conscience: 2010

Thank you.

To Brian and Wade. Norma and Darbs. Mike and John. Anne Bev, Pete, D'Arcy, Neel, Tedd, Tom, Lee, Dean, TD, Ben and DS. To my kids and lovely wife Sarah. 2010 was a year beyond expectations. Thanks to you all. And here's to a great 2011. I am blessed.

An idea writer. R.I.P.

Ted Sorensen gave voice to JFK's ideas, visions and dreams for the future. "Ask not what your country can do for you...", "We choose to go to the moon...", "...We face a moral crisis in this country...", "It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation...." His words live on. Art Director: Eric Shi.

Re-inventing the birthday card.

What if Rihanna could call your best friend and wish her happy birthday? What if 25 of your family members could send grandma a personalized birthday gift from Jack Johnson with one click? Now, you can. And maybe the coolest thing is that it all started as an ad campaign. Here's to a world with less cancer and more birthdays.

The absurdity of it all.

He's lowered taxes for 95% of Americans. He saved the car and banking industries. The stock market is way up since he took office. And he passed health care reform that will benefit millions of lower and middle-class Americans. Our house was on fire and he not only saved the house, but is rebuilding it from the ground up. Yet, he is The Socialist, The Anti-Christ, The Un-American. Why? Sure, Obama has done a poor job of communicating his gains, goals and vision. But, please. This is the sad state of American politics. Reason and civility are gone, replaced by anger, fear and ignorance. God Bless America.

The latest: Usher.

The Birthday Gallery continues to fill up. We recently shot Usher at The Greenwich Hotel and more big stars are coming. So far, thousands of dollars have been raised for The American Cancer Society in their quest to create a world with more birthdays.

Here's to more birthdays.

This year, 11 million cancer survivors will celebrate a birthday. Progress. 20 years ago, the cure rate for cancer was 1 out of 3. Today, it's 2 out of 3. More progress. But this damn disease is relentless. Freaking relentlessly relentless. We have to keep fighting. The American Cancer Society has spent more money on research than anybody but the US government the last 100 years. Our campaign this year introduces The Birthday Gallery. We've asked dozens of musicians and artists to enlist their talents. So far, Justin Bieber, Jack Johnson, Devo, Eric Carle, Michael Schwab and many others have come on board with so many more to come. You can download, send, share, buy, donate the song "Happy Birthday" or wrapping paper and posters at morebirthdays.com. Please give. Thanks.

A video by Justin Bieber in the Gallery, which you can send to a friend right now.

Another from Devo, one of 15 musicians now in the gallery.

Artists took Cancer Society breakthroughs against cancer and designed wrapping paper and posters around each.

Tweet, tweet. JFK is running for president.

Right now, JFK is running for president - on Twitter. Every day, every stop, every speech is being re-broadcast as it happened 50 years ago. (Taking cues from our Moon campaign last year.) This print campaign is running in national pubs like Time, Smart Money and WSJ, driving people to the feed via QR code. Art director: Brian WIlliams. Copy: Wade Alger. Print producer: Jenny Schoenherr. Art buyer: Cindy Hicks.

Did not expect this.

We had no idea when we set out to go to the moon last year that we would end up in Cannes. What a ride. Thanks to all the amazing talent that help produce five Lions - two golds, two silver and a bronze. Congrats.

Rockin' the suburbs, downtown.

The National is an old vaudeville theater in downtown Richmond that has been converted to a popular venue for musicians touring on the east coast. Adam Stockton, a talented art director for Martin, struck up a partnership with the concert hall to create original, limited edition posters for visiting acts. We created this one for Ben Folds, one of my personal favorite artists. Read more about it here: http://www.commarts.com/exhibit/ben-folds-poster.html

The real winner.

We won two Yellow Pencils last night at D&Ad for wechoosethemoon.com, our recreation in real-time of the Apollo 11 moon landing. But the real winner was an exiled publisher from Zimbabwe. Wilf Mbanga, shown here with his creative director Damon Stapleton from TBWA/South Africa, was on hand to personally receive a Black Pencil for the Trillion Dollar campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper. Wilf has risked his life opposing the oppressive regime of his country. It was an honor to sit next to him at the award show and hear his extraordinary stories of courage. Congratulations.

The crew of Apollo 11.

Celebrating in NYC at The One Show interactive awards. From left to right. Brian Williams, art director. Great designer, smart as he looks. No detail is too small. That is the sign of a world-class creative. Norma Kwee, producer. Her first major assignment, she digitized and transcribed over 150 hours of audio between Houston and the astronauts. Plus, sourced and found every image and video on the site. Amazing. Wade Alger, copywriter. Tweet man, fact finder, co-creator of the idea with Brian. Wade is one of the best copywriters working right now. Period. Darbi Fretwell, producer. Helped get this thing off the ground, helping secure our digital production company, Domani Studios. (This is much better looking crew than the original Apollo 11 guys, right?)

Mr. Rollback.

His name is Darrell Owens and he's a real associate at Walmart. Father of two, part time college student, working two jobs, we found Darrell on a scout at a local Walmart here in Richmond. A total natural, we've now filmed over 50 different scripts using the guy with no end in sight. I've directed most of spots with Marky at Trademark Films. The DP is Charlie Gueret. Thanks to all the teams at Walmart. But all the kudos go to Darrell. Thanks, big guy.

The camera loves Mr. Rollback.

We've shot over 50 scripts in the last 40 days. Nuts.

Over the moon.

Last night, the team won two gold pencils and one silver at One Show Interactive. Don't wake me up from this dream. We are so out of this world excited. Big kudos to Jon and his team at Domani. Huge hugs to Brain, Wade, Norms, Carrie, Mark, Dean and Darbi at Martin.

Norms, Wade and Brian in the Moon Room at the agency in Spring 2009. This is early on in the production of the site, planning the stages, collecting content, writing tweets, gathering facts. Took 6 months from concept to live event.

Still hard to believe.

That George W. Bush was the President of the United States for EIGHT years. When I came across this video we made for the Kelly Awards a couple years ago after we won for the JFK Library, I laughed again. But also felt the need to post it here as a reminder of how lucky we are to now have an articulate, intelligent, present, thoughtful and strong leader in Barack Obama. Wouldn't it be fun to work on his presidential library?

We all love Mike.

Mike Hughes has been my boss since 1992. I have learned a lot from him about making better work. But more than anything, I've learned how to be a better person. He's taught this lesson through his actions and thousands of us who have met him over the years count him among our favorite people in life. In short, he is loved. Congratulations on your induction into the One Club Hall of Fame. Congratulations on a life well lived. Visit wealllovemike.com to show your love. Website and posters created by TMA. Joshua Reese, design and illustration. Paul Seward, producer. Scott Ackerman, developer. Thanks, guys.

Shining light on the homeless.

Spend time in Santa Monica and you will come across a dozen homeless people on the way to coffee in the morning. It's harder to find the homeless here in Richmond, but it's a huge problem. Homeward is a shelter, serving Central Virginia. Mark Brye, a madly-skilled art director, created these posters to help bring awareness. His idea: what if we made comic books about the victims and gave them special powers. Matt Wieringo is the illustrator. Writers: Ken Marcus, Neel Williams, Rebecca Renner. The series Won Best of Show print at the 2009 Richmond Show.