TURNING AD BUDGETS INTO FULL BELLIES
Ollie’s main competition was spending big money on a spot during Super Bowl 2023, which just wasn’t our style; the brand wanted a way to get attention during the game that stayed true to their mission of feeding dogs nutritious food.
So we decided to use their ad money to not make ads, inviting fellow dog lovers to share our Ollie Supper Bowl to their Instagram stories: The money we didn’t spend on that organic exposure would go directly towards filling a shelter dog’s bowl. 1 share=1 bowl of food.
Come game day, we were ready to fill thousands of dogs bowls with nutritious food, but we didn’t stop there: Hundreds of special suppers were shared live on Instagram from one of the largest kill shelters in the country. Complete with critical adoption information in personal thank you’s to the people whose share’s made it possible.
We maxed out Instagram’s story limit, generating over 300,000 organic, high-quality impressions during the Super Bowl without spending Super Bowl money. All by doing what Ollie does best: feeding really great dogs really good food.
THE BURGER THAT TRANSCENDS SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Some meals can be neatly described with critic speak like toothsome umami and luscious balance. But biting into Chef Amy Cohen’s Lekka Burgers sends diners into a lizard-brain explosion of hands-on, animalistic pleasure. We kicked off our rebranding with content that captured not just another great plant-based burger joint, but a label-free experience that required it’s own way of speaking.
YOU DON’T SLEEP FOR THE SLEEP
2020 was the year laying awake in bed became a national pastime. There were so many reasons we weren’t sleeping that people just stopped trying… which only made things worse. Enter: Unisom. While they couldn’t exactly save the day, they could make it a teensy bit better. We enlisted Robin Davey to help create a series of lock-down friendly animations that celebrated the good still left to be had.
SLEEP MAKES YOU BETTER AT LIFE
AND OTHER STUPID THINGS
Want to be a more attractive, better problem solving, calmer and smarter version of yourself? Or at least be able to kick your identical twins’ ass? Sleep is the logical answer. So being sleep-deprived creatives, we told our story in the most illogical way.
TL;DR This is what happens when you stay up late watching Japanese game shows on YouTube.
WE MADE TNT'S MOB CITY THE FIRST SHOW TO PREMIERE ON TWITTER
TNT was launching an amazing new mini-series with writer/director Frank Darabont. They didn't have a lot of money but they had a great script, and Frank had a lot of fans. So we went directly after them and premiered the first episode on Twitter. Hundreds of gif-like videos treated each of the almost 500 tweets as their own self-contained content. Fans loved it, the press loved it, and the conversation we started reached millions of people before the show had aired. We even got Frank Darabont to join Twitter and won a big bronze cat from Cannes Cyber.
THEY USED TO BE AVERAGE, JUST LIKE YOU
Galderma asked to launch Benzac Acne Solutions to teens who would never buy something called Benzac Acne Solutions. So we took a terrible, unmemorable product name and made it mean something cool, crashing the crowded acne market with brand spots that reached over a million YouTube views in days.
OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE INTRODUCES MOONSHINE BBQ SAUCE
When Outback Steakhouse started implementing iPads at every table, they needed content that got customers excited to try their new Moonshine BBQ. Diners got to hear the (alleged) roots of the new Moonshine Menu from this guy. Unfortunately the iPad idea never went national. Fortunately, you don’t need an iPad to drink.
ACCORDING TO ADWEEK, THIS IS GO DADDY'S "FIRST NON-DOUCHEY AD"
GoDaddy needed a fun way to bring their new racer, James Hinchcliffe, into the mix. So we one-upped that and brought in four James'! The original spot was called "One-Ball Jimmy" for months… turns out Disney owns ESPN and apparently Disney doesn't like ball jokes. We had to cut the line, but I got to send and receive hundreds of work emails with "ball" in the title and say it 3 times here- that's good enough for me.
NO BABIES WERE EMOTIONALLY SCARRED IN THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO
After freshly rebranding Freeform with their platform "A Little Forward" we were tasked with bringing the television network to life. While we love how this video turned out, the b-role of me flailing around with squeaky toys trying to direct a dozen 10-months-olds is even better. Unfortunately for you I do have (some) pride.
TRAINING BUT MAKE IT SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS
When a new phone launches tens of thousands of employees need to learn about it before we do. Iris decided to make an event of it, bringing me on to write a cartoon series that would debut along with matching cereal boxes and PJs: They had the name and its star locked (an actual store manager named Joe,) the rest was up to me. I created an eccentric world inspired by my favorite cartoons where anything can happen, from 15’ tall Persian cats to Kanye.
There were 8 separate shorts, totaling over 14 minutes of animation. Each chock full of new Samsung Galaxy features and the powers of it’s Infinity Screen without feeling like you were learning a thing.
Side note: This was ironically both the most high-security and the most ridiculous record I’ve ever attended.
NEW YORK IS PRETTY NERDY
Since most of us New Yorkers live online, it's no surprise that most of the tech industry we depend on started here. The New York City Commissioner was pretty proud of that, so we helped her make a few posters that celebrated Silicon Alley and all the attitude that inspired it.
LIKE A TIME-MACHINE YOU COULD SHOP IN
In 1940's LA the bad guys dressed better than the good ones. And the best dressed of them all was gangster Mickey Cohen. We brought both the style of TNT's Mob City and the legend of these infamous mobsters to life in NY's Chelsea Market, recreating a 1947 haberdashery Mickey Cohan once owned. It's all about the detail, and people noticed. We made over $13,000, which in retail land is crazy good for 3 days. I also developed a slight addiction to e-cigars.
EVERYONE WANTS ICE CREAM!
We knew that parents weren’t going to Baskin Robbins because their kids wanted to go. So we called them out on it.
Note: Grandmas explosion (and reaction) are 100% real. And "Hose," the bookended :15, was poor little Conners first shoot. He was a good sport, and actually went on another one.
And yes there are 4:3 videos on my site. I still love these… @ me!
At one point I got really into making cakes. It's just like advertising: you work really really hard on something that people enjoy for 30 seconds. And in the end, clients inevitably flush it all down the toilet. I stand by my word that these tasted even better than they looked.
WE MADE THESE FOR BLOOMBERG JUST BEFORE OCCUPY WALLSTREET HIT... THEY POLITELY DECLINED.
Most of today's business magazines were founded (and formatted) in another era. Although I heard the Zack Morris cell phone might be making a comeback.
REBRANDING A FORMERLY WHOLESOME NETWORK
When Freeform made the switch from ABC Family they were without a brand identity, trapped somewhere between old Disney movies and ballsy new content. After a year of finding their voice and developing a platform, we landed on something I scribbled in my notebook the first day on the job: A Little Forward. It gave them an attitude and a direction... and really confused people who were expecting ABC Family. So we made some videos to let them down gently.
From sizzles to brand strategy to developing an entire voice across social media, we helped Freeform get to where they are today: a living, breathing media network making some great original content for a whole new audience.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A FAT OLD MAN TO DIE
Today, more women die of heart disease than men. Yet women still think it’s a "mans disease" and often misdiagnose themselves with heartburn when disaster strikes. It was time to literally turn that perception on it’s head.
THE FIRST MULTI-PART INSTAGRAM SERIES
Zits are a bummer. But Zit-coms are fun! To launch Benzac Acne Solutions we created an activation that targeted teens directly on their favorite social network. Main episodes housed on @TheBenzacs seamlessly linked to three additional handles that shared the perspectives of our main characters in real time. And a new generation of acne sufferers fell in love with four pimply friends whose lives and faces change over the course of three weeks, all brought to life with over 150 unique pieces of content.
