California Tourism dreams big for their 2022 brand campaign, kicking off Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles. GE Healthcare sheds light on new technologies that find the smallest clues to guide lifesaving cures. Americares encourages us to lift up others caught between natural disasters and a global pandemic. Whether an idea inspires a good time or doing something good in the world, a well told story can perform wonders.
I’ve had the privilege of working with phenomenal partners, planners, account directors, chief creative officers, photographers, directors, editors, composers, audio engineers, programmers and some of the absolute best and smartest clients in just about every business vertical. From local startups to global conglomerates. From day one to day to day 11,951. The most rewarding part of this creative profession is working with really talented folks on tight-knit teams, everyone banding together for the common good of an idea.
Clients featured: Gatorade - Porsche - Lowe’s - FritoLay - Samsung - Walt Disney World - Sentry Insurance - American Family Insurance - SealedAir - Ballpark Franks - John Deere - Worx Tools
Within days of this bleeping launch, Worx products sold out of every Lowe's in North America.
What do you get when you follow your gut and take a few risks instead of surrendering to upper-right-box test scores? The most talked about Gatorade commercial of all time, sparking debate from the studios of ESPN to every sports bar in America. The largest global account win in the history of J. Walter Thompson (dating back to 1864). A legislative anthem that influenced state politicians in support of the affordable healthcare act. The emergence of a Southern California dirt bike racer who went on to win seven NASCAR championships and earn the respect of skeptical race fans from Talladega to Watkins Glen. A Tastemakers campaign that brought a century’s old condiment into the modern sandwich era. And the first immersive brand experience to align digital, traditional, PR, and social media influencers — a low-budget CPG experiment that altered the perception of a cheese dip and blazed a trail that proved how a radical idea can travel at light speed across the marketing multiverse; setting the stage for characters like Chester Cheeto and the Burger King. Along the way, we also challenged a nation’s addiction to a celebrity culture that’s proving to be as bad for us as saccharine. And finally, creating a promotional campaign for Long John Silvers so enticing it apparently threatened an entire species of Alaskan flounder. Oops.
Clients featured: Gatorade - Dell - The Affordable Care Act - Lowe’s NASCAR Team 48 - Kraft Mayo - Cheez Whiz - Izze Sodas - Long John Silver’s Seafood Shoppe
Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. At the end of the day it’s all about how many eyeballs take a mental picture of your message; and did the logo stick in minds for more than a split second? Sure, we now call commercials content. Banners and page takeovers are the digital equivalent of small-space newspaper and print spread ads. Websites are product brochures on steroids, with the added dimension of embedding video and selling directly. Sponsorships still rule the roost, only now they’ve extended into e-sports. Still, the most effective ideas fall into the camp of paid media, with ad content often disguised as real-provocative stories. If Shakespeare were around today, his question would be, To click or not to click. But the trick remains: How to link a disruptive idea to an insightful strategic hook? In a 5G world with attention spans shrinking and capacity to absorb a message limited by Roku sticks, scrolling addictions, and finite waking hours in a day, the task falls to the engaging storytelling skills of the influencers and Ideasmiths. No matter how big the production budget or how small the screen, bold, inventive, rule-breaking writers, art directors and content makers will still be the ones out there, dangling off the creative edge, solving the complex challenges, putting everything they’ve got into every idea presented. Even in the emerging metaverse, brilliant creative will continue to play the role of marketing marriage counselor, finding ways to strengthen relationships between people and the brands they love — through streaming services and click bait, in good social feeds and bad, till death do us part. TikTok tick tock.
Clients featured: Rice-A-Roni - ADM - Dubble Bubble - Phillips Norelco - Cheez Whiz Road Show - Illinois Tourism - Cartridge World - Maxwell House International - Discover Card - ConAgra (Every ConAgra brand, from Orville Redenbacher popcorn to Banquet pot pies, digitally integrated into a promotional gaming experience)
Over 17 million plays and tens of thousands of coupons redeemed in less than three months.
The Opportunity: In 2008 YouTube was quickly becoming a media force. Tens of thousands of new videos were coming online each day, attracting millions of new viewers in search of authentic, user-generated content (a precursor to the video content now exploding on platforms like instagram).
The Insight: Gatorade was launching a new campaign to highlight the vital role its unique formula plays in providing superior hydration and improving performance for everyone — and not just elite athletes.
The Solution: We created a series of short form videos crafted and produced to play as relevant, authentic content for the YouTube audience. Each video was purposefully designed to be “non-commercial” with the goal of creating a viral wave that would generate as much online buzz as possible in advance of the superior hydration campaign set to launch in the months ahead.
The ROI (Return on Idea): Before the campaign was scheduled to launch, the client canceled the effort and pulled all media spending (the original plan had paid influencers booked to spread the videos through their popular independent blogs). One of the three videos - BALL GIRL - was leaked onto YouTube by a Junior Client to share with his friends and show the cool spot he had made. Within 48 hours of his posting, and with ZERO media dollars and no PR or other support, BALL GIRL went from a few dozen views to over 1 million views (in today’s socially saturated, globally connected landscape, that number would easily translate to over 100 million views).
Within days of its “accidental launch” BALL GIRL was being talked about across America — the clip of the Ball Girl making a sensational catch being played on broadcasts from Good Morning America to ESPN to the NBC Nightly News. Earning hundreds of millions of impressions for the brand idea with not a penny spent on marketing outside of production. Keith Olbermann. Howard Stern. Donny Deutsch. Even Ted Koppel. Everyone wanted to know: Did she make the catch? When an amazed Ellen DeGeneres unwittingly invited this Willy Mays-like young lady to be on her show, the idea's pop culture status was official. Beyond creating massive buzz for Gatorade, the national spotlight also earned Ball Girl a position in left field at Yankee Stadium, tracking down fly balls during the MLB All Star Home Run Derby.
To this day, people from across the globe are still sharing this YouTube classic as it is now even finding a new life on platforms like Instagram Reels. With over 200 million views and counting, the debate still rages in the comments. Is this Ball Girl for real? As Gatorade continues to get the credit, only Google knows for sure.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1331007184409782?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=0NULKw
Find Something More — featuring an interactive travel planning website and integrated social media campaign — was recognized as North America's best tourism campaign of the year. The emotionally evocative idea helped set new records for visitor dollars brought into the state, a 45% increase over the previous year. Over four years after the series launch, these film stories still carry the the bulk of the state’s tourism message. Timeless, deeply insightful content made by venturing off the rutted strategic trails followed by other destination brands. Inspired by the Marcel Proust line — the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new places but in seeing with new eyes. These stories of human desire that played out across the Land of Lincoln went beyond just another weekend getaways. They explored uncharted territories in our imaginations, where lasting memories are created by reconnecting with the people who mean the world to us.
The Guardians of Childhood campaign for St. Louis Children's Hospital reached out to communities divided and brought together families in every neighborhood for the common good of keeping all children healthy. Launching a campaign with this high level of impact required a ton of courage — not from our agency team that proudly won the account, but from the parents who shared their true stories, uniting all of St. Louis for the health and wellbeing of every child. From an evergreen perspective, Guardians of Childhood also charted a course for others to follow, demonstrating how the power of an idea can simultaneously carry a brand story and a foundation story. Not only did the idea raise awareness for the role St. Louis Children’s Hospital plays to protect the health of every kid, it also raised millions of dollars for medical research that every family will benefit from for generations.
Communities around the country need more good jobs, while our home planet begs for diverse new ways to improve sustainability and lesson humanity's environmental impact. These call-to-action PSA content films created for The Rebuilding Warehouse express a hopeful future for communities where values are restored for homes and lives. A centerpiece of the project was the relationship the team built between our client Rockwell Tools and the Rebuilding Warehouse. This collaboration ultimately delivered thousands of dollars worth of in-kind tool donations to the workforce training teams, enabling them to build better lives for themselves and their families. The campaign set a course for the organization to expand the scale of training, which today has produced good paying, high-skill trade jobs for hundreds of workers empowered by a second chance.
In this campaign for a remarkable facility dedicated entirely to women's health at Barnes Hospital, moments of uncertainty are revealed through three real, intergenerational stories. We spend a day in labor with a mom-to-be who wonders if she waited too long to start a family. We meet a young woman, in her twenty-sixth week of pregnancy, who questions whether she's even ready to be a mom. And finally, we get to know a woman who has just turned the page to the start of her next chapter. These films, in combination with print, digital, OOH and social, remind women everywhere that for life's uncertainties, a team of expert physicians stands ready to put minds at ease.
Today, socially responsible brands are as much a norm as an exception. But back in 2010 there were only a handful that lived up to the do-good standards of Ben and Jerry’s. When we convinced our client team at Maxwell House to evolve their message to actively promote the idea Drops of Good, it was a big win. Making Maxwell House one of the first national brands to inspire community service, social responsibility, and starting every morning by doing something good for others. What started as an idea percolating one early morning over a yellow notepad, evolved into a socially-driven campaign that helped rebuild communities around the country, beginning on the Gulf Coast where Maxwell House joined in helping residents recover from the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Starting with that first generous pour, this idea inspired Americans to Be Good to the Last Drop. Coast-to-coast. Cup-to-cup.
Authentic Austin Alvies Boot Company of Austin, Texas set a goal in 2019 to raise investment capital as a way to extend their stylish influence beyond the vintage Air Stream at Third Street & Congress that doubled as a boot store. Alvies are loved for their lived-in feel. Their soul originating in a town where tacos are served for breakfast and floating all day on the river is considered a day well spent. Alvies knew if he was going to stand apart in the eyes of national merchants like Nordstrom’s, he’d have to do more than represent the Austin way of life. He’d have to own it.
Land of Plenty The American Farm Heroes project brings attention to the floods, droughts, economic storms and the 2020 pandemic that pushed farm families to the edge of existence. This short film was created to bring attention to the crises unfolding across the American heartland in support of the Farm Aid Family Farm Disaster Relief Fund and National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
The You Effect branding campaign was created for UK based energy company National Grid. At this crucial moment in the global battle against climate change, when we must reduce the strain on our electrical grids and households need to reduce their monthly expenses, an energy-dependent world learns how one small change can change everything.
Be A Movement Unto Yourself for fashion company Mind in Motion embodies their new line of life-momentum gear, designed to inspire people to look within themselves to discover the unbreakable strength that resides deep within all of us. Featuring an integrated partnership with Cancer Treatment Centers, this micro-influencer campaign goes beyond just selling clothing on line, to motivating followers around the world to fashion fearlessly.