Cisco Jasper tasked us with not only introducing their offering on a larger scale than ever before, but to make technology decision makers realize they may be missing out on more revenue and new business models pertaining to the Internet of Things. Our solution was to create a campaign that highlighted many of the unexpected ways IoT is transforming businesses, today.
This web series was a lot of fun. We ended up shooting about ten different scenarios, each with the theme of personifying monetary categories, and enabling individuals to be the "boss" of their money.
In 2014, we completely redesigned the Toyota Racing web site to make it responsive, more intuitive, and more agile. While that was a fun endeavor, the real excitement came with our introduction of the Tweet Race, which involved fans cheering on their favorite drivers in real time every Sunday.
While DeKuyper sales were strong at bars, the average cocktail drinker was not purchasing their products at retail locations. We were asked to change this, so we focused on all of the potential reasons in life one has to celebrate, from the mundane to the magnificent.
I've been lucky enough to do a lot of great work for adidas during my career, but this is the project I am most proud of. It was a six-week program that utilized almost every digital tool at our disposal, and fully leveraged the power of social media. Of course, it didn't hurt that I have a super-healthy love for soccer. (Or football, if you aren't American.)
Completely redesigned with the user in mind, Mitsubishicars.com was the first ever fully responsive automotive web site. We developed it in record time as well, working extremely closely with our tech team to ensure a smooth and efficient launch.
SocialPics was a first of its kind web app that made it possible for people to build beautiful books from their Facebook feed with just a few clicks. Once created, users could customize it if they wished, or simply order hardbound or soft cover copies.
In the good old digital days, brands measured their social success by how many "fans" they could garner. When approached by Dolby to boost their fan base on Facebook with a limited budget, we concocted a concept based on the resurgence in pop-culture of TV's original Batman - Adam West.
On a side note, apologies for the number of times the case study video says "awesome." I did not write that.
American Funds has a way of managing money that is unique from everyone else - The Capital System. We were tasked with taking this very complicated investing approach and boiling it down into a story that made sense for the average investor. We developed a clean, concise summary video as well as supporting videos that used actual fund managers to help capture their passion for helping others with their long-term savings goals.
Before Nest was a household name (and owned by Google), we were challenged to explain in a clear and concise manner why someone would possibly want to spend $250 for a thermostat. This animated video kicked off the Nest story, capturing the brand and its benefits in a lighthearted and compelling way.
Working with L'Oréal was a refreshing experience, as they were willing to push the boundaries of technology and creativity.
I was fortunate enough to call EA Sports a client for many years. Over that span I was directly involved with creating and scripting dozens of videos and upwards of a hundred digital advertising campaigns. I've featured some of my favorites here.
To support EA Sports' first big brand campaign in years, we created a site to reaffirm how there truly is no win like a sports win. We dropped fans into a fully immersive, 360 degree winning moment, featuring big time players and places. People explored the dynamic environments to uncover player interviews, game footage and other goodies.
Let's face it, most amateur golfers don't know exactly where their ball is going to land when they hit it. Based on this insight, we came up with the idea of a "Virtual Par 5" experience hosted by none other than Tiger Woods. Clicking on the banner acted as your tee shot, and the user followed Tiger through a series of fun sites that highlighted all of the new features of the game.
This was an incredibly fun experience, blending three star NFL players with a political campaign spin in which fans were invited to vote for the cover star of the new EA football game. Dwight delayed the shoot 90 minutes because he wouldn't go on camera until his personal hairstylist took care of his already almost nonexistent hair.
This was one of the first times YouTube allowed the "fourth wall" of their home page to be broken, and we did it in a big way, paying off this year of Madden's key premise to "fight for every yard."
Everyone knows talking trash is one of the must fun aspects of college football. For NCAA 09, we took it to a new level. Fans could pick their favorite team and customize a taunt, then send it to a friend. The message was delivered via a trash talking, high flying cheerleader.
Each year in Madden, the NFL players are ranked on a scale of 0 to 100. Rookies, however, don't have any NFL experience, so fans often ask how EA comes up with their rankings. We decided to have a little fun with this notion, and filmed a series of "tests" with NFL rookies to help establish their Madden ratings.
At Freestyle Interactive, we were the DAOR for EA Games for about six years. It was an extremely fun and busy tenure, considering we'd crank out about 40 campaigns a year. These are a few of the most memorable projects for me.
When the first person shooter BLACK was released, it featured game environments that were fully destructible - anything could be shot. It also came out on Valentine's Day. Loaded with the insight that nearly half of our audience was single and loathed Valentine's Day, we created an experience that invited folks to take out their frustrations. A high speed camera allowed people to see their anti-Valentines Day destruction in glorious slow motion. Special thanks goes to my Brother-in-law for blowing away all this stuff with his 12-gauge.
To launch the MMORPG Warhammer, we wanted to get fans riled up for the release. We developed an online, ongoing game experience called the "Road to War" that used websites, apps, and social media to generate excitement. Frenzied fans battled, bragged, and shared on social media for six weeks leading up to the game launch.
The Sims Sidekick was a browser overlay that let Sims charachters "follow" you around the internet as you surfed. Working with publishers, we created custom Sims animations for select web pages, which led to a lot of buzz on message boards as people discovered new sites that would set their Sim off.
Inspired by the famous "orange scene" in The Godfather, we kicked off the video game in a big way. Street teams planted 10,000 oranges in three cities late at night in high volume pedestrian areas, to be discovered by folks on their way to work in the morning. Each orange had a sticker with the url for the game.
OK, ready to get old school? My experience with Nike was always a good one, as they were one of those rare clients who demanded excellent work and were actually willing to pay a fair price for it. Here are a few of the cool projects we did for them.
Nike put out an epic TV spot featuring Lance Armstrong leading pelotons of all kinds throughout the world. We developed this interactive expandable ad with some creative thinking and crafty coding.
Nike made their TV spot homage to "Chariots of Fire" and we created an accompanying interactive experience online. Users could "Run Barefoot" on the beach and discover screensavers, downloads and more. The interactive ad was so popular Nike asked us to create a larger, more robust site version.
More slick expandables to support Kobe's shoe. This one was pretty advanced at the time, embedding multiple video clips into the ad placed at a multitude of angles.
When I was a copywriter at Red Sky Interactive, Miller was just one of the amazing brands we were doing revolutionary work for. Here are a few examples.
This first of its kind racing simulation game was hand coded and created at Red Sky. It featured a Virtual Racing League where players could create teams, customize and tune racing cars, and compete every Sunday against others. Every Saturday at midnight we'd painstakingly run thousands of simulated races so players could see their results in the morning.
Another first, the Beer Pager was a downloadable desktop app that let people invite their friends to Miller Times. They could set up their friend list, set a time and send an invite. When an invitation arrived, the Beer Pager would buzz and you could see when and where your friends were going to be enjoying a Miller Lite.
