Marketing & brand strategy Brooklyn, NY

Hi, I’m Annie

Fordham Gabelli, Marketing, Class of 2028 3.7 GPA Dean’s List 2024-2025 UFT Scholar

Marketing student at Fordham’s Gabelli School. I care about the gap between how a brand wants to be seen and how it actually gets used.

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UFT Scholar

Selected work 2025 to 2026

Four briefs, one habit.

Start on the floor, end in the spreadsheet. Every project below began with watching somebody decide.

01 Solès, redefining what luxury means Product innovation & go-to-market · L’Oréal Brandstorm 2026 02 Centella Cloud Tint, one less step Brand strategy & campaign development · SKIN1004 × Glossier 03 Quirk Haus, selling 10 brands at once Social strategy & B2B partnerships · Brooklyn, NY 04 Ablean, a city-scale problem unlocked Venture strategy & pricing · Co-founder, CSO

L'Oréal Brandstorm 2026, Craft the Future of Luxury Fragrance

Case 01 Product strategy Go-to-market Sustainability

Luxury doesn’t have to mean impractical.

L’Oréal Brandstorm 2026
Co-founder & strategy lead
January to March 2026

The problem

Sunscreen reapplication rates are low for a boring reason: carrying it is inconvenient. Portable skincare was growing 35% a year, and every dual-function product on shelf felt like a drugstore compromise.

My team split on what “luxury” meant. I pushed a different definition. Not luxury as status, but luxury as reliability. Something so well-designed it earns a permanent place in your bag.

The process

A dual-ended compact. Fragrance balm on one end, SPF 50 on the other.

Reframe the brief

Challenged the premise instead of the execution. Redefined luxury as the thing you actually keep using.

Map the white space

Four criteria for earning permanent bag space. Every product on shelf missed at least two.

Name it

Solès sounds like solace. Warmth, relief. The resonance mattered as much as the specs.

Build retention in

A $20–25 refillable glass cartridge, so sustainability and revenue were the same decision.

Solès compact flatlay — The compact, both ends open

Solès compact in use — In use, mid-day reapplication

Solès fragrance end detail — Fragrance end. The reason it stays in the bag.

The positioning

The white space nobody was holding.

$35 to $40 sits just under the luxury intimidation threshold. High enough to feel considered, low enough to repurchase.

L’Oréal Paris mass SPF

$10–20

SPF 50 yes
Luxury feel no
Refillable no
Portable yes

YSL Libre, Armani Sì

$80–150+

SPF 50 no
Luxury feel yes
Refillable no
Portable barely

Vacation Classic Spray

$22–36

SPF 50 yes
Luxury feel partly
Refillable no
Portable partly

Dual-end beauty sticks

$15–30

SPF 50 partly
Luxury feel no
Refillable no
Portable yes

The white space

Solès

$35–40, refillable

SPF 50 yes
Luxury feel yes
Refillable yes
Portable yes

The outcome

One compact replaces two products. 50% less packaging.

$35Retail price point

50K+Year 1 unit target

30%Projected refill repurchase rate

50%Less packaging per unit

Unit and repurchase figures are projections from the Brandstorm business model.

One less step. Same glow. Centella Cloud Tint campaign key visual

Case 02 Brand strategy Campaign development AI creative production

What if skincare and makeup were one step?

SKIN1004 × Glossier
Brand strategy, creative direction
Conceptual work. Not affiliated with either brand.

The problem

Gen Z buyers want the dewy, barely-there finish. What they don’t want is the ten-minute routine that gets them there. Four products deep, the glow starts to feel like a chore.

I invented a collaboration that could solve it on both sides: SKIN1004 brings Centella Asiatica and Korean skincare heritage, Glossier brings minimal, natural-looking makeup and Gen Z reach. One shared philosophy, two halves of the same promise.

The process

Insight to persona to product to launch.

Find the friction

Lightweight, dewy, multifunctional, effortless. Four words buyers kept using, one routine that delivered none of them.

Build the persona

Maya, 21. Wants a fresh complexion without heavy makeup, and a routine that gets shorter without getting worse.

Pair the brands

Skincare expertise × effortless makeup. The collaboration only works because neither brand has to compromise.

Launch in four phases

Tease, launch, experience, UGC. #OneLessStep carries all four.

Consumer insight board — Insight board. The four words buyers kept repeating.

Persona: Maya, 21

Why these two brands

Centella Cloud Tint product — The product. Serum feel, tint finish.

Four-phase launch plan — The four-phase launch

The outcome

Four steps collapse into one. Same glow.

5M+Projected impressions

1M+Projected video views

10K+Projected UGC posts

4→1Routine steps removed

These are my own projections for a campaign that never ran. Not reported results. Conceptual campaign, not affiliated with SKIN1004 or Glossier.

Quirk Haus storefront at 231 Grand Street, Brooklyn

Case 03 Social strategy B2B partnerships 231 Grand St

Ten brands. One feed.

Quirk Haus, Brooklyn NY
Sales & marketing manager
December 2025 to now

The problem

Quirk Haus incubates 10+ local brands under one roof. A feed that tries to serve everyone resonates with nobody.

So I stopped posting for the store and started posting for individual products. Then I traced who walked in asking for them. The most valuable conversion signal I had was a customer saying “I saw you had this.”

The process

A weekly loop: floor observation → content → POS → reallocate.

Observe

Floor time during peak hours. Which products customers physically picked up and asked about. First-hand first, analytics second.

Create

Product-forward Reels on the highest-velocity items, styled to each brand’s own identity rather than a flattened house look.

Measure

Cross-referenced Clover POS data against weekly vendor reports, counting in-store mentions as direct attribution.

