Truth be told, I DON’t actually like advertising

Shocking, I know. But let’s be honest, most of it’s garbage.

You’d think this would be a problem as an advertising Group Creative Director, but it motivates me to try to create things that are worthy of people’s attention.

Things that don’t feel like ads.

These things have won awards at every major international advertising award show, including Cannes, D&AD, The One Show, Clio, Caples, Spikes, FWA, and The Webby Awards. My work has been featured everywhere from billboards in Shanghai, to art galleries in Berlin, to the Super Bowl… and been written about in The New York Times, Forbes, Time Magazine, Wired, Fast Company, Highsnobiety, Hypebeast, The Daily Mail and Das Spiegel. I even had a cameo on Good Morning America.

I’m currently Group Creative Director and Denstu Creative, diving into everything social for 7-Eleven, Subway, IMAX, Kroger, Haleon, TikTok for Business & more.

I’m also a passionate photographer and a semi-occasional DJ... the latter suggesting I’m not too far off a full-blown mid-life crisis.

If you don’t value your time, ask me a question about speakers when you see me.

In the meantime, here are some of the things I’ve made so far…

HELPING A DEFINING MOMENT IN HIP-HOP HISTORY REACH THE REAL FANS

The 2022 Super Bowl halftime show was the greatest celebration of West Coast hip-hop in history. But despite being held in a stadium just a stone’s throw away from where the sub-genre was born, there was no way for local fans to score a ticket without forking out insane sums of money.

Their support helped turn Hip Hop into a global force, so we wanted to make sure they were front and center for this historic moment in Hip Hop history.

So, we created Ultra Pass… an immersive 360 experience that used 8K cameras along with America’s most reliable 5G network to let half a million fans virtually gatecrash the stadium… past the VIPs in the stands… and onto the stage itself.

HELPING VERIZON DROP THE NEW IPHONE 15 IN THE BIGGEST WAY POSSIBLE

Verizon and Apple wanted to take the product drop to the next level.

So we made a first-of-its-kind augmented reality experience with reggaeton superstar J Balvin, represented as a 300-foot towering virtual avatar, dropping the new iPhones across America.

J Balvin, himself, invited the country to “Catch My iPhone”.

Fans swiped J Balvin out of our social ads and into the real world, hulking above their homes, where they could catch and win the new iPhone while listening to his new single “Dientes”.

Helping the New Yorker tell the world what it stands for

“We don’t go to print when we’re out of time. We go to print when we’re out of questions.”

That’s the unofficial motto of The New Yorker. It’s this relentless wielding of questions that makes their writing unique. They keep drilling down, asking question after question, long after others put the pen down and go to print. Eventually, they get to a question that brings new light and deeper understanding to even the most familiar subject. A question that changes everything. 

To mark The New Yorker’s ninety-fifth anniversary, we created a campaign that celebrated these questions… and the articles they lead to.

INTRODUCING AFRICA TO BUDWEISER

Meet the Dandies of Johannesburg.

These guys typify what we mean when we say ”Be a King”. So we used them to launch Budweiser to the African market with a filmic technique that puts the beer squarely in the context of vibrant urban centers, and defines Budweiser as the drink of choice for those looking to get the absolute most out of every experience their cities offer them.

Celebrating CHUCK TAYLORS by turning a campaign into an exhibition

Real Chuck Taylor fans don’t like to keep them clean. They’re a blank canvas… to be adorned with paint, ink, mud, beer and other scars of life.

You can tell a lot about someone's personality by the state of their Chucks. So to create a global multimedia campaign for the Chuck Taylor, we didn’t celebrate the shoe, we celebrated the creative spirits that inhabit them.

We collected and shot over 400 used pairs from around the world. We even managed to score a pair of used Chucks from Patti Smith and Andy Warhol.

Utilizing iconic OOH, we turned the world into an art exhibition that paid homage to the lives lived within Chucks and, in turn, celebrated an iconic sneaker that is unlike any other on the planet.

BREAKING THE INTERNET FOR GOOGLE

Google wanted to create an online experience that showed off Chrome’s rich graphic capabilities.

So we leverage their partnership with Lego by bringing the world-famous bricks online for the first time.

Merely replicating the Lego experience wasn’t going to be enough. We needed to create something that felt inextricably linked to Google’s online ecosystem to make it feel like a true collaboration. We saw Google Maps as the perfect platform for Lego integration and devised an experience where you could claim a spot anywhere in the world, build something on it, and have it be discoverable by everyone. Build With Chrome was born, and it unleashed the inner child of the internet while letting people experience just how powerful Chrome really is.

LAUNCHING YOUTUBE MUSIC BY MAKING IT SUPER PERSONAL

Youtube has the biggest music catalogue on the internet.

That means if you’re really into music. Like, really into music. This is the streaming service for you. Our job was to create a launch campaign that connected with these people, showing them that YouTube Music stood for deeper music experiences. We did it through a series of hyper-personal films that showed how music is so much more than just background noise.

HELPING VERIZON EARN CLOUT ON TWITCH

Verizon needed to win over the toughest crowd on the internet.

