Alienware: A League of Their Pwn

The Challenge

Since so many core gamers have turned to casual and console gaming, PC gaming saw a major decline, not to mention sales. Alienware needed to re-establish themselves as leaders in the field, and build awareness around PC gaming as a whole.

The Idea

Knowing that their audience likes to be entertained, and loves to talk smack, we game them something they could definitely leave their remarks on — a branded content series that puts a fictional ex-champ who has lost it all to "the casuals" back in the game.

The five-episode series was an instant hit. We started by seeding content on Facebook, to build anticipation of the video series. To date, the campaign has seen an increase in Facebook fans of 65,000+, has recieved nearly 3.6MM impressions and has been watched approcimately 400k times.

Episode 1: Once a Gamer, Now a Lamer >

Episode 2: Bad Connection >

Episode 3: Back in the Game >

Episode 4: O Rly? Ya Rly. >

Episode 5: The Final Showdown >

My Favorite Bit: Un-client Approved >

Naked Juice: Brand Relaunch

The Challenge

For years Naked had somewhat of an identity crisis. An old flash-based site and inconsistent ad campaigns failed to deliver their brand message.

The Idea

Well, a new website was the first piece of business. To that end, we brought them into the new age of online with a beauty that would be accessible via multiple platorms — knowing that shoppers have 14 seconds to make a decision at the shelf, mobile was key. The site itself is riddled with their fun and sometimes snarky brand voice, which we call their "Naked Truth." An online display campaign brought these same truths out into the world wide web (aka: the WWW) — 'cause you know, people love banner ads and all.

View Website >

View Surfer Ad >

View Hiker Ad >

View Climber Ad >

View Green Machine Ad >

Naked Juice: reNEWabottle

The Challenge

Naked Juice had just come out with their new bottle, which was made from 100% post-consumer waste and could be recycled again. But no one knew about it and more importantly, why would anyone care?

The Idea

A three-part initiative: The first would build awareness about their endeavors; the second would drive engagement within a Facebook app that encouraged users to recycle virtual bottles with friends — to which Naked would donate $20k to Keep America Beautiful; and finally, a launch piece that shared Naked's "truths" with their most passionate fans.

View Video >

View Facebook App >

View Poster Art >

CODA: Winning Pitch

The Challenge

Santa Monica-based, electric-car company had been through a few different agencies and no one had been able to deliver the brand voice in a way that was authentic, aspirational and fun. They needed an agency to pull it off.

The Idea

Evoke Change. That was everything that drove the concept and the overall strategy. The other electric car companies kept telling people that they had to "evolve." But no, our audience already had, and CODA was the car that spoke their language.

Pier to Pier >

Range Envy >

Crap >

Electrical Spill >

Ambien

The Challenge

Ambien wanted to build awareness around sleeping — or sleep disorders, rather.

The Idea

Led with the insight that women suffer, when it comes to lack of sleep, more than men, we created a fun campaign that urged women to get a little "tale" — you know, to help them fall asleep. And yes, this was before the much-loved Old Spice Guy (although, not as awesome).

Get Your Bedtime Tale >

Rover 4G: Brand Launch

The Challenge

4G ... what the hell is it? Some people knew, some didn't. But with Clearwire being one of the nation's only providers, they wanted to place their stake in a young demographic with the Rover brand.

The Idea

Create an identity that was uniquely their own — through contemporary design and language that was a bit cheeky. On my end, I took care of the site and packaging copy, establishing their brand voice which would later be carried on throughout social.

Disclaimer: The Rover brand lasted about a year. While the efforts were great, Clearwire felt it would be wiser to bring the youthful pay-go brand under the Clear name. Thus, the offical site now redirects to Clear.

View Case Study Video >

Packaging: Coming Soon

1Love: Branding and Launch

The Challenge

The Marley family came to us with an idea: Use their father's namesake to market products — everything from electronics to beverages to flippin' baby bibs. O rly? Ya rly.

The Idea

Stop them in their tracks. Well, that and find another way to get Bob's message across without defiling his name. Thus, 1Love was born. And with it, we aimed to make sure everything they did laddered up to Bob's promise.

View Case Study Video >

View Pitch-Winning Video >

View Website >

Alpine Electronics: Branded Content

The Challenge

Alpine was coming out with a new audio peripheral that had iPod/iPhone connectivity, Bluetooth, navigation and DVD — yes, people could watch a DVD in their car. They tasked us with coming up with a fun content piece to build awareness around the multitude of awesome features.

The Idea

The core idea was based around "Surviving the Drive." However, we didn't want to just show a mom with screaming kids in the back seat. So, we pitched zombies, or rather, a zombie attack. They loved the idea, but the feedback was, "we want to do it, but can we get rid of the zombies?" The following concept was produced instead.

