FDI Communications Manager – Finalist Exercise
POST OPTION A - Canva + Given assets
POST OPTION B - AI-Assisted
CAPTION
Do you know what your kid wants to be when they grow up?
Maybe they already have an answer. Maybe it changes every week. Maybe they have absolutely no idea.
That's okay.
They don't have to have their future figured out yet. But the skills they build now — confidence, communication, critical thinking, collaboration and the courage to speak up — can help them wherever that future takes them.
This summer, give them a place to discover what they're capable of.
FDI Summer Camp
REGISTER NOW at floridadebate.org
REEL
CAPTION
What do YOU want to be when you grow up?
You don't have to know yet.
Your future might take you into a courtroom, a classroom, a newsroom — or even the Oval Office.
Wherever you go, you'll need the confidence to communicate your ideas, think critically, work with others, and make your voice heard.
You don't have to figure out your future this summer.
Start by finding your voice.
FDI Summer Camp
Learn more at floridadebate.org
Communications Manager Work Samples
As Social Media Manager & Content Strategist for Big Guy Big World, I led a comprehensive digital media initiative focused on content creation, community engagement, and audience growth. My work spanned social media, email communications, video production, blog and SEO writing, website management, and digital advertising, helping build a connected digital ecosystem for a global travel community.
Long-Form / Press Release
This press release was created as a portfolio writing sample based on my two years working with Big Guy Big World. With the original BGBW blog currently offline during the project's hiatus, I created this piece to demonstrate my long-form writing using a project I know firsthand. It introduces BGBW and highlights its final chapter-from documenting international group experiences with more than 100 travelers in Europe and the Bahamas to Mark Jacoby's solo travels around the world. The piece demonstrates how I would translate a larger story into a structured press release while maintaining the voice, mission, and community behind BGBW.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Big Guy Big World Turns a Tradition of Company Travel Into a Global Community
From company trips to international adventures with more than 100 travelers, Big Guy Big World transformed an online following into a traveling community.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Sept. 16, 2026 — Big Guy Big World (BGBW) began with a simple tradition: Mark Jacoby taking the people who worked with him on company trips to experience new places together.
As those trips continued, Jacoby began documenting his travels and sharing the experiences online. What started as company travel gradually became something larger. Through videos, photography and social media, new people began discovering BGBW and following the adventures from around the world.
With the content came a growing online community—and eventually, an opportunity to bring members of that community along for the journey.
Through contests and giveaways, BGBW followers had the chance to win fully paid trips and experience the destinations they had previously followed online. The distinction between audience and traveler began to disappear. People who had discovered BGBW through a screen could become part of the next adventure.
Taking the Community to Europe
Over the last two years, that idea reached its largest scale.
More than 100 people traveled with Big Guy Big World on a three-week journey through Europe. Coordinating a group of that size across multiple destinations required extensive planning, travel accommodations and ongoing communication, while the experience itself generated a continuous stream of stories, photography and video to share with the broader BGBW community.
For three weeks, the community that had developed online was traveling together in the real world-exploring destinations, sharing meals and creating the experiences that would become the next chapter of BGBW content.
The journey also gave those following from home a way to participate. Social media, video and digital communications documented the trip as it happened, extending the experience beyond the travelers themselves.
From Europe to the Bahamas
BGBW later brought more than 100 travelers together again, this time aboard a cruise through the Bahamas.
The cruise continued the model that had evolved throughout the project: travel as a shared experience, supported by a digital community that could follow the journey before, during and after the trip.
What had begun years earlier as company trips had evolved into something much larger-a travel community capable of bringing more than 100 people together for international experiences while sharing those adventures with an audience around the world.
Destination Unknown
At the center of Big Guy Big World, however, remains the curiosity that started it all.
Mark Jacoby continues to travel independently around the world, meeting people, exploring local food and culture, and documenting what happens when the destination is only the beginning of the story.
That idea is captured in BGBW: Destination Unknown, a YouTube travel series that follows Jacoby's solo adventures and the people, places and unexpected experiences he encounters along the way.
From taking employees on company trips, to building an online audience, to giving members of that community the opportunity to travel alongside BGBW, the project has continued to evolve while maintaining the same fundamental idea:
Travel somewhere new. Meet people. Share the experience.
BGBW: Destination Unknown and other Big Guy Big World travel stories can be viewed on the official Big Guy Big World YouTube channel.
About Big Guy Big World
Big Guy Big World is a travel and digital media project created by Mark Jacoby that explores destinations through food, culture, entertainment and human connection. Through video, photography, social media and community experiences, BGBW has documented travels around the world while bringing together a community built around discovering new places and sharing the journey.
Watch BGBW: Destination Unknown
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Email / Newsletter
I created and managed this Big Guy Big World newsletter from concept through distribution, including copywriting, graphic design, content organization, calls to action, links, and the final Mailchimp build and campaign delivery. The newsletter was designed to reconnect multiple parts of the BGBW digital ecosystem: promoting our Bahamas recap and affiliate partnerships, celebrating the community reaching 100,000 TikTok followers, introducing the upcoming BGBW: Destination Unknown YouTube series, and directing readers toward our Facebook subscription community. The goal was to keep BGBW's informal "Big Fam" voice while turning multiple updates into a clear, engaging email with opportunities for continued interaction across platforms.
Social Media / Video
During BGBW's three-week European trip, I produced a series of short-form social videos documenting the journey across destinations including Dublin, London, Bath, Stonehenge, Amsterdam, Paris, and Barcelona. My role covered the full content workflow: capturing footage and photography on location, developing concepts for individual pieces, editing and designing the final content, writing social copy, publishing across BGBW channels, and managing the community response. The series allowed us to turn one large travel experience into an ongoing stream of destination-focused stories that kept the broader BGBW community connected to the trip as it unfolded.
These samples represent three parts of the same communications ecosystem: long-form storytelling, direct email communication, and social video. My work with Big Guy Big World taught me how to adapt one larger story across different platforms while maintaining a consistent voice and, most importantly, keeping the community at the center of the communication.
Leo Bonet