A collection of recent social, cultural and other shiny new things for Cracker Barrel.
Social sits at the center of the plate for keeping Cracker Barrel’s passionate fan-base engaged. Our social strategy includes a high volume of unique content utilized throughout their social eco-system to support retail, promotional and core food offerings – produced in-house, with teeny little budgets.
To grow Cracker Barrel’s fan base via cultural relevance, we use social to engage with micro-influencers, cultivate real-time social conversations and create episodic online videos for LTO launches, new unit openings and other key initiatives. Our efforts consistently beat established kpi’s and – although one of the lowest spenders in the casual dining category – Cracker Barrel’s reported cross-channel social engagement levels were second only to Denny’s.
To fuel lasting memories for Campfire Meal fans, we created a limited edition candle and promoted it through Cracker Barrel’s social channels. Finally, the meal that reminds you of camping has a candle to remind you of the meal that reminds you of camping – at least until it sold out.
Famous for their outdoor boards, here’s a recent batch from Cracker Barrel. You’d have to log a lot of actual miles to see them all, so - you’re welcome. Some cool new truck wraps, too.
If Cracker Barrel had a McRib, it would be their summertime Campfire Meals. People go crazy for them. We introduced a family obsessed with these foil wrapped meals as part of the build-up to the launch. I directed 9 mini OLV episodes in one day, with non-union actors, for less money than a nicely catered lunch.
We worked with the popular band (and reality TV stars) the Willis Clan in an online series announcing their new concept album - wholly inspired by Campfire Meals. Because it turns out - they really are crazy for them. I directed these videos, in-house.
We moved a lot of turkeys and hams for Cracker Barrel’s off-premise business with social content featuring Todd - an eternal bachelor who insists on hosting holiday meals – despite his past failures.
We invited fans to sing-along with our wall decor to learn how to customize their Country Dinner Plates.
There’s nothing like Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. It’s a restaurant. It’s a gift shop. It’s a record label. It’s a museum. They sell more rocking chairs than any other place on planet earth. Sock Monkeys, too. I ran this account for 8 years after leading the pitch to win it, overseeing all of their TV, Social, Radio, in-store materials, seasonal menus, OOH and whatever other projects they’d toss our way. People love this place. Including me.
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We do a lot of work for Cracker Barrel. Here you can see it all connected with lines.
We do over 240 posts a month for Cracker Barrel on Instagram, facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. In this Instagram series, two Sock Monkeys took followers onto the set of their latest commercials before debuing them online.
We make our share of Cinemagraphs, GIFS and Videos.
We create mini-campaigns in social, like this series of tongue-in-cheek inspirational posters running on facebook.
We do a little B2B print, all seasonal menus and in-store signage, swapping out new creative six times a year - winter, spring, summer, fall, holiday and break.
Cracker Barrel is one of the largest outdoor advertisers with over 1600 boards. Reaching people at 75 miles per hour is tricky business. We try to make them smile, like the brand and know when to exit.
To help tie Cracker Barrel to the local communities they serve, we used non-professional community theater groups as our talent in our radio campaign. Eventually, they started sending us auditions to be in our spots. Needless to say, these people were VERY EXCITED.
We carried the handcrafted aspect of our TV and in-store materials into the world of radio with an award winning campaign that hearkened back to the days of live radio performances. Even the sound effects are performed live. Different community theater groups appear as our guest cast, so each spot has a flavor all its own. Here are three, if you want to pretend to be driving.
Behind our Handcrafted campaign, sales are up. Traffic is up. Attitudinal metrics are up. And while Cracker Barrel is fairly tight-lipped about specifics, comparing what's happened to their stock price in the four years before our creative launched with the four years after our creative launched tells a nice story - especially if you're a shareholder.
I started working with Potbelly Sandwich Works at RPA/Chicago when new owner Bryant Kiel had just opened his 4th location and was looking to expand outside of Chicago to the suburbs. The relationship lasted nearly a decade, spanning two agencies, multiple CMOs and over 200 grand openings from Washington DC to Texas. It was a labor of peace, love and Potbelly. Along the way we did everything from writing the brand story, menu design, experiential, stunts, print, digital, social, banners, web-site build-outs, direct mail, email, CRM, in-store, OOH, radio, package and logo design, investor videos, employee orientation manuals, new unit site investigations – you name it and chances are we did it. Twice.
Got 3 minutes? This'll tell you about a lot of the things we did for Potbelly.
We used the windows during construction as messaging vehicles.
When the flagship downtown store was enveloped in scaffolding for a year, our client panicked. We saw it as an opportunity for free advertising and made the construction company put up these signs. Sales actually went up, proof that advertising works.
We saw every touch point as an opportunity to build this brand, so we made custom business cards for all the Execs. That's what you do when there's no ad budget.
For fun, we made a bunch of these fake "tokens" by hand at the office one day and placed them around a Potbelly. To our surprise, over 50% of them were brought into Potbelly and "redeemed." These tokens became an official part of Potbelly Grand Openings.
We'd toss these guitar picks at local music venues near Potbelly locations and future locations.
Big chains run big ads with glorious food photography. For Potbelly, we ran lots of small space ads with royalty-free clip art in free newspapers to maintain a local profile. It helped that Potbelly didn't have any money at the time.
