For the Apple TV launch we created a whole new brand identity and a global campaign with a visually striking theme. Using the original Apple brand colors we managed to make it something very ownable, simple and Apple.
My role as Creative Director included everything from concepting, writing scripts, leading the design team, every step of the production process, working with the music team that scored the theme, editing, editing, editing (a lot of editing) and adapting 30 sec versions for international markets.
This is the future of television.
(Scroll down for billboard campaign.)
AdAge’s Small Agency of the Year Award comes with a big trophy. But like the Stanley Cup - you only get to keep it for a year.
So when passing it on to this year’s winner, we decided to celebrate what it means to be small - with a new take on a most familiar film about greatness, that every ad professional and CMO could relate to.
(The hand-off to BSSP president Patrick Kiss at the end was then handed on to this year’s winner in person, on stage by Patrick, at the 2020 event.)
This is Find Your Smallness.
For the launch of Bing’s new AI-powered search (GPT-4, DALL-E) we created a series of short videos showcasing the cutting edge features like free image creation, multi-modal image search, and the constantly evolving wonder of this AI platform.
For the NFL season opener 2023, we leaned into the established NFL meme “crying Dallas Cowboys fan”.
What will you do with Bing?
Twinkies, Donettes and Honey Buns in tiny cereal form. Where did they come from? A tiny bakery, obviously.
Yes, we actually built it. We 3D printed and hand crafted a tiny bakery and shot everything practically.
The Hostess Tiny Bakery features all the rich details of a working bakery--everything from an assembly line of tiny conveyor belts, to a sugar ‘powdering’ station, and even a tiny break room.
(Scroll down for production stills.)
When DC Studios 2023 superhero movie Blue Beetle premiered - we asked Bing Chat to create a cool action figure for Blue Beetle’s new nemesis: Paisley Dung Beetle
With Bing Chat’s multi-modal feature you can upload any image and use AI to analyze, modify, or like in this case; create an industrial design rendering from an extremely crude napkin sketch.
Let’s be honest. Making creative work that stands out within the healthcare industry is no small feat. But these are usually the most meaningful and rewarding client relationships you ever have. We’re making ads. They’re saving lives.
Combining slow-motion and time lapse footage, these attentively crafted films show NYC Langone’s innovative approach in heart transplants, their five-star Brooklyn hospital initiative, and their commitment to Long Island. (Where lacrosse is the most popular sport. Yes. Lacrosse.)
#TheBestOutcomes
Silver, CLIO Health, 2022 (Film Craft)
Silver, CLIO Health, 2022 (Digital/Mobile & Social Media)
Bronze, CLIO Health, 2022
For the rebranding of Aussie yogurt brand noosa yoghurt (yeah, lower caps and Commonwealth spelling) we dreamed up a colorful full on tasty universe.
For me personally, defining the new brand guidelines was arguably the highlight of the entire launch. To really dig into the look and feel, the tone of voice and make the brand rules themselves a playful and inspiring thing for everyone involved with the relaunch to love and remember.
noosa. Full on Tasty.
Some smooth kicks inspired by butter. And a step-by-step how to make them.
What will you do with Bing?
The Apple TV "Magic Apps" idea came from the simple discovery that the dimensions of the Apple TV are exactly the same as every app on your iPhone/iPad. It's like having your iPhone on your TV.
The Future of TV is Apps.
This was the first Apple project I worked on from start to finish (concepted, wrote, sold and produced). It's a very simple visual idea but with the heavy music (Royal Blood from the UK) and the extra dimension with the jungle content (which we actually physically built with real plants and then layered with CGI components) it took the familiar Apple white cyc product spot to a new level.
This is Retina in full bloom.
Cricket Wireless wanted to see something different than the Cricket characters - so we created SOCIALICIOUS. The way we talk using our smartphones today. With GIFs, Memes, emojis and 3-letter words.
We also invented a brand new claims language for the category. We’re not the fastest network, we’re the most SLAMTASTIC one. We’re not the most reliable network we’re the STREAMORIFFIC one. We’re Cricket and we’re something to smile about.
I wrote an endless song for Honey Bunches of Oats.
