The “There’s Nothing Sexier Than a Man Who Cleans” Super Bowl spot for Mr. Clean was a huge success, providing much-needed modern-day mojo for the dated 50s icon.
These steamy print and social executions pick up where the TV left off, bringing Mr. Clean’s sultry new image to grocery store aisles and Facebook pages where moms and dads wait to be swept off their feet by Mr. Clean’s spotless charm.
I geek-out on brand strategy. I love digging in to a brand’s DNA, pulling out the insights, consumer tensions, and finding the purpose. Then crafting the manifesto, tone-of-voice, and visual ID. While working at Danone North America as a creative director and brand strategist, I was able to “get my brand on” in a big way. Check out this Brand Book for Light + Fit.
In the early 90s, So Delicious changed the world forever by making dairy-free desserts that were actually delicious—not flavorless imitations of the real thing. And while the desserts themselves were telling this story, the branding wasn’t at all. It was reserved, subtle, and kind of boring.
So, we tore it down to the studs and rebuilt it in a way that conveyed the brand’s true flavor-obsessed nature.
When I started working with ListenUp, they were in the dark ages for marketing consumer electronics–print, direct mail, radio. With a new website, complete with e-commerce capability aimed at taking their unique high-end tech. experience to a national audience, I helped them modernize by ramping up their social efforts with robust content across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. This is a smattering of content I wrote, produced, managed (scroll all the way down for performance metrics), and even edited. Check out my stop-motion skills on the first headphone video—watch out Tim Burton.
Caption: The very first wireless headphones from @marklevinson have performance that is so life-like they can unbox themselves. Well, not really. We had a little fun with stop-animation. But their sound is as alive as it gets. Audition yours today.
Caption: This home has three degrees, speaks four languages, and plays the cello. How smart is your home? #Automation #SmartHome
Caption: Our deepest, bassiest apologies to your neighbors in advance. Klipsch subwoofers are now 40% off.
Caption: It can't be real? 40% OFF Bowers & Wilkins 700S2? There's just no way! Guess you're just going to have to follow the link in the bio to see for yourself.
Caption: What does ASMR stand for, anyway? Oh, sorry! We’ll try to be quiet. Whispering…#ASMR #unboxing of the new Bowers & Wilkins 702 S3 Tower Speaker! Go to ListenUp.com (link in bio) to unbox your own 😉
Caption: Can’t play an instrument? Don’t worry. Audeze headphones are so immersive it’s like you’re in the band. Check some of the air guitar, drums, and, yes, air keyboards of people listening to the new M500s.
Caption: Tapes? CDs? Mall life? What’s your favorite 80s trend?
Over the past decade, one of the biggest trends in beer has been to drink local. So when MillerCoors decided to expand the distribution of BATCH19 nationally, we knew it would require a unique strategy.
Our idea was to use the beer’s pre-Prohibition roots to take drinkers back in time and tell them a story about how Prohibition impacted their home city, allowing BATCH19 to gain local appeal without pretending to be a local beer.
Imagine trying to get the attention of a mother flying down a grocery store aisle with four kids and a mile-long to-do list?
That’s the challenge of working on Febreze point-of-sale. You have to stand out. You have to clearly communicate the product benefit. And you have to do it in under four seconds. Here are some executions capable of traveling at the speed of mom.
Fall pumpkin ales had reached the point of saturation—every brewery had one. So when Blue Moon asked us to develop a web video announcing the release of its Harvest Pumpkin Ale, we knew we needed something different.
Building on the brand’s equity of Artfully Crafted ales, we created an event that brought fans and brewers together to paint a giant mural in honor of fall. But instead of brushes, we gave them pumpkins filled with paint and a water-balloon launcher. Ready, aim, fire!
Sport fishermen love light beer as much as pickups and camouflage. But they are not very brand loyal. So how do you get them to reach for your eighteen pack over another? You put it all on the line (see what I did there?), throw mass appeal in the lake, and develop a campaign that speaks directly to the guys with nightcrawlers in their cups and lures on their hats.
Henry Weinhard’s beer had always carried his name, but his quirky, mad-scientist persona was never part of the brand. In an effort to stand out among a dozen other beers with German-sounding names, the brewery asked us to help put Henry’s eccentric character on full display. The following are examples of packaging copy I created that successfully combines Henry’s silly likeness with the various styles in Weinhard’s portfolio.
BATCH19 is all about bringing back pre-Prohibition style beer. But why stop there? Why not bring back all things big and bold from the days before Prohibition made society soft?
That was our thinking when BATCH19 asked us to come up with a big idea to promote their annual Repeal Day celebration. So we hopped in our proverbial DeLorean, went back to the early 1900s, and brought back the biggest, boldest thing we could find—a pre-Prohibition beer truck.
Road to Repeal Day
Guess what? Grandma and grandpa still know how to get down. Bad visual, I know, but when Polaris launched its new premium electric golf cart, aimed at retirement-community residents, we wanted to stand out among all the other brands promising youthful rediscovery. The result was this print campaign using headlines that appear to be sexually suggestive, but are actually completely innocent statements of the product benefit. Get some, Grandma.
When creative teams lock themselves in small spaces for days to develop ideas, the result is usually awesome work. But the workspace itself—not so awesome. Using some of the cleaning brands we had as clients, along with some fun cultural nuances unique to the agency world, we developed this poster series to put up around the agency in hopes of inspiring some much-needed cubicle hygiene.
After decades of kneeling at the altar of Harley Davidson, riders began to sense their two-wheeled god was more concerned with a rebellious image than a quality bike. Built on the belief that power and performance evoke a greater feeling of freedom than a loud, angry engine, Victory knew it could restore hope to the faithful. We developed a campaign that hit directly on that insight, reminding riders that the best thing about motorcycles isn’t the feeling of rebellion. It’s the feeling of adrenaline.
For Blue Moon’s legions of loyal fans, the yearly release of Summer Honey Wheat (the brand’s summer seasonal) had become as essential to the start of summer as koozies and cornhole.
In this TV spot, we sought to capture that connection by using stop-motion animation to transform the brewing of Summer Honey Wheat into the brewing of summer itself.
With the rise of online buying, Total Wine was looking for ways to replicate their engaging in-store experience at home. We made it exhilarating by turning scroll buttons into throttles and giving consumers the chance to explore Italy's wines and countryside from the seat of a virtual Vespa scooter.