Highlights
One of the highlights of the work I led for Kraft, was in response to a brief requesting we develop a brand action that would generate earned media. Our approach was to lean into the insight we had been leveraging for the general campaign around "Imperfect Parenting." While that insight had generated buzz in the past, many other brands were discovering and leveraging the same insight. So in order to stand out and get the attention of the press and our consumers, we had to raise a subject that nobody else dared talk about: the fact that moms admit to cursing in-front of their kids.
In 2012, I realized the dream of starting up my own agency. My partners and I opened Grenadier’s doors with a couple of Ikea desks and a cell phone. In three plus years, we built a profitable, fully integrated agency attracting local, regional and national clients across different industries and levels of development.
The highlight was launching the turnaround for the SunnyD brand with a new positioning and creative platform that was executed across all communication media – TV, digital, in-store, social, PR, promotions, web, experiential. The work galvanized the SunnyD internal teams, customers and consumers, and was responsible for a net 12% sales increase in test markets.
Our insight was that SunnyD connects to people in a remarkable way. It’s not about the product itself, it’s how the brand makes you feel. This was particularly true among Millennial parents who grew up on it. While many of them haven’t had a sip of SunnyD in years, they unapologetically express the fun the brand stood for. We wanted to reignite that fun.
After beginning my career in NYC, I made the move to Boulder (who wouldn’t?) to lead SRG’s transition from a smartstrategic shop to a smart creative shop. Led agency revenue growth of $7MM+ through both organic and new business. Authored a new agency philosophy for how account and creative teams work together. Made Partner in an unprecedented one year.
The strategic and creative highlight of that tenure was contemporizing a sleepy brand of frozen Mexican food, called El Monterey. Based on the insight that El Monterey made it easy to make one of America’s favorite shared meal experiences, we creative a multi-media campaign based on a telenovela. The campaign included a social media page with all cast membersrepresented, a virtual hacienda, in-store and a television campaign.
Led the team that won an Effie, One Show finalist and ultimately a Cannes Gold for Canon’s flagship Digital Rebel. That effort built the brand’s share of the Digital SLR market from 17% to 55%. The core of the idea was delivered across all traditional and digital media including the inception and development of an interactive digital campaign that engaged both professional photographers and consumers. Increased Canon billings by over 100% agency revenue by 150%. Launched over 50 new products.
The challenge for Canon was that they were a photography company that introduced an SLR camera that could capture video. How do you reconcile still photography and moving videography? Well, who ever said a photograph had to be still?