Here are the first three verses…
… and some really neat stuff from the pitch process. Pitching Rhymes With Delicious we probably presented (sang) around 50-100 different vignettes/verses. Scroll down for some of our print executions and the initial pitch video we put together with Psyop.
Social first in mind, we built the noosa campaign around these slightly irreverent product stories full of delightful eat-the-screen ingredient moments.
Rhymes With Delicious - “Troops”
The passion of the U.S. metal community known as the Satanic Hispanics is legendary. Yet their stories have never been told, and their dedication has never really been celebrated. If you have ever attended a Black Metal show in LA, San Francisco or Oakland you know exactly what kind of passion, energy and realness this crew brings to the scene. Or as Mille Petrozza, frontman of German thrash legends Kreator once put it: "If it wasn't for the Mexican fans, the Satanic Hispanics, the metal world in America would be very boring."
With this project we’ve started to tell their stories. One fan at the time.
Founded by Scandinavian immigrants in Los Angeles - HORN L.A. is the embodiment of the will to put some Noir back into the City of Angels. To bring Norse darkness to sunny California. But also with a purpose. To empower the U.S. metal community that has embraced Scandinavian Black Metal and Death Metal for decades. Brothers and sisters who travel from Santa Cruz to Oakland to see a Black Metal band. Who show up in numbers to support and endorse bands from the other side of the planet. Who know the true meaning, the true spirit, of Black Metal.
Deja que haya Black.
Shot live on 15 different locations in 10 different countries all over the world during 24h (36 with time zones). Yes. Crazy.
I was the Creative Director on the LA shoots (4 in total) which included helping with concepting, pre-pro, location scouting, casting and a very, very, very intense shoot day on three different locations.
Everything was shot on iPhone so there was very little work done in post and director Jake Scott more or less did offline editing in real time from a command center at MAL.
It's by far one of the biggest and most exciting projects I've worked on.
Just like a fine wine needs to breathe, Haagen-Dazs ice cream needs a couple minutes to temper (yes, that's the actual term for it) before you start eating it. It helps the consistency and texture and ultimately brings out the flavor that makes Haagen-Dazs taste so good.
Not many people know this, so to educate true ice cream lovers - we developed an app that will make a hologram violinist play a 2 min concerto on top the lid simply buy pointing your iPhone at it.
This is the Concerto Timer: A beautiful hologram that takes the egg timer to the sophisticated level of the Haagen-Dazs brand.
And yes, if you buy two instead of one - a cello player will join in.
The Hostess snack cakes you know and love - now in tiny cereal form. Where did they come from? A tiny cereal bakery. Obviously.
The Dalí painting "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at a distance of 20 meters is transformed into the portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)" might be one of Dalís most famous pieces.
But a lot of people don't know that the original is actually owned by the Dalí Museum in Florida - and that it's one of their magnificent Dalí pieces on display for the public.
To create some buzz around this fact - and give Dalí Museum Membership holders a reason to return (and renew their annual membership) - we created the interactive art installation "Gala Contemplating You."
We also built an app that allowed Dalí fans to project themselves into the museum simply by taking a selfie.
Leaning into the invisibility of Mitsubishi North America, we rebranded the car maker to feel intentionally small, more exclusive and much more self aware.
Inspired by the golden days of car advertising - we simplified, shot black cars on black cyc, and played with clever headlines around the idea of small-batch.
Rhymes With Delicious - “Space'“
The Hostess snack cakes you know and love - now in tiny cereal form. Where did they come from? A tiny cereal bakery. Obviously.
The Grammy Effect: Taylor Swift "Headbanger”
The Grammy Effect: Pharell “Hat”
The Grammy Effect: Lorde “Karaoke”
For the Apple TV billboard campaign we launched in two steps. First with the iconic Apple color bars and after a few weeks we updated the boards to have content jumping out in a playful way. From the most popular TV shows like Game of Thrones, Simpsons and Veep - to sports, video games and blockbuster movies.
Social assets for the Tiny Bakery. Tiny stuff. (Also served up for Post Cereal in their meeting room when pitching the idea.)
My grandpa was born in Le Havre in 1924. The small maritime city set on the northwestern shore of France was largely destroyed during World War II, and grandpa was captured a bit after the German invasion.