When Potbelly opened in Ann Arbor - it's first college town - we began secretly hiding free sandwiches in text books at university bookstores. We also recruited "Potbelly Pioneers" and paid them free sandwiches to promote Potbelly in The Facebook - a closed network that pretty much nobody had heard of at the time.
Potbelly's contract at Midway Airport came with some free Terminal Ads. We took full advantage. This location became their highest grossing and introduced people from around the country to the benefits of toasty warm sandwiches.
We built their website - making it look like it was happening "live" at a Potbelly. The random button proved to be a popular click.
This "Deep Sandwiches" campaign was particularly fun. We shot hundreds of unsuspecting customers with hidden cameras and approached them with releases that gave us the rights to their images in perpetuity, to use however we saw fit. It's amazing what people will sign for a free cookie.
Remember when interactive flash emails were cool? We took advantage to make ours extra entertaining. They were highly forward-able and Webby-winning.
Regular Potbelly musician Jef Sarver had an idea. He wanted to try to break the Guinness World Record for guitar playing at Potbelly. We had an idea, too. We wanted to document the madness. So we hired a film crew and shot a 30 minute documentary about Jef and his attempt. The plan was to enter it into film festivals and then broadcast it on the Discovery Channel. Unfortunately just as we finished, Potbelly got angry at Jef for some bizarre transgression and forbade us to proceed as planned. Too bad, cause it turned out great. (See a few of my follies). Jef is quite a character, as evidenced by this online teaser promoting his attempt and the simulcast.
We launched The Bigs - a bigger sandwich with ads that were bigger than the space allotted.
We used the familiar site of a parked Potbelly delivery bike to help tell the story of a bigger sandwich.
To let customers know The Bigs were coming, we re-assured them the tables could withstand these bigger sandwiches. Upon launch, The Bigs became 30% of the sandwich mix. Our campaign won a gold Racie for integrated marketing.
Radio is fun. We did a lot of it. I always liked these two spots that helped launch Potbelly Salads. If you like radio, close your eyes and have a listen.
Over the years, I did more for Potbelly than any other brand - including writing the materials that attracted the investors who pushed out the people at Potbelly who gave the place its soul in the first place. They call that, growing pains.
Palm+Havas won Michelob Ultra in 2009 and re-positioned it from a woman's diet beer to an active lifestyle beer. We were responsible for TV, Social, Print, Radio, OOH and -- as lead IMC agency – integrating all partner agencies. During my tenure, Ultra became AB’s fastest growing beer with a 30.9% increase in sales from 2009 to 2014. It wasn’t always a party. Spokesman Lance Armstrong was cranky. The testing protocol for creative was borderline insane. And living through the company’s transition from AB to AB-InBev was interesting to say the least. When we parted ways in 2015, it had become the 10th largest beer brand with sales growth of 10.3% or more for each of the previous 3 years. Not bad for a beer that tastes like water.
2014 Television
2014 Television
2014 Television
We brought them onto Facebook and twitter (with lots of age-gates).
Brand Print
Brand Print
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Promotional Print (printed on both sides)
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The Humane Society of the United States consists of different groups that look after the needs of different animals. This meant lots of different logos. To help them unify their efforts, we created a new mark that works as a logo system, giving each group their own iconography that comes together into a single logo for the parent organization. Instead of a jumble of logos in print materials and brochures, there was now one. Seems simple, but it was game changing for the organization. We also helped them craft a simpler, more powerful mission statement, turning paragraphs of words into the memorable: Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty.
Collateral materials.
The modular logo was designed to function on their site as navigation.
In email and social, the logo was designed to help differentiate between causes. Shortly after launching the logo system for the Humane Society of the United States, the International Humane Society asked us to create the same type of system for them.
These two facebook apps for OfficeMax and Ursus Vodka were both honored with Favorite Website Awards (FWAs).
We created this holiday facebook experience for OfficeMax to build upon the success of Elf Yourself in a way that bolstered sales. Here, visitors enter a holiday village of games to play with the ability to win points redeemable for online purchases and in-store coupons.
Any vodka drinker can tell you that “ursus” is latin for “bear.” That’s why triple-distilled Ursus Vodka has a Polar Bear on its label. To bring Ursus into the world of social media we brought him to life in Bearaoke -- a karaoke facebook app. This interactive experience allowed fans to sing-along to the most wonderfully cheezy songs we could afford.
Sprint was the largest client at Havas, with over 100 people on the team. As ECD on the account, I was involved with key client relations, key projects and overseeing multiple creative directors who, in turn, managed over 30 creatives. It was a talented group. We were responsible for direct, digital, B2B, email, social and mobile communications for new product launches, consumer loyalty and acquisition programs. Despite years of solid growth and strong relationships, we lost the business (along with Goodby) when a new CMO handed everything to Digitas without even meeting his agencies. That’s how the ad cookie crumbles.
This video showcases some of the DM and digital work we did for Sprint with a bouncy music track.
When Sprint launched the world’s first 3D phone, we created the world’s first simulated 3D movie trailer and let everyone be the star. The campaign had over 6 million hits in just 3 weeks and the phone set new sales records for Sprint.
We built a micro-site heralding Sprint’s green initiatives in conjunction with the launch of the