I am a digital innovator, a creative leader and an entrepreneur who solves complex problems for the world’s largest brands. At various times in my career I have built digital teams, made tv commercials, created a TV network, developed immersive experiences and written manifestos that made people cry. I've led organizations and people of all types to find unexpected, powerful answers and achieve more than they ever dreamed. I’ve done it all. And done it well. I’m ready to do something special for you.
Ever sat in a Walmart for a few hours watching people shop? Every spent hours trying to figure out how low a screen needs to be to be within someone’s peripheral vision but not whack come tall dude on the head? Ever tried to build a rules based system that took human behavior, shopping data, and about a million other factors into account and made it profitable for your client and your agency? I have.
I was tasked with creating an entirely new company within my agency to figure out how to make more than 1400 commercials a year that could be dynamically updated and served to Walmart stores across the nation. Creatively, it required the development of a new kind of media part digital, part broadcast, and part in-store display. Technically, it demanded that I understand several new and old technologies that had to be blended in ways that had never before been achieved. And from business perspective, I was tasked with building a profitable company from scratch. I actually got a hug form our CFO on this project. That last part still freaks me out a bit.
Different placement. Different screens. Different content.
Each screen lived in a specific section of the store. This allowed us to create content that could be targeted at different behaviors based on shopping trip goals, section demands and external factors. Each section had a slightly different set of best practices that we developed and created to maximize impact.
Each of these was a 12 second ad (if you want to know why, drop me a line, I had to figure that out too). StudioSquared (the company we created to do all this work) produced between 1200 and 1400 of these a year. Before this project I had hair. And it wasn’t even gray.
Each of these ads were created to be dynamic assembled on the fly. The copy, the video and images could all be swapped to create testing matrices or to be served in a slightly different format based on different rules or conditions—a concept borrowed from digital advertising but quite the revolution for in-store television.
At Momentum I led an experiential team to help create events and moment that reconnected people with a brand in an industry that is increasingly competitive and price sensitive.
When you are one of the largest airlines in the world you can’t rest on your laurels. You have to continue to grow your brand by connecting with new customers while you maintain those vital relationships with your core customers.
This was a unique and broad opportunity help the brand across various lines of business from MileagePlus programs to new product launches, sports sponsorships, and partner programs, we were able to make a massive positive impact on the brand and its audience.
It’s was a simple request, write a PR release to announce United’s newest partner. We thought a partnership with a World Championship team needed a little more than press release. So we invited the Golden State Warriors to our home court and transformed an airplane hangar into a regulation basketball court to host the team, our employees, and the press.
What do you do when one of the most storied airplanes of all time finally retires?
Well, you throw a party. But an invitation to this party required a little more than a desire to be there.
To come and say farewell to the ‘Queen of the skies” MileagePlus member had to outbid each with the winners paying upwards or 420,000 miles to say good bye. And the bidding did not stop there. Thousands of parts of the plane are up for bid so that airplane aficionados can get a piece of aviation history.
This site is program was a massive undertaking requiring a high level of engagement with wide range of stakeholders within United.
Airplane people are different.
You or I might find it strange to spend hundreds of thousands of air miles to get into another plane but for Airheads (I made that up but in my mind it seems like what they would want to be called) a connection to these amazing machines is what they prize above all else. Knowing this we created a program and a web experience that activated our greatest fans and helped drive redemption of MileagePlus miles. Which was kind of the point.
In the lead up to the Winter Olympics, we were asked to help promote all that United does for the USOC and bring an existing campaign to life.
Treating the entire campaign like the introduction of a new superhero franchise, we promoted it all like a movie launch. We threw an Hollywood style opening night for the spot to kick things off. Then we made a set of limited edition custom action figures features six athletes and six specially selected employees. Once the Olympics began we brought out superheroes out into the real world. The campaign outperformed our expectations. It was fun, engaging and definitely shareable, as the results showed.
As part of the launch for a completely new line of furniture for this upstart manufacturer, we were asked to re-imagine Keilhauer’s showroom in the Chicago Merchandise mart. This experience was created for the 50th anniversary NeoCon event.
