Hi!
I'm Sara Hebert.
For over a decade, I’ve worked with creative people to find audiences for their stories. From Academy Award-winning studios to tiny businesses, I’ve dug deep to find a special spark in every project so it can find an audience.
As a community-driven marketer, I believe every game, film, book, and creative work is most successful when it inspires people to be better humans.
I'm obsessed with my dog, vinyl records, coffee, and exploring my new hometown of Los Angeles.
Select Work Experience
Night School: A Netflix Game Studio
Publishing & Marketing Lead (2022 – current)
Community Director (2021 – 2022)
Crafts and delivers all go-to-market plans, including OXENFREE's launch on Netflix in over 30 languages, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals' global launch across consoles, PC, mobile, and physical merchandise. Created the largest post-launch lift in OXENFREE I sales in seven years, exceeding launch units by 20%.
Lead publishing partnership efforts, securing significant co-marketing, launch featuring, social/asset support, etc. Cultivate and deepen first-party partnerships. Serve on the strategic studio leadership team. Manage, mentor, and motivate teammates across disciplines. Led through an acquisition by Netflix, sunsetting our publisher, and rapid growth from 18 full-time employees to 52.
Oversee vendors and partners across communications, public relations, influencer relations, creative assets, branding, paid media, user acquisition, ASO, social, websites, and customer support. Advise and guide early concept projects, delivering insights across audience, genre, competitive titles, and marketplace trends, for our games and transmedia opportunities.
Flight School Studio
Marketing Director (Contract, 2017 – 2021)
Planned and executed launch strategies for self-published VR, PC, console games, and location-based entertainment: Emmy-nominated Manifest 99, Island Time VR, Creature in the Well, Stonefly, and the Department of Wonder. Defined new studio branding, game key marketing messaging and assets, secured placement, and co-marketing opportunities with first parties and key partners.
Managed PR vendors and teammates. Counseled studio leadership on market opportunities, communication strategies, and publishing partnerships. Created award and festival strategy as well as facilitating all submissions. Collaborated with studio clients on marketing beats and awareness of groundbreaking entertainment tech projects for Oculus VR For Good, Amex, St. Jude, and more.
I know, I know: it's not a joke! I have worked at both Night and Flight Schools!
Moonbot Studios
Marketing Director (2012 – 2016)
Developed strategy, executed marketing/PR/social media plans for products at an Academy Award-winning transmedia studio: apps, short films, video games, episodic pilots, books, and branded entertainment. Proven track record of success with extremely limited budget and resources: 1.3MM+ apps sold, 32 MM+ film views, +200% social reach.
Fostered relationships with distribution platforms (book publishers/retailers, app stores, video distribution channels). Established and implemented awards and festival strategy for projects, earning over 100 festival selections plus industry honors from the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, Webbys, Clios, Annie Awards, and more. Created deep relationships with kids influencers like mommy bloggers, librarians, and artists.
Refined products with the creative/production team through playtesting, market analysis, user experience. Produced and curated content marketing including “making of” documentary videos, infographics, eBooks, and interviews. Oversaw Moonbot merchandising, online store, and retailer relationships.
Education
Master of Arts
University of Denver
Digital Media Studies
Thesis: “Digital Memorialization: Collective Memory, Tragedy, and Participatory Spaces”
Bachelor of Arts
Centenary College of Louisiana
Studio Art & Communications: New Media
Magna Cum Laude
Beyond Games
I've done other stuff like run a radio station, comms for an energy power company, and made a buncha media.
Skills/Tools
Go-To-Market Strategy · Market Research · Social Strategy & Listening · Community Management · Content Strategy Brand Management · Game Publishing · Release Management · Paid Social · Public & Media Relations · Paid & Organic Influencer Marketing · Podcast Production · Video Editing · Graphic Design · Crisis Comms · Internal Comms · Email Marketing · HTML/CSS/JS · WordPress
Select Shipped Titles
A few of my favorite shipped projects across games, books, films, and transmedia projects.
Side Quests
Currently Learning
- Hindenburg for audio editing.
- Unity basics + Night School’s proprietary narrative system, Night Tools.
- A ton about publishing games in the early 90s.
Teaching & Mentorship
As a lifelong learner, sharing my craft with others is immensely rewarding.
I’ve taught at my alma mater, Centenary College (ART/COMM 351 Web Design, ART/COMM 316 Content Strategy for the Web), Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (CE 162: Web Design: Usability & Accessibility), and the Renzi Center for Education & Art (Film Camp, Remix Camp, former board president). Teaching has given me more learnings than I could ever share with my students – college-aged or bright-eyed youths. While pursuing my M.A. at the University of Denver, I mentored college students to produce design projects for local non-profits.
Creative Community
I’m at my best working hand-in-hand with other creative entrepreneurs in my local community.
I’ve built the marketing machine for two indie game studios and majorly leveled up my current studio. I love being scrappy, inventive, and hands-on. For my entire professional career, I’ve freelanced in graphic/web design, product design, brand identity, film editing, and podcast production. It’s kept my creative skillset sharp and enabled me to build deep relationships with entrepreneurs and creators from many creative professions. I’ve built brands for restaurants, launched record stores, and created online communities for tiny small towns. Every project teaches me something new to bring to my work in games.
Building From The Ground Up
I thrive on creating opportunities and building new things.
Inspired by my time in college radio and volunteering for my local public radio station, I learned to make audio stories. In 2014, I co-founded the All Y'all Podcast and live event series, featuring true stories from our community in Shreveport. My audio work was featured by StoryCorps and Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Now based in Los Angeles, I’m in production on a new podcast about a little-known games/software publisher, Softdisk. I love books as well as the art and making-of games. I designed and edited art books for the game projects I’ve worked on (Creature in the Well, Stonefly, Taking Flight).
Endorsements
“Sara's creative expertise crosses so many disciplines. She sees the commonality between mediums and has the vocabulary and smarts to bring insight to them all. Her work is always articulate and insightful, and her arguments are well-researched. It's such a joy to collaborate with her on small or large projects.”
– Adam Volker, Art Director, Soft Rains
“I greatly appreciate Sara's dedication to the studio vision, her real and clear passion for making the team strong and our games incredible and her willingness to take on things when there's a need.”
– Bryant Cannon, Game Director & Lead Developer, Night School
“Sara is a generational talent that anyone would be fortunate to collaborate with. She effortlessly balances proactive and independent leadership with collaboration; running point on developing strategies and plans while working together on feedback and delivery. Sara operates at the highest level of strategy while also working on the hands on execution. If there is ever an ambiguous challenge at hand, Sara will dive in full heartedly.”
– Jen Cadic, Managing Director, Psyop
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