Troops are coming home from Iraq and that's good news. For Veteran's Day, we created this tribute for Walmart. For me personally, even though the war was fought under false premises, the sacrifice of the troops and their families will never, ever be questioned. Thank you.
Wild about Harry.
Every few months I have lunch with Harry Jacobs, One Show Hall of Fame member and the guy who basically put Richmond and Martin on the ad map. Harry is in his eighties, but more passionate about this business than a lot of ad people I know in their twenties. Every time we get together, he talks and I listen. My favorite from this lunch: It's the early 60's. Harry's agency Cargill Wilson and Acree, a precursor to Martin, is being courted by DDB. Harry is invited to NYC to meet one on one with Bill Bernbach. Yikes. Imagine having to show your book to Bernbach with the agency purchase in the balance. Well, it worked out and Cargill was bought by DDB. I'm blessed to have Harry in my life. Who knows. Maybe I wouldn't be here if Bernbach had hated Harry's work.
11 in 2011.
"Dance" is the 11th Walmart conveyor spot to be posted on the respected site creativity.com. An amazing achievement. Congrats to the team.
They keep coming.
A couple new favorites in the "Every cart tells a story" campaign. More in the works.
50 years ago.
Class differences. Race tension. Multiple wars. Economic woes. Political battles on the left and right. 1961 looks a lot like 2011. We're looking back at how JFK handled it all in a new series for the Presidential LIbrary and Museum in Boston. Art Director: Brian Williams.
A good show.
15 finalists at The One Show this year. The encouraging thing: first time finalists in Design and Entertainment, plus multiple nominations in innovation and use of social media. That's exciting. Photo credit: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images for One Show.
Re-imagine, re-think, re-____________.
That's the theme of the Art Gallery within the new space at Martin. We're kicking off the first show June 22, featuring artists Robert Coover, Dalton Ghetti, Charles McGill and others. The invitations we're created in the Gallery space when a couple dozen Martinites silk-screened hundreds of pages from old art magazines to create the invites. Re-create, re-use, re-visit.
Every cart tells a story.
One of the first spots in what we hope will be a nice, long campaign for the world's biggest company. The idea was simple: Walmart has low prices on everything you need on your shopping list. What if told funny stories using the random contents of those lists? Many thanks to our huge team, but especially to the client for having a little fun.
Hit it Bubba long.
A lot of fun directing this package featuring pros Bubba Watson, Lee Westwood, Louis Oosthuizen, Marc Wilson and Hunter Mahan. Worked with DP Tami Reiker, just a beautiful shooter. Used the Alexa with a series of 70s lenses.
Cancer meets Bieber fever.
On March 1st, Usher wished Justin Bieber a happy 17th birthday by posting this re-mix music video by Mysto & Pizzi on Facebook and Twitter. Bieber re-posted the video and thanked Usher and our client, the American Cancer Society. It went to over 45 million Usher and Bieber fans and received over 40,000 Facebook 'likes' in the first five hours.
His speech is now our speech.
Long time, no post. Up to my eyeballs in production since January. So let's catch up. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of JFK's famous "Ask not" speech, we invited the world to the podium. Go to ourJFKspeech.org to deliver a part of the speech via Twitter, FB or your webcam.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Some more directing.
A new campaign for the reel, featuring PING's testing robot and the grandson of the man who invented him.
Houston, we don't have a problem.
We are humbled by the news that wechoosethemoon.org was just chosen site of the year by the FWA. Thank you. Congrats to the combined team of Martin, Domani, AOL and The JFK Library and Museum.
Design for Obama.
Last night at Taschen, Spike Lee signed copies of his new anthology, Design for Obama. One of the posters we did for the Obama Virginia State HQ last year was chosen for the book. Nice. Cool to meet Spike, too. Thanks to Lee Dayvault, my talented AD on the series.
Spike left for the Yankee game moments later.
The poster that made the book. The series was posted here in May 2008.
Spike left for the Yankee game moments later.
The poster that made the book. The series was posted here in May 2008.
Verbal warfare.
Walmart sells more video games than any other retailer. Last year for Madden 09, we created a "Smack Talk" rivalry between two gamers named Nick and Steve. The spot was a huge hit virally. This year for the intro of Modern Warfare, we brought back the guys, but added even more content including Office-style back stories for each. I directed the three virals shown here with Brian Aldrich through Furlined. Art director: Adam Stockton Copywriter: Trent Patterson Producer: Darbi Fretwell Editors: Adam Svatek, Andrew Leggett, Beast/LA
Nick, the Single Guy Gamer, calling in sick.
Nick, the Single Guy Gamer, calling in sick.
A little thing from the world's biggest company.
