Melissa Bonazzi Avery.

One Show
Gold 2X, Silver, Bronze 7X, Merit 10X, Shortlist 12X
ADC
Gold, Silver, Bronze 5X, Merit 4X, Shortlist 15X
Cannes
Gold, Silver, Bronze, Shortlist 6x
Clios
Gold 5X, Silver 3X, Bronze 4X, Shortlist 2X
ANDYs
Gold 2X
D&AD
Yellow, Wood 3X, Shortlist 3X
AICP Next
Winner 2X, Shortlist 7X

Webbys
Winner 3X, People's Voice Winner 2X, Honoree 4X
The FWA
FWA of The Day 3X
New York Festival
Finalist, Shortlist
Campaign Experience Awards
Gold, Bronze, Shortlist
Campaign Tech Awards
Winner 2x
Digiday
Winner 3x
Shorty Awards 2x Winner, 3x Finalist
See full list of awards here.

Resumé.

2017–Present
Verizon, Group Creative Director & Head of Social Creative

Lead all Social Channels and Social Narrative, played primary role in building creative department for Agency 140, Verizon’s first internal agency. Spearheaded staffing, created ways of working, building a new structure and partnership for In House to promote efficient and collaborative workflow. 

Currently oversee 20+ creatives in creation of social first activation ideas, content stories and always-on editorial for all channels. Collaborate with Verizon’s InHouse agency, external agencies as well as Verizon’s activation, sponsorship and brand teams to oversee the narrative, creative, engagement, positive sentiment and integration of work that appears on social channels.

Built Social Team: Spent the past 2 years building out our first ever social editorial team including staffing and scope. Managing the team to success creating leading edge programs and brand moments across sports, gaming, entertainment and music. Winning agency’s first awards.

Brand Voice Lead: Personally partnered with the CMO to create the brand voice for all of Verizon, used to create brand consistency by agency partners, retail stores, and customer comms.

First of it’s kind activation: Led teams to create first ever art meets tech activation, partnering with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to create a mobile first experience titled, The Met Unframed which won 2 Cannes Lions, Gold ANDY, Gold and Silver Pencil, 2 Bronze Pencils, a Bronze Clio and more.

Super Bowl Lead: Led Super Bowl Team for social content 2 years in a row. Managed team of 15+ for on the ground content capture, as well as creating a social narrative for one of sports biggest moments, helping to win of share of conversation on Super Bowl Sunday.

2013–2017
Combe Creative, Creative Director
Client side, In-House Creative Dept.  Oversaw Just For Men and Mens Grooming (most notably Bryclreem + Aqua Velva among others). Created the first ever big branding effort and digital and social content for Just For Men, Aqua Velva, Brylcreem and Vagisil. 

Oversaw top-to-bottom efforts. From strategy to packaging to brand campaigns: including all touch points. TV, digital, social, in store, radio, print. 

Created breakthrough illustrative straight-talking Vagisil campaign, which had huge global success. Wrote strategies and insights for all brands. 

2006–2013
Y&R NY, Associate Creative Director
Delivered highly successful integrated marking campaigns Colgate Palmolive US and Global Business. (Colgate Total, Colgate Optic White, Softsoap, Irish Spring, Hills, Colgate Wisp, Colgate Max, Palmolive, Global Toothbrushes) Responsible for leading successful US & Global campaign projects and workshops, managing creative and integrated marketing teams and presenting to high profile clients in extremely short timelines.

Oversaw multiple teams and provide insightful and constructive creative direction and feedback on assignments. Experienced at creating advertising across all touch points, including TV, print, radio, in-store, digital, social and guerilla - with a penchant for writing tag lines that speak to consumers.

Created fresh and ownable tone of voice for brands: Irish Spring, SoftSoap, Colgate Optic White, Colgate Total, Palmolive Baby. Highly strategic thinker.  Partner with client and agency strategy to provide valuable brainstorming and creative insight on briefs to create brand platform ideas, develop claims, consumer insights and RTB’s. Skilled at writing strategy and advertising concepts (adcepts) for consumer testing, and well versed at creating test-proofing animatics.

2005-2006
A little Freelance + a 6 month trip around the world: Brazil. Peru. Argentina. Chile. New Zealand. Australia. Great Britain.

1995–2004
McCann-Erickson, Senior Copywriter
Gained immediate shooting experience as a junior, selling campaigns for Motorola, AT&T, Pearle Vision and Stayfree within months of my career. Created the award winning creative campaign for Rubbermaid’s launch of the Goody Ouchless Collection (Tag line: It never hurts to be stylish.)

Worked on everything from beer to maxi pads. And yes all at the same time. Launched the first and only maxi pad commercial ever with no woman in it.  (Just a pimply preteen boy).

Solely managed and created advertising for Ferror Rocher account, which included Rocher Chocolates and Tic Tac. Tripled production of highly successful Rocher print campaign, which lead to producing first TV in 5 years.

Relentlessly wrote, created and produced advertising for various other big brands: Vaseline Intensive Care, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Black & Decker, Levelor, AT&T, Motorola, Pearle Vision, Yasmin Birth Control, Dentyne, FDNY and many more.

1991-1995
West Virginia University
BS Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, with a concentration in Advertising. Minored in French and Business

1995-1997
School of Visual Arts, NYC