You can love an ad and still not buy the product
…ask anyone who’s ever laughed at a commercial and kept scrolling. I’m Nicole👋 I write words and lead teams to bridge the gap between creative intuition and growth performance. Where brand story meets real metrics. I help places embrace emerging tech without losing their human spark, crafting stories that capture attention, move at scale, and drive real impact.
Currently: Assoc Creative Director, Copy @Quicken. Previously: Instacart, Headspace, & Disney
Work that worked
Quicken
Associate Creative Director
Taking a legacy finance brand and making modern, human-feeling creative meant moving beyond features into clear, actionable direction. By learning about customer needs and stress-testing distinct brand expressions, the strategic framework collapsed product complexity into high-performing, full-funnel creative. The result was a creative framework that unlocked a 24% preference lift among new and switcher audiences — nearly 4x the standard prospect rate — with a clear, ownable position that directly answers the category's primary unmet need: guiding users on what to do with their money next.
Instacart
Copy Lead, CRM & Growth
I built data-driven CRM strategies that scaled brands and accelerated business growth. At Instacart, I specialized in high-impact lifecycle marketing, revamping our email framework to boost CTR by 102%, lifting same-day order rates by 6%, and engineering a refined CRM roadmap that drove a 62% YoY increase in iGTV.
Balancing macro strategy with massive creative output, I oversaw the execution of 168+ projects and 1,600+ static assets per half while spearheading tentpole initiatives like our Pet Month campaign, which grew category sales by 25% YoY. Equal parts creative storyteller and operational innovator, I helped launch Instacart’s enterprise business platform and pioneered our internal AI integration and prompt engineering initiatives using ChatGPT and Gemini.
Headspace
Creative lead
In a highly competitive creative arena, over 15 teams were tasked with pitching a breakthrough conceptual direction for Headspace. The mandate was to cut through the noise of the crowded mental wellness market and deliver a narrative that felt both deeply personal and universally accessible.
Recognition
Instacart Ad Age’s 2025 In-House Agency of the Year
JMS Best Integrated Campaign, Graphis Advertising Annual, 2012
JMS Gold Award, W3 Awards, 2012
Other things I’ve made
BetterUp Rebrand
Therapy Notebooks
Dolby
Want to make something that grows? For creative leadership, a copy lead, or why the Oxford comma just makes sense, say hi at cassese1@gmail.com.
The Oxford comma, in fact, makes a lot of sense.
