the same results.
I'd rather understand what made people respond to it in the first place. Then figure out how to apply those elements to your own product instead of making another version of someone else's creative.
In their words.
She's exactly the kind of person I dreamed of hiring. Her first draft needed almost no revisions. She instantly nailed the tone, the message, and the goal. That's why I appointed her as the team's copywriting trainer.
I've had the pleasure of working with Mariane for over seven years. She doesn't just write for the sake of writing. She crafts stories that inspire action and, more importantly, convert. Creative and results-driven, and a true asset to any team.
Her knack for crafting compelling content and copy that resonates with our audience has directly translated into increased customer engagement and sales conversions.
An absolute pleasure to have as part of the team, consistently positive, reliable, and successful in all areas of the business she has worked in.
Get to know me better.
I'm Mariane. I've spent 10+ years working in marketing, mostly as a freelancer, across industries that weren't always easy to understand at first.
One thing I've always enjoyed about copywriting is figuring out why people make the decisions they do. What makes someone interested in a product? Why would they choose one brand over another? And how much can the way we communicate influence that decision?
I think that's what naturally drew me toward creative strategy. I wanted to go beyond writing the message and spend more time understanding what makes it worth saying in the first place.
But enough about work.
I'm based in Manila, where I share a desk with my dog Taifuu. Her name means "typhoon" in Japanese because she was rescued during one.
I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson and watch a lot of movies. I'm particularly fascinated by stories that can hold my attention for hours, especially those enormous, doorstopper-sized fantasy novels that somehow make a thousand pages feel too short.
There's something incredible about a story that makes you forget how much time you've spent in it.
A few things worth knowing.
Do you use AI in your work?
Yes. Mostly to help me research faster and explore ideas I might not have considered otherwise.
But AI can also be confidently wrong, so I check important details rather than assuming the output is accurate. It's useful for exploring possibilities, but deciding what makes sense for the brand is still my responsibility.
How do you prefer to work?
I like knowing what's expected and having the space to get on with the work.
I'm comfortable working independently and prefer clear communication over constant check-ins. When feedback is needed, I appreciate it being specific enough to act on.
What about working hours and time zones?
I'm based in Manila and prefer flexible working hours.
My schedule naturally overlaps with Australian teams, and I can accommodate occasional calls with US-based teams when needed.
For the right conversation.
Have a question about my work or something you'd like to discuss? Feel free to leave me a message.