Promax Gold Award winner
The first truly global National Geographic Channel event—a new mini-series and the campaign to promote it — was a derivation of my Global Event Sell spot. The tone, positioning, and the tagline was used in every iteration worldwide and extended into all National Geographic Society partner efforts.
Every word was scrutinized for translation into 22 different languages in 160 different countries.
Take a close listen to the original composition courtesy of my friends from Innerpartysystem—and you'll hear a contemporized version of the Nat Geo theme song.
This was the biggest project of my career with the creative influencing every National Geographic business unit. I was also responsible for producing an accompanying soundtrack in collaboration with Sony Music, companion books and providing branded elements and assets to every National Geographic publication running associated event content.
Epic fun.
Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Award winner
A new show about Stonehenge and a cross-platform event in partnership with the National Geographic Society and magazine.
To me, nothing screams Stonehenge like Spinal Tap.
So, after a few hundred phone calls to agents and Canal Plus in France (they own the Nigel character), I got to speak to Christopher Guest and asked... he said "yeah, all right let's do it"... and the viral spots garnered a million hits in their first month of seeding.
This campaign is also featured on the 25th Anniversary blu-ray release of Spinal Tap.
And it never hurts to have Donald Sutherland add some gravitas by narrating the show and tracking your promo.
A star studded campaign that pulled the numbers we wanted by +50%.
Emmy Award winner
Promax Sports Marketing Award winner
A new sports network needing an identity, and one that is scalable across it's regions and teams.
Making these were experiences when the camera can get you into spaces you'd never be able to otherwise go.
Tons of fun and celebration of being a "fan".
Multiple Emmy Awards in each region for this campaign
A crew had just returned from the Dominican Republic having captured a wealth of beautiful footage on some of Inspirato's locations. Working with the agency in-house team we developed a language and look that would launch a new wave of content for the Inspirato website.
As this rock solid case was still in final production, we didn't have any practical photography of the unit. So my team took some pretty rough schematics and converted them to painstakingly accurate 3D model to promote the launch of the "toughest case ever built".
Upfronts are the biggest annual push to sell ad time to advertisers and promote a new crop of programming. They are also the toughest projects for Executive Producers, Creative Directors, and Copywriters. And I was all three for this particular year. Upfront's are long, they have to be super high quality and the scrutiny on messaging efficacy is extraordinary.
This was also the introduction of a new Nat Geo global brand to the advertisers, so not only did we have to sell, we had to do it in style so they could get to know the new Nat Geo.
The response was the biggest boon from the advertisers that the channel ever recorded having cleared a higher percentage of ad time sales during the upfront period than ever before.
When one of our most fun clients, Sphero, called and asked to host a filming of a MARVEL online video show called THWIP! featuring their Spidey product, we saw opportunity in doing our own behind the scenes feature for our social feeds.
Great partnerships, great fun!
A wonderful opportunity to add some personality and style to a brand with an already established customer base.
Along with my strategic partner and my team of designers, we dove deep, strategized, and defined a new voice and look to reach a refined set of persona that would enable growth and more brand love. (click here to see the pdf)
As IMM's client roster expands, so does its capabilities. And ultimately there is a paradigm shift in the brand as it grows and redefines itself.
This requires a new voice, tone, and style that will inspire and rally the team as they explore and find new paths.
This video is an iteration of a manifesto I had written for IMM and the video is an early exploration of how the new brand could come to life in different forms beyond the written word alone.
I wrote, shot, and edited this video on site at IMM with the only budget going to a trusted freelancer for mgfx and finishing.
Discovery came to Impossible for assistance in launching a brand new channel in place of Planet Green.
Helping them find the voice and personality of this fresh star-spangled effort was not only fun, but really put in perspective what we have to explore right here.
Jaws.
The iconic move line was a natural inspiration for things that are nearly too big to comprehend.
This was a cool show launch. We had this spot and this host on Jimmy Fallon to kick it off.
