For almost a century, Canon had been a leader in photography. And for almost a decade they had relied on forgettable commercials featuring Andre Agassi. I was hired to make the work better. Over the course of time, the work got better. But only marginally. The big break happened when Canon introduced an SLR camera that also could shoot video. But what does a photography brand do when confronted with videography? For Canon, they wanted to bury it because they felt that videography was inferior to photography. My first challenge was to not to change their perception of videography, but to change their definition of photography. This led to a new category I invented: Moving Photography. 

To express this new category, we hired one of the most famous photo & video journalists in the country: Pulitzer Prize winner, Vincent Laforet. What we created was a video story told in 10 chapters by 10 photographers. The twist? The only thing the photographer had to go on was a final still photograph taken by the teller of the chapter before it. 

The result was 3 Cannes Lions, an Effie and a shortlist for the Academy Awards. More importantly, we saw Canon’s market share in digital SLRs increase from 17% to 55%.

In fulfilling the company’s mission to “Put farmers at the center of creating a better world for everyone,” we first needed to convince their own employees that they were more than just a butter company. In fact, dairy is less than 10% of revenue. Land O’Lakes, Inc is really an agriculture company whose business units also represent animal nutrition, crop inputs and carbon offset marketplace, all in service of their owner: American Farmers. Because Land O’Lakes, Inc is actually a 125 year old cooperative.

Starting with the development of a new Brand Strategy that centered on a line, Rooted in Tomorrow, we developed a complete brand identity refresh. An updated logo, reflecting how each business unit contributed to the corporate mission, was followed by a full update of corporate standards, supported by a film intended to bring this new positioning and identity to life. Why? Because if your employees don’t believe in and live the brand, you’ll never be authentic enough to get consumers to believe it. 

For anyone to truly believe that “farmers are at the center of creating a better world for everyone”, we needed to dispel common consumer misperceptions that farmers and farming were controlled by corporations and mass agriculture. The fact is, that 98% of American farms are family-owned. And 88% of all the food we eat come from those farms. And what better place to drive that message home than in our Farmer’s backyard? So we partnered with the Big10 Network right in America's heartland, the Midwest. We used TV, social, influencers, digital media and a heavy dose of experiential (on National Farmers Day) during halftime of the Nebraska Cornhuskers vs Purdue Boilermakers football game. 

The results of this campaign were both powerful and impactful. We raised Land O’Lakes, Inc’s brand reputation across all levels: general reputation was up +7%, the brand authenticity up +8%, genuineness of purpose +9%. And at the end of the year, TIME Magazine named Land O’Lakes one of the 100 Most Influential Companies in the World and their CEO, Beth Ford, one of TIME’s 100 Most Inspiring Leaders in the World. 

One of the highlights of the work I led for Kraft, was in response to a client request that we develop a brand action that would generate earned media during Q2. With a successful and long-running campaign we developed around “imperfect parenting,” Mother’s Day seemed a no-brainer. But about Moms, kids and Mother’s Day could we lean into that would get not only our consumers engaged, but also the press? Especially since many other brands were discovering and leveraging the same “imperfect parenting” insight. So we conducted research to find new insights around parents’ imperfect behavior. What we found and decided to focus on, in the words of our client, was either going to get us all famous or fired: the fact more moms admit to cursing in front of their kids than dads. (Now that might be because moms are more honest than dads, but we’ll leave that up to you.) To tell the story, we turned to the expert (and mother of three), Melissa Mohr, author of “Holy Sh*t. A Brief History of Swearing.” With a great script and even better performance by Melissa, a $50k budget returned almost 1B impressions. Not a bad ROI.

SunnyD had not only a product problem, but a brand problem. Sure, it tastes good (to some), but their campaign claim directed at moms that it had 44% less sugar than soda wasn’t connecting. I mean, how low a bar can you set? Better than soda? It’s also better for your kids than cigarettes. We needed to appeal to moms and their kids with more of an emotional message. We found 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. And while many of them haven’t had a sip of SunnyD in years, our research indicated they still unapologetically could relate to the fun the brand stood for. We wanted to reignite that fun.

So we decided to lean into a cultural phenomenon that was just starting to emerge: our nostalgia for the 90s. Our expression of this was to recreate an iconic SunnyD spot from the 90s. You know, the one with the “purple stuff”? So faithfully, we created the same spot. The twist? It was the same kids and same mom. Only 20 years later. And mom wasn’t having any more of it. The campaign cut across 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.

Woody Creek Distillers had been around for 10 years, making award winning spirits up in the Roaring Fork Valley, just outside of Aspen, Colorado. They had grown their distribution, but were lost in a sea of brands that claimed local, batch, craft, authentic,  etc, etc. A classic case of commoditized brands all communicating the same product attributes, rather than building an emotional connection with their consumers. And though they had a truly compelling story to tell, would anyone want to listen to another story about ingredients, process and place? Well, we thought they would if it’s William H. Macy, neighbor, frequenter and fan of Woody Creek Distillers telling the story.  Starting with a package redesign to bring the brand together and enhance its presence on-shelf, we then created a long-form film with cutdowns, social assets and on-premise signage to drive awareness and distinctiveness to the Woody Creek brand. And, people responded. Sales were up 44% in the first year we introduced the campaign. We’ll drink to that.