Reallocate

Shifted content effort toward the highest-converting brands weekly. On B2B, commission ran to 50%, so I learned each brand’s margin structure before setting terms.

The Reels

The store-level cut. One post that has to carry all ten brands at once.

Product-forward, not store-forward. This is the cut that produced “I saw you had this.”

A seasonal bundle styled to each vendor’s own look, not a flattened house style.

The custom bracelet bar. One of the highest-velocity items on the floor.

Shot in the Quirk Haus cafe, posted from my own account rather than the store’s. Same room, different voice.

Aspirational content drives awareness. Product-specific content drives foot traffic. They are not the same job.

Ten brands under one roof taught me to build a cohesive editorial voice that still gave each brand room to breathe. Next: a UTM-linked QR system to tie posts to purchases without relying on customers volunteering it.

The Canva posts

Quirk Haus cake tasting invitation, a pastel Canva post with illustrated cake slices — Cake tasting. An in-store reason to walk in, not just scroll past.

International Cat Day post for Quirk Haus, 8 August, offering a free headband and sticker to the first 20 customers — A necklace launch dressed as an event, with a $45 spend threshold attached.

Fresh and Found Texture Lab workshop post, 9 August 2026, $35 per person at 231 Grand St — Workshop at $35 a head. Foot traffic that pays before anyone shops.

Florist Workshop post, PFlores and Quirk Haus, Sunday 7 June 2026, $60 per person — First PFlores collab, $60 a seat. The B2B side, where I set the terms.

Floral Workshop post, PFlores and Quirk Haus, Friday 26 June, $80 per person — The repeat booking three weeks later. Same partner, $80 a seat.

The outcome

A 30% sales increase, tracked in the POS rather than estimated.

30%Sales increase, POS-tracked

40%Brand visibility growth

10+Brand partners managed

50%Max commission negotiated

Sales figure from Clover POS attribution. Visibility growth estimated from social analytics.

Case 04 Venture strategy

A $3M
problem,
solved for $5.

Pricing ESG The Ground Floor, Gabelli

Stop building. Start unlocking.

Ablean
Co-founder & chief strategy officer
September to December 2025

The problem

NYC has 65 million annual visitors and a broken restroom infrastructure. A single traditional public restroom costs $3 to $5 million to build here.

Google Maps shows you where a restroom might be. It doesn’t guarantee it’s clean, open, or usable by a non-customer. My idea: stop building facilities and unlock the ones already sitting inside cafés and small businesses. The positioning came down to one word. Guaranteed.

The process

Find, pay, access, rate.

Find

A map of verified restrooms with cleanliness ratings, real hours and walking time, so the answer is never “maybe.”

Pay

$1, $3 or $5 via Apple Pay. Three tiers for three very different users. The hardest call in the model.

Access

A smart lock releases. No purchase required from the business, and the partner earns $0.10 per visit as passive income.

Rate

Ratings hold quality across the network. The moat isn’t the app, it’s the standard.

The pricing call

One product, three very different users.

Single use

The tourist. One-tap access, zero commitment, no account to think about.

What I’m certified & equipped to do.

Certifications

HubSpot Content Marketing Google Analytics Bloomberg Market Concepts Inside LVMH Envestnet AmplifyMe Finance Accelerator

Tools I work in

Adobe
Creative Suite

Canva

CapCut

Affinity
by Canva

Claude

Gemini

Meta Business
Suite & Ads

Logos are the property of their respective owners.

Experience

Mostly learned standing up.

Open a role to see what it actually involved.

DISRPTPublic relations intern Jun–Aug 2026

Worked with account teams on media relations and campaigns across entertainment, fashion and lifestyle. DISRPT is a subsidiary of The Door.

Found and vetted 30+ creators on TikTok and Instagram for influencer campaigns. Then wrote 10 media reports on how they actually performed.

Quirk HausSales & marketing manager Dec 2025–now

I promote 10+ local brands through B2B communications. Sales are up 30% and visibility 40%. I negotiate commission rates up to 50% of total sales.

Read case study 03

Slfluvs JewelryBrand representative Nov 2025–Jan 2026

Two Urbanspace holiday markets, Columbus Circle and Herald Square, talking to 150+ customers a shift through peak season.

Built the merchandising displays for 50+ pieces per market. Standing behind a table is the fastest way to learn which story actually sells.

Little Market NYCSales & marketing assistant Jul–Dec 2025

Ran sales and marketing support for 5 small female-owned brands. Customer engagement went up 20%.

Handled vendor logistics and inventory across 50+ items. That job is where I learned how much of the customer experience gets decided in the back room.

Marketing Association ClubAdvertising coordinator Sep 2025–now

I run the club’s social accounts and promote 5+ professional workshops through digital ads and outreach. Student attendance is up 25%.

About

I learn brands by watching people not buy them.

I spend a lot of time on retail floors. Most of what I know about brands, I learned watching somebody pick a thing up, turn it over, and put it back down.

What I’m into

Brand strategy and consumer insight. Mostly the gap between what a brand says about itself and what people actually think of it.

How I work

I start on the floor and end in the spreadsheet. Running the feed at Quirk Haus and working markets for Slfluvs taught me more about conversion than any deck could.

Currently

Marketing at Fordham’s Gabelli School, class of 2028. Sales & marketing manager at Quirk Haus, advertising coordinator for the Marketing Association Club, most recently a PR intern at DISRPT.

Looking for

Summer 2027 internships in brand strategy, consumer insights or growth marketing. I also speak Mandarin, shoot my own content, and will talk about packaging for longer than anyone asked.