I creative directed and managed the production of all print and PR and related events.
Promax Gold Award winner
Everything you consume in your lifetime all laid out in one place at one time.
A massive undertaking.
I creative directed all campaign assets including magazine ads and bonus material.
Unique and super fun shoot.
The "Behind the Scenes" spots won a Promax Gold
National Geographic's "Explorer" series is the longest running franchise on television.
These shows are always informative, intriguing, and an honor to promote.
Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Award winner
The first spot out of the gate for a global rebrand effort. Capturing the right voice was of obvious importance. The right mix of clever, contemporary, and fact filled to give our viewership a lift.
It helps when such interesting facts present themselves...
CTAM Gold Award winner (Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing)
Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Award winner
From birth to death, amazing things happen. In true Nat Geo form, images take you to places you may have never seen. Paired with some amazing facts, we anchored the video and print around the breathtaking imagery.
I creative directed all assets including print, digital, and of course, the video promotional campaign.
Executive Producer/Writer
Discovery was replacing Planet Green with a new channel focusing on the good ol' U.S. of A, called Destination America. This was one of the launch spots. Which typically wouldn't have been difficult (Amerca! F**k yeah!) but none of the shows were finished filming, and certainly not to the point to feed much variety in content.
So we sent a top notch crew up the coast of California in the middle of winter to get most of what's happening here.
We're all related, and there's proof.
Boiling this story down to 30 seconds and one print headline was fun.
I was honored to work with the design and editorial geniuses at Spillt to write for some high profile AMC projects.
I have written and produced many branding spots and upfront pieces but to write for the most successful and (arguably) the best shows available on any platform, it was a pleasure. Of course it helps to have masterminds at Spillt to make the words work. My humble thanks to them for including me.
Phillip Lindsay stands in 5 feet 8 inches, 190 lbs. He ended his high school football career with a severely torn ACL. He lives with his parents. And he was the NFL’s first undrafted offensive rookie ever to make the Pro Bowl. Phillip Lindsay’s got grit. It takes grit to be an elite athlete. It takes grit to play at the top of your game. And it takes grit to come back from an injury, stronger than you were before. Phillip Lindsay knows that. Our patients know it too. So we paired Phillip with a few standout athletes who brought their own grit as Children’s Hospital helped them through their injuries.
We had two hours with Phillip on-site and we maximized that effort to film and photograph in 3 different locations, including drone shots, AND do VO before the day was done. Order, discipline, and grit got us through that shoot and to a successful campaign. Each video had thousands of views and continues to run until Philip was traded to the Texans in April 2021.
A new initiative to boost in-store traffic to Jo-Ann's current classroom set up through a Craftsy co-branded physical space and redesign.
This positive brand association initiative is meant to drive Craftsy awareness and registrations with a highly dedicated demo.
This video plays on an interactive kiosk near the front of the stores and directs them to the party.
Employers Holdings wanted to launch a subsidiary dealing only in workers’ comp insurance for small businesses, and doing it completely online and removing the agent middle-person and providing better coverage more quickly, all from your computer or device. They came to us to develop the brand and launch the company. Our passionate crew teamed up with their passionate leadership and brought Cerity to life. Design, copy, brand voice, customer personas, a strategy based on qualitative and quantitative research, countless brainstorms, and trips to Reno, It was a fun and fantastic experience, something I never thought I’d say about insurance. Today, Cerity is absolutely crushing the workers’ comp game in a very crowded market.
Cerity
Your business covered, just like that.
To see a Customer Journey and Execution Plan click here
Creative Director/Strategist/Copy/UX/UI
TrueBlue and its family of companies provide industry-specific workforce solutions, enabling scalable staffing virtually on demand. Their unique business units were splitting to be more service-oriented by specific industry type and they came to us to rebrand and manage the creation and launch of each industry-specific offering. This required deep persona work and brand voice and copy guidelines so we could provide templates to their teams to continue the work after the rebrand. With a “mobile-first” methodology, we developed 7 different models to put in use. This is the True Blue parent company mobile and site design example
Promax Gold Award winner
A massive yearly campaign backing up an event that is meant to bring Nat Geo back to its roots and give people a reason for some short term appointment family viewing while still retaining the bit of contemporary edge we were infusing as a contemporary channel.