The Nazis sent him to a labor camp in Norway. They needed young strong workers while trying to acquire so called heavy water (deuterium oxide) to produce nuclear weapons. It was a camp in the small town of Årdal at the very end of the fjord Årdalsfjorden. A beautiful place that I’ve visited many times growing up, set far in the mountains of Sogn and Fjordane county. The camp is still to this day not listed as a death camp and operated under Organisation Todt which was a Nazi engineering group.
During a transport from Årdal to the groups headquarters - the so called Einsatzgruppe Wiking in Oslo - grandpa and nine other french prisoners managed to escape. First they hid on a food transport, then started hiking across the mountains to reach Sweden, that was still unoccupied. They would sleep during the day and trek at night with the cover of darkness. Alistair MacLean stuff. Crazy.
When they finally reached a hospital in the province of Dalarna in Sweden, grandpa had the good sense to stay put and not immediately return home. He told me he just ate for a year straight. Potatoes, vegetables, chicken, whatever they gave him.
Grandpa loved a good joke. He knew thousands. They were short jokes. Super funny of course. (At least grandpa thought so.) He used to laugh super hard at his own jokes. He would laugh like that “Spanish Laughing Guy” on YouTube. Makes you think. When was the last time you heard a good joke? Or better yet, told one?
He also had stories. Real stories from the war. And these were not funny. They usually spilled out during Christmas dinner. He’d tell us about the poor conditions in the camp. About a specific incident or person. Someone called Firscht or Fürst or something, who was a “full blown Nazi” and would do horrible shit. Like when grandpa had a bad tooth and they just held him down and pulled his teeth out. One by one. With no anesthesia. Until they got the bad one. Fucked up.
As a kid, I remember thinking how badly I wanted to see Hitler dead. Or better yet, to kill him myself. Hang him. Shoot him. Poison him.
I could literally think of a thousand deaths for him.
In this book you will find a bunch of them.
On April 27th 2016, we asked 100 small business owners to describe their business in one word. Nobody used the word “small”.
Because at MetLife we know, your business is anything but small.
Sometimes the brief is a funny TV spot. Sometimes it’s a global rebranding assignment for a 150 year old insurance giant.
After three decades of Snoopy, MetLife wanted to reinvent themselves as a global, more human and modern insurance provider.
In North America, we created a rallying cry for employee benefits called "We’re for the Workforce”.
In Mexico, we focused on the changing needs of the growing middle class.
And in Japan, our consumer facing product offerings were simplified for an aging population - dealing with financial stress over their “second life” and comfortably embracing retirement.
With Adobe's new digital media metrics, getting the real results from your social media ROI has never been easier.
To get some attention around this product launch, we made a bunch of spots poking fun at the buzz word driven world of social media marketing, digital currencies and... well, bullshit.
The first spot out the door was "The BS Detector".
Buzzwords can be painful. Get real results.
Dalí once said "I'm not on drugs, I am drugs."
To reinvent the beautiful madness of Dalí and give Museum Membership holders another reason to love their museum in Florida - we created the Dalí Museum Staring Contest. An app that allows you to challenge Salvador Dalí in a staring competition, using eye recognition technology.
Super silly. Super surreal. Super Salvador Dalí.
"Doing it on your own doesn't mean doing it alone" was the bridging line between TD Ameritrades product offering and the challenges the athlete's face - but more than that this was a celebration of setting out to accomplish your goals and having a family, community, coach or partner to offer support.
TD Ameritrade Olympic - Jonathan Horton
TD Ameritrade Olympics - Natalie Coughlin
TD Ameritrade Olympics - Mariel Zagunis
The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy asked us to find a way for people to celebrate the 75th birthday of the most famous bridge in the world, even if they couldn’t be there in person.
To make this a reality, we invited people to use the digital equivalent of bridges: social media.
For the first time ever, people could connect across Twitter,Facebook, Google+, country borders and bodies of water simply by adding a bridge using the Google Maps API.
Together we built the longest bridge the world has ever seen.
Talk to the plant.
An interactive experiment proving that no one grows ketchup like Heinz.
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and the Swedish Railroad (SJ) are fierce competitors on the domestic travel market.
To the extent that when we created a combined air-train milage card we knew people wouldn’t believe it.
So we decided to have some fun with that narrative.
Cannes winning banner. (Never dismiss a good banner.)
