Partnerships / Experiential marketing

3DR

Building creative partnerships and bringing them into the field.

Project Manager / Marketing, partnerships & events

February 2014–May 2016

A green Heineken × Montana truck with a half-painted portrait mural on its side, two people working beside it, and a drone resting on the pavement in front. — Miami Art Week / Heineken × Montana Cans Mobile Art Experience

The context

At 3DR, I built relationships with people finding new uses for drones and helped bring those partnerships into content, live events, and brand experiences. My work ranged from managing the Aviators program to coordinating a mobile art activation in Miami and leading the build for an ambitious NAB booth.

A partnership in motion

It started with research. I researched Greg Mike and the OuterSpace Project and reached out to propose a collaboration with 3DR drones. That conversation brought us into a moving art-truck project with Heineken, Montana Cans, and ABV during Miami Art Week in December 2015.

I initiated the outreach, negotiated terms, coordinated the partnership and equipment shipping, and supported the activation on-site. I also took behind-the-scenes photos. Our production crew made the daily recaps, artist interviews, and drone footage.

At night, an artist on a work platform spray-painting a colorful mural of stylized faces on the side of a truck. — Heineken × Montana Cans Mobile Art Experience / Miami Art Week, December 2015

At night, the Heineken × Montana Cans art truck parked under lights, with an artist painting its side and a camera crew filming in the foreground.

At night, a crowd beside a Heineken flag photographing an artist as he paints a bright mural on the side of a truck.

Miami Art Week / Heineken × Montana Cans / December 2015

Kate working on-site beside the Heineken × Montana Cans truck. — Photo: Jon Mayo Buttry

Film

ABV’s activation documentary

ABV’s documentary of the project, with drone footage and video credited to 3DR.

Watch film

Relationships beyond one event

Aviators brought together scientists, researchers, photographers, videographers, adventurers, and people in TV and entertainment, all exploring creative uses of drone technology.

I designed the program from the ground up and managed recruitment, outreach, agreements, training, equipment coordination, and ongoing relationships. Each partnership was shaped around the person and their field.

Seen from behind at sunset, a person wearing a 3DR backpack holds a drone and looks out from a hillside trail over a hazy city and hills. — Aviators / program imagery. The résumé’s 40+ partnerships spans my overall 3DR work, not this program alone.

At sunset on a hillside trail above the city, Kate checks a shot on her camera beside a person wearing a 3DR backpack. — Behind the scenes: me getting product shots for 3DR.

Aviator Marisa Jarae and another pilot stand in a snowy park, with a drone flying overhead. — Aviator Marisa Jarae, a Denver-based photographer and writer, flying in the snow.

Kate and Aviator Hannah Reyes Morales stand arm in arm in a park, with a drone flying overhead. — Me with Aviator Hannah Reyes Morales, a photojournalist and National Geographic Explorer who later became a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

An ambitious build at NAB

At NAB, the centerpiece of 3DR’s booth was a 360° screen I helped design and led the build for. The activation earned the company Best Booth.

Collage on a lime-green border: two photos of a large 3DR trade-show booth with green framing, SOLO signage and a netted drone flight area on pink carpet, and a smiling person in a drone T-shirt and 3DR lanyard holding a clear award plaque. — 3DR’s NAB booth / custom screen installation and on-site production

The NAB build

DESIGN
TEST
INSTALL

This screen was a whole thing.

For 3DR’s NAB booth, we built a seamless 360° screen suspended above the space to play Solo drone footage. Bruno Hulsmann and I worked out the frame design; he handled the engineering and CAD.

I led a full test build in Austin, translated it into instructions for the union tradeshow crew, and spent the week before NAB on-site bringing it together. Danny Kent also contributed to the build.

Watch the build

Filmed by Kate Blaising · Edited by Bruno Hulsmann

Bruno Hulsmann

Frame design together; engineering and CAD by Bruno.

Danny Kent

Build collaboration and booth support.

What came together

The work connected partnership development with live execution, from an ambassador program to a moving art activation and an award-winning trade-show booth.

Collaborators & credits

Miami: Heineken, Montana Cans, ABV, and the 3DR production crew. NAB engineering and CAD: Bruno Hulsmann. Additional build collaboration: Danny Kent. Photo of Kate on-site in Miami: Jon Mayo Buttry.