The challenge was simple, how do you make a splash at the largest design event of the year when your budget is dwarfed by billion dollar competitors? You focus on an idea that resonates with the audience. This experience was built to deliver a single simple message that a great space can set ideas free. To bring this to life we took the iconic sketchbook and deconstructed it to set the ideas on each page free. Each idea was given wings, some transformed into birds while other took on novel and unique shapes.
This experience was created during my time at Momentum. Oreo came to us looking for a way to introduce their newest flavor, the chocolate chip Oreo. They challenged us with finding a way to leverage the full power of the brand while delivering an experience that connected a new audience with the joy of Oreo.
To meet this challenge we created an experience that transported visitors back to their childhood with an over-scale kitchen that let people sneak a cookie from a giant cookie jar. The results outstripped any expectations with traditional and online news outlets picking up the story across the country.
While most of the work at Momentum was experiential, these short web films were a fun little hiatus. Running online during the Stanley Cup playoffs these spots launched the release of 100 years game level stats.
So who better to talk about all these statistics than the players who made them?
We were able to work with some of the NHL’s greatest players and personalities to tell these fun and fast stories. Side note: Richter adlibbed all his lines. Who knew goalies were so funny?
One of my favorite projects at BBDO was to find a way to find a way to help the TV spot “Juan and Sarah” become something that other people could take part in. The answer was this automated system that took social posts and other communications and turned them into custom illustrations. Using a combination of real artists, some pretty slick programming, we were able to deliver thousands of illustrations in the exact style of “Juan’s” illustrations.
At McKinney, I was asked to build an entire creative digital practice from the ground up. My team was responsible for building web sites. developing online advertising and creating campaigns to support traditional media. In the case of Travelocity we created and launched all of the gnomes online presence. We also developed all of the content for the gnome on the Travelocity site. Most importantly we pioneered the development and use of online booking tools in ads (a first at that time) which dramatically changed traffic patterns for online travel almost over night.
And we did it by creating a new travel icon. Today everyone knows knows Travelocity and it’s Roaming Gnome. In fact, it is one of the most recognizable icons in advertising. But in the early 2000’s this company had a problem. No one was clicking the “Book now” button. They just didn’t trust that Travelocity could guarantee their trip. The thought they would be on their own.
So, we created the Roaming Gnome and launched it online to both connect people with the brand and to act a guarantee symbol. The brand and the operations were refocused around this idea of guaranteed travel. The results were spectacular with increased bookings in the short-term and in the long run the brand became the market leader in online sales. All because of a little gnome that meant a lot.
How do you get the most out of a race sponsorship when almost no one can go to the race? That’s what we asked ourselves when BFGoodrich asked us what to do with the Baja 1000.
To bring the race to people we had to create a completely custom solution and forge new technological ground by integrating GPS data from the trucks with the web site. We also integrated user posts and images into the experience so that those who did attend the race could share.
All this was built long before the iPhone and 4G technology so this was a groundbreaking experience that allowed off road racing fans their first chance to follow along with the race in real time. The brand loved it and continued to cover the race in this way for years to afterward.
It wasn’t easy to convince the race and the drivers to share their GPS data. But once we had shared it with fans, it became the new standard for how off-road racing was covered.
While at Momentum we won a significant piece of the Nike Business. As the American AOR for experiential work, we were tasked with being a part of one of the most important transitions in the brand’s history. As the retail landscape shifts and Nike looks to grow their business through DTC efforts, they needed a work that could directly connect with consumers—without a retailer getting in the middle. So we built a series of experiences that connected Nike to its most important and influential consumers. Here are just a few of the projects that I oversaw.
Launching the MetCon 4
Nike came to us with the ambitious goal of launching the new Metcon 4 in six weeks in Chicago. We told them they were crazy. And so were we. In short order, we developed materials for influencers and key customers. Then we re-skinned several clubs in the Chicago area to turn them into Nike Metcon 4 gyms where members and a specially invited few could try out the new shoes in customized workouts. Bonus they got to keep the shoes they demo’ed.
Another fun and interesting project we did for Nike was this retrofitted Airstream. It was part of a ‘Festival Fit’ program created in Chicago. The target for this was a crowd that cares about looking good as much as they like to feel fit and good. So the design was anything but your standard work out space. It was more like the dream closet of all of the Internet’s influencers. And that’s pretty much who we invited to take part. Coincidence? I think not.
