writer, content designer,
storyteller,
escape artist
Hi, I’m Mark Sissons
As a professional digital UX and marketing writer, my job is to inform, enlighten, persuade, convert and support customers and their communities.
I have worked in many sectors – from telecommunications and real estate to tourism, e-commerce, healthcare and philanthropy.
As a professional travel journalist, my job is to take readers on an amazing journey with me to the ends of the earth.
Today’s passion projects portfolio review
TELUS Social Purpose — bridging digital divides
Tapestry Seniors Living —reimagining life stages
Travel journalism — wildlife conservation & humanitarian aid
Connecting Canadians with TELUS Digital
As the UX and marketing writer for TELUS Digital's Brand Experience Team, I help communicate how we leverage our innovative world-leading technology to help address some of society’s most pressing social issues.
The challenge
Operationalize the TELUS brand promise across more digital customer touchpoints by communicating how we leverage our innovative world-leading technology to help address some of society’s most pressing social issues.
Provide customers with values-based differentiation of TELUS apart from its competitors, increasing brand loyalty and incentivizing customers to advocate on our behalf.
Measurably influencing sales and conversions by raising brand awareness among TELUS customers, team members and the communities where they live and work while
The work
TELUS Social Impact
The many ways that we are using our world-leading technology to drive meaningful change.
TELUS Friendly Future Foundation
Our charitable organization helps build brighter futures for at-risk youth through the power of technology.
TELUS Wise
Educational programs and campaigns that empower Canadians to stay safe in a digital world.
My role
Collaborate cross-functionally with product owners, content strategists, UX and visual designers, analytics experts, product owners and stakeholders to craft on-brand copy that effectively and concisely communicates that empathy is at the heart of everything we do at TELUS.
Participate in design sprints, test ideas, and ensure language quality and cohesion across products and experiences.
Understand and evangelize our brand voice and tone, ensuring that all written content is on-brand and consistent with TELUS standards, tone & voice as a key contributor to the TELUS Brand Resources website.
Use multiple sources of customer data to inform content strategy as well as day-to-day optimizations.
Remarkable outcomes
Our efforts have highly engaged incremental traffic, positively impacted sales AND elevated our brand promise to customers, existing and future team members, and investors.
We are proving our leadership’s hypothesis that doing good is good business by:
Making it unmissable to do business with TELUS without understanding the good we do
Driving measurable impacts on sales, employment, donations and brand affinity
Embracing a new age with Tapestry Senior Living
In 2020, I was engaged by The Idea Partner, a multidisciplinary design studio based in Vancouver, BC to create a series of ads, a website and a print brochure for Concert Properties’ newest project, Tapestry Victoria Harbour.
The Brief
Create an engaging campaign for Tapestry Victoria Harbour
Create awareness and momentum to generate interest and achieve the full sales and lease objectives of Tapestry Victoria Harbour
Continue to elevate and evolve the award-winning Tapestry brand while incorporating Tapestry’s brand pillars - the 7 dimensions of wellness - emotional, intellectual, physical, occupational, social, spiritual & environmental.
The Work
Embrace a new age
where luxury living meets inspired active aging
Tapestry Victoria Harbour
This concept revolves around the idea of embracing a new age and living life as fully as possible. And what better way to do it than to choose Tapestry Victoria Harbour, a community that represents an extraordinary opportunity to actively age in an engaging, positive environment that fosters the best version of themselves just steps to the Inner Harbour and the very best Victoria has to offer.
TAPESTRY AMBASSADORS ADS
Following the successful launch of Tapestry Victoria, I was contracted to research and write a series of promotional videos starring real Tapestry residents. I extensively interviewed a dozen candidates, learning about their lives, loves, passions and fascinating life journeys that led them to choose Tapestry.
I’ve visited seven continents and dozens of countries on assignment as a travel writer and photographer. My stories have appeared in Robb Report, National Geographic, the Globe and Mail, the San Francisco Chronicle, Men’s Journal, the Dallas Morning News, EXPLORE, Elle Canada, Zoomer, Postmedia Network, NUVO, Montecristo, Ski Canada, Canadian Traveller and more.
Stories worth telling…Hwange National Park and Water for Elephants
In 2015 I first visited ZImbabwe’s Hwange National Park on assignment to write a conservation-focused travel feature for the San Francisco Chronicle. Famous for its enormous herd of elephants, Hwange largely depends on pumped water to keep them alive during the harsh dry season.
I returned to Hwange several times to:
write more about the park lead a donor safari, raise awareness and funding to help save Hwange’s elephants, and write and produce videos to promote Imvelo Safari’s Water for Wildlife Donor Safari and elementary school child feeding programs.
Stories worth telling…Bringing the miracle of sight to Madagascar
Every year, half a million of the world's children go blind, according to the World Health Organization; 75 percent of them live in developing countries such as Madagascar, an island nation off the coast of eastern Africa best known as the setting of a popular animated film. In 2015, I accompanied a team of ophthalmologists and donors from Seva Canada on a mission to cure preventable pediatric blindness.
Later on that same trip, I wrote a travel feature for the Globe and Mail on Madagascar’s endangered wildlife.
For more about me, including more travel stories, photography and selected professional writing samples, visit my website.