Instant Savings

Overview

As Associate Creative Director for Sam’s Club, one of my responsibilities was to oversee creative direction and design for ad placements in the monthly Instant Savings mailers. My role centered on guiding a team in developing print ads that showcased a wide variety of national brands, while ensuring every piece remained cohesive with Sam’s Club’s overarching identity.
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The Challenge

Each mailer featured products from multiple national brands, all with their own established guidelines, visual language, and marketing expectations. The challenge was to create ads that honored those brand requirements while maintaining Sam’s Club’s own look and feel—so the finished piece felt like a polished, unified brand communication rather than a cluttered mailer filled with disconnected sponsorships.
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The Approach

I directed the design process to balance brand consistency with flexibility. This included defining layout systems, refining typographic hierarchies, and ensuring color usage aligned with Sam’s Club’s visual standards. I worked closely with my team, project managers, and vendor partners to streamline production while keeping quality high across dozens of ads per issue. By building clear creative frameworks, we could adapt to the unique needs of national brands without losing sight of Sam’s Club’s cohesive identity.
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The Solution

The resulting mailers presented a clean, fluid design system where third-party brand ads felt seamlessly integrated rather than intrusive. Each ad highlighted products effectively, but always within the context of Sam’s Club’s trusted, member-focused voice.

The Outcome

These mailers reinforced Sam’s Club’s ability to spotlight partner brands without compromising its own visual integrity. The work demonstrated my ability to oversee large-scale, multi-brand creative production while safeguarding a parent brand’s cohesion and credibility.