Having recently released their +gear accessories store, Verizon wanted to do something to attract more gamers to the site. So they partnered with Dr. Lupo (one of the biggest gaming influencers on the internet) to create a curated collection of gaming accessories and asked us to do something to encourage his followers to check it out.

So we came up with a one-of-a-kind sponsored Twitch stream.

The idea was simple. We gave him a list of challenges that he had to complete while playing Apex Legends. Every challenge he ticked off the list unlocked discounts and prizes for his viewers, driving them to the +gear store to redeem.

LEGO | LEGO MOMENTS | DIGITAL ACTIVATION | SMART SPEAKER APP

IMAGINING WHAT THE WORLD OF LEGO SOUNDS LIKE

During the pandemic, LEGO saw an increase in adults returning to the brand as a way of dealing with their anxiety.

They originally came to us for a series of podcast ads to court this adult audience, but we sold them on the idea of a smart speaker app that makes the act of building with LEGO even more immersive and meditative by recreating the soundscapes of each pack.

THE TAJ MAHAL

It’s 1632 and we’re witnessing the construction of one of the most important pieces of architecture in the world. We’re sitting under a tree, on the banks of the Yamuna river, shaded from the intense midday heat. We can hear a symphony of chisels tapping away at the ivory-white marble as the impressive mausoleum starts to take shape. We hear the foreman yelling commands in Hindi, giant slabs of marble dragged past by lumbering beasts and the wafting sounds of boats across the river.

THE MILLENNIUM FALCON

This soundscape takes you to the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon as it cruises the galaxy in hyperspace. We hear the hum of the engines setting a steady course and hear the clang and knock of engines basically held together with duct tape. The gentle bleating of Chewy and the quizzical beeping from R2-D2 are punctured by a surprise Tie Fighter ambush and a crash landing on an uncharted swamp planet.

THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

We’re back in 1930, New York City… the corner of 5th Avenue and 34th Street witnessing the buzz of the tallest buildings in the world being constructed. We climb forty stories in the air, out over steel girders as the wind whistles and the giant behemoth takes shape around us. The banter of workmen wafts past as we ascend into the clouds… the din of traffic receding into the distance somewhere far below.

THE DREAM GARAGE

We’re sitting in a dream garage, filled with some of the most iconic cars of all time as a mechanic gives them a tune up. We hear socket wrenches whir and hydraulic lifts hiss…and every now and then we hear the cars roaring to life as they get their iconic engines turned over.

HELPING BUDWEISER PROVE THAT BIG ISN’T BAD

After three years of puppy commercials, Budweiser wanted to return to talking about its values for the Super Bowl.

Under pressure from a fragmenting beer market, they needed something that would court younger drinkers and help them stand up to the snobbery of the craft beer market.

We needed to show that being a big brand is a good thing, and that you can only become one by sticking to your guns. In 60 seconds, we had to convince 114.4 million Americans that being big isn’t bad… it’s bad-ass.

HELPING VICTORIA’S SECRET START A NEW CHAPTER.

After years of championing a very narrow definition of aspiration, Victoria’s Secret realized they needed to change.

They came to CNX to help bring an elevated, more inclusive, and more narrative-lead approach to their holiday campaign. The campaign, shot by Cass Bird, helped the brand portray a more inclusive form of aspiration while still staying true to its DNA.

REINTERPRETING BUDWEISER FOR AN INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE

Budweiser needed a new global brand positioning.

One that reflected the fact that it’s a much more premium, aspirational beer globally than it is in the US.

They wanted to define the city as Bud’s playground and inspire their audience while staying true to the brand DNA as the “King of Beers”. To do this, we reinterpreted the famous Budweiser tagline into an aspirational call to action: “Be a King”.

A VERY SINGLE-MINDED TVC

Pizza Capers is a small Australian company that wanted a bigger slice of the market.

To take on the likes of Pizza Hut and Dominoes, they needed to announce themselves in a unexpected way. So we turned their mouth-watering menu into possibly the most single-minded commercial ever created.

TEACHING KIDS TO ACCEPT RIDES FROM STRANGERS

Converse likes to avoid traditional advertising wherever possible, preferring to create experiences that speak to their audience in a more personal way.

To capitalize on their long affiliation with music and coincide with their support of the High on Fire tour, we targeted music fans in Boston, LA, and New York.

We built customized heavy-metal-speaker-stacks-of-doom and took them to the streets to see who would spontaneously jump onboard to head to an undisclosed location. Those that ignored their parents' advice about getting into strange vehicles were transported at full volume to a secret concert… where they received celebrity treatment and permanent hearing loss.

LAUNCHING A MORE COMFORTABLE CHUCK TAYLOR… WITHOUT ACTUALLY SAYING “COMFORTABLE”

Converse wanted a launch film for the Chuck II that put its new Nike Lunarlon insole and thicker padded canvas into context.

The new sole made them seriously comfy. Unfortunately, there’s nothing cool about comfort. 

So we focused on what comfort means to the core creatives that wear Chucks. Being able to spend more time on your feet means you can keep doing all the stuff that you love doing… longer… harder… and fiercer. The Chuck Taylor All Star II is ready for more.