We all know that the little things in life can add up to make a big difference. That has been the driving force behind our strategy for Walmart and the tagline “Save money, live better.” We wanted to put that thought into a larger context outside of our day-to-day tactical work. The creative team, Dave Muhlenfeld and Brian Williams, had the thought that music, combined with the right lyrics and visuals, could bring the emotional heft we were looking for. The team added a poignant element: each line of the song would be sung on camera. The result is a celebration of life’s precious moments. And a tribute to Walmart’s commitment to provide a higher quality of life for millions by helping them save money. CD: Nancy Hannon, Joe Alexander Agency Producer: Shelly Eisner Director: Mark Malloy, Furlined EP: George Meeker Editor: Robert Duffy, Spotwelders Music; Elias
He was our insurance policy.
The healthcare debate continues. But there was no arguing Ted Kennedy's passion for universal care for all. He was a great man and we will all need to step up to somehow replace his important voice. We can do this. Tribute ad created for the JFK Presidential Library in Bsoton. Art director: Sarah Rowland. CD/Copy: Joe Alexander.
3 went in 1969. 1.25 million went in 2009.
We landed on the moon last night! According to Google Analytics, over 1.25 million unique visitors jumped onboard wechoosethemoon.org from launch on July 16th to landing July 20th. A grand success - and the numbers are just coming in. Congrats to our amazing team at Martin, Domani, AOL, JFK and so many others. It's been quite the ride.
Are you going to the moon?
As part of the 40th Anniversary of the landing on the moon, we're going to celebrate by going back - in cyberspace. On July 16th, 2009, exactly 40 years to the second, we are recreating the Apollo 11 mission online. You're invited to climb onboard with Buzz, Neal and Michael by going to a special teaser site. Sign up for email, download the app, follow on Twitter. Just go to wechoosethemoon.org. it's going to be a blast. Art director: Brian Williams. Copy: Wade Alger. Producers: Norma Kwee, Darbi Fretwell. Production Company: Domani Studios, Brooklyn, NY.
We are doing it because it is hard.
1962. John Kennedy declares America is going to the moon. And we're going to do it not because it's easy but because it's hard. (Or, haaaaad.) The speech is still inspiring 40 years later. So much so, it inspired a very talented team at Martin to come up with a beautiful magazine campaign, now finding it's way into national publications. Art director: Brian Williams. Copy: Wade Alger. CD: Joe Alexander Producer: Jenny Schoenherr. Art Buyer: CIndy Hicks.
A world with more birthdays.
Cancer has become so much a part of our lives, we have become somewhat numb to its dangers. We've gotten to the point where maybe we have simply accepted it as inevitable. Someday, somewhere, somehow, it will touch us. The American Cancer Society has been fighting against cancer for over 100 years. We just finished a new campaign for them, the idea being that despite the relentlessness of the disease, we should have hope. Not blind faith in a cure, but a quiet faith in imagining a world where cancer is less of a killer and more of a nuisance. A world where we celebrate more birthdays. Writer: Ken Hines Art Director: Kevin Ragland Producer: Molly Schaaf Director: Mike Mills Editor: Angus Wall Music: HUM/LA
Golf pros are funny. Really.
Had a chance to do more directing in February. We cast in LA, shot four spots in one long day in Phoenix, edited in LA. The spots are running on The Golf Channel and recently were selected for Creativity creativity-online.com/work/view?seed=78a91cdf Producers: Darbi Fretwell, Jess McMahon. Production Company: Original Films. DP: Geoff Madeja. Editor: Adam Svatek, Filmcore/LA.
Obama wins. Again.
A couple of things Conscience produced for the Obama campaign recently won cannonballs at the 2008 Richmond Show. We made these posters for the local Richmond chapter of Obama for America. Art director: Sarah Rowland. Writer: Joe Alexander
A busy start to 2009.
Been neglectful of posts. Busy as snot, as they say in Minnesota. This is a series for PING's 50th anniversary, A half century since Karsten Solheim invented the first "forgiving" golf club in his garage, making the game easier for all of us. Art director: Matt Davis Writer/CD: Joe Alexander.
Back in the saddle.
My first "advertising" work since returning from the heart attack. Was really a kick to work with a new partner, Nancy Hannon, one of my favorite new people in my life. Just a great energy and talented. Brad Silberling (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0797869/) directed. Great touch with the kids. It's nice to be back at work, but boy, do i miss the campaign. Rick Lawley of Whitehouse/LA, editor. Jenny Kennedy, agency producer. Steve Bassett, Creative Director.
The joy.
This photo says it all. The joy on our faces, captured moments after CNN projected Barack Obama as the next President of the United State. To my beautiful wife: thank you for sharing the hours, weekends, ups and downs, rallies and finally, election night with me. We are the ones we've been waiting for.
The vols.
We supervised an Obama staging location from the deep Richmond/Southside for most of October through Election Day. So many things stand out about our experience. The dedication and passion of the vols are what I will most remember. Here's to all the volunteers who passed through our location, knocking on doors, talking to voters, hanging door hangers, getting the vote to the polls. To all of you: thanks for being the change you wanted to see.
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