View Video >

Diet Coke: Display Media

The Challenge

Diet Coke's "traditional" agency came up with an idea that was basically focussed around Diet Coke as a replacement beverage.

The Idea

We felt this idea was strong and could be translated well within the online space. However, knowing that we can get away with more in digital, we brought the core idea to life through rich animation, and positioned the campaign to be geotargted based on the time of day someone would be seeing the ad. So, in the A.M., a user would view the breakfast ad; in the afternoon, the pick-me-up ad, etc.

View Wake-Up Call >

View Morning Commute >

View Afternoon Pick-me Up >

View Spin Class >

View Dinner >

View Sweet Dreams >

Enslaved: Launch Campaign

The Challenge

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West was a great game — early reviewers had given it high praises for its amazing graphics and wonderful storyline. However, gamers didn't know much about it, and their pre-order sales were lackluster.

The Idea

Using a YouTube rich media masthead as our first big awareness builder, we tweaked the language to make it a bit more edgy for the gamer audience. We quickly followed up our core messaging with targeted standard units. The campaign immediately saw an increase in pre-order sales by nearly three times, and the game went on to nearly double their overall projected sales.

View YouTube Masthead >

View Messaging Unit >

View Accolades Unit >

Cherry Coke: Brand Relaunch

The Challenge

The year was 2007. Social was just getting big for marketers and Cherry Coke wanted a big social play for the brand relaunch of Cherry Coke.

The Idea

Built off the core insight that our audience all want to be famous, we created a MySpace — yeah, it was relevant at the time — campaign that urged users to "cherry" their profile for the chance to take over MySpace for a day. The campaign was a massive success. Beyond the innovative page builder, it was the largest social play Coke had ever done — a lot has changed since then.

View Case Study >

View MySpace Page Editor >

Sci-Fi: Lost Room Teasers

The four-part mini series was weeks away from launch and Sci-Fi had no real buzz around it. They wanted to spark interest among technophiles as well as a more general audience, but they knew that online was the number one place to start some chatter.

The Idea

Working with my friends at UVPH we concepted a series of "viral" teasers that would take objects from the show and place them in the real world. Below are a few examples.

View The Pencil >

View The Pen >

View The Clock >

Adobe: CS5 Display Campaign

The Challenge

Adobe had launched Creative Suite 5, their most ambitious launch in a while. It had included a variety of new features that would help designers, editors, photographers and developers work more efficiently. However, the original campaign hardly mentioned any of these.

The Idea

Using features as our main selling point, we created an expansive campaign that would draw potential users in by highlighting the new features. The difficult part was creating rich video with standard units without taking away from the crisp, clean design. Many, many headlines were written, too. I mean, like, a buttload.

View Design Premium CS5 >

View Production Premium CS5 >

View Production Premium 2 >

View Lightroom >

View Flash >

Linksys

Website + Valet Launch

No big idea here, except make the damn language more appealing to a larger audience. For years Linksys had marketed their products to technophiles. This needed to change. With a more consumer-friendly product, Valet, they needed language that would speak to both a mass and core audience. I think they tweaked the site a bit since launch, but the language should be the damn same.

View Website >

G4TV: Sketch Comedy Show

The Challenge

Back in 2001 — wow, that long — I was still doing stand-up comedy. Being the funny-a** guy I am, G4TV hired me to create some original content. At the time everything was talking heads. And I wasn't down with that.

The Idea

What if we took the characters out of the game and placed them in reality? The sketch comedy show was created with this premise. Only the pilot was produced, was way ahead of its time and paved the way for hit shows like Attack of the Show, and the like. Below are some sketches.

View "Where's Karnov?" >

View "Petty Theft" >

View "The Cleric" >

BLITZ: Internal Projects

The Lowdown

We just recently launched the new BLITZAgency.com. With that came a lot of writing, directing, planning and positioning. Included in the work are a couple fun videos, both of which give viewers a glance at how we work and play internally.

In addition to all the damn BLITZ brand work, I worked with Mintel and a third-party research firm to write a white paper on the purchasing influences of avid gamers. Give it a read.

View BLITZ in 59 Seconds >

View Approach Video >

View Website >

Download the White Paper >

Ripomatics

I Flippin' Love These

Pitches are fun, no doubt. But one thing I love creating for them are ripomatics — videos that convey the big idea or overall message using found (and sometimes captured) footage. While they're not really "work," I like them. So, I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

Nike Better World Pitch >

Shocktop Pitch >

Delta Air Lines: Skymiles Acquisition

The Lowdown

I worked on the Delta Air Lines account for nearly 1 1/2 years, and with all the sites, banners and games we created, this silly little acquisition piece is still my favorite. The idea? Make signing up for SkyMiles fun and interactive, while waiting for your damn flight.

View The Most Awesome Brochure Ever >