Spectacular shows, even one live from the moon...
I creative directed and team managed the production of all campaign assets including elevator wraps, magazine ads, and event stand-ups.
TBC Corp., one of the largest marketers for tires, wanted to launch an online retail store where tire shoppers could research and purchase tires and have them installed locally at one of TBC’s many sub-branded locations. One of the biggest lifts in launching this brand and standing up the website. The website required a deep catalog of content to fulfill a minimum threshold to satisfy the “Knowledge Center” offering—designed to provide a thorough tire education to shoppers. After developing the brand voice, I led a team of writers, including myself, through creation and editing of 100+ articles that would be housed on the the site. We created a deep and powerfully sticky SEO driven linking strategy, applied instructional design standards, and developed visualization templates that would help make the often complex concepts and teachings easier to understand. These are some early site design and UX explorations. The Knowledge Center is alive and educating shoppers daily at TireAmerica dot com.
Discount Tire does things right. It’s a $5+ billion company with 21,000 employees. And they have a better way for you to find the right tire for YOU based on real-life data from real drivers and decades of on-the-floor tire guys and gals.
Internally they called in the Product Decision Logic, or PDL for short.
That wouldn’t do much in the market however. So we worked with their spectacular marketing and creative teams to find just the right way to name, brand, position and unleash their game-changing product to their millions of customers, making a great company even better.
Welcome to the family, Treadwell ! (click here)
As a startup in the digital space, of course Craftsy has an app. An app which Apple is a fan of and it gets prime placement and is featured on all iPads in Apple stores globally. When Apple iPad customers click on the pre loaded app, they are introduced to Craftsy by this Craftsy "Get to know us" spot.
As IMM continues to redefine itself, our social presence is no less important for ourselves than it is for our clients. Here are a few posts I created in Photoshop with messaging derived from the IMM Manifesto I wrote at the beginning of the IMM rebranding efforts.
***Ad Club of Denver 50 winner
With a simple dialogue that parallels a super simplified customer journey, this is how Leopard showed their appreciation to clients this particular year.
WHAT BETTER WAY CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS
THAN CHOCOLATE??? TRUFFLE MONSTER AGREE.
THAT WHY TRUFFLE MONSTER PERSONALLY
DELIVER CHOCOLATE TO EVERY LEOPARD
CLIENT. WHAT CLIENTS SAY?? LOVE CHOCOLATE,
BUT TRUFFLE MONSTER IS REAL STAR. CLIENTS
SAY, “WE LOVE TRUFFLE MONSTER!!!” TRUFFLE
MONSTER AGREE.
TRUFFLE MONSTER KNOW WHO NAUGHTY OR
NICE. WHO KNOWS?? MAYBE IF YOU PLAY CARDS
RIGHT, TRUFFLE MONSTER VISIT YOU THIS YEAR
TOO. REGARDLESS, TRUFFLE MONSTER WANT
TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO WISH YOU MERRY
CHRISTMAS TOO!!!
A tough, emotional, and infinitely important program. This campaign was meant to deliver new insights and findings uncovered after the continued extensive investigations into the the incident.
Powerful.
Executive Producer/Writer
Even legendary brands need a little dusting off. This is a "proof of concept" tape we put together after we nailed down the new brand refresh concept and direction.
It was also used as an awareness sizzle sent to internal business partners and the National Geographic Society leadership before the launch of the new branding campaign
A wilderness guy and his grizzly bear best friend...
They were good sports when we got creative to promote their show. Thank goodness, as a grizzly's bite can crush a bowling ball.
...and in the viral spots, you'll see some early work from Rory Scovel of TBS's "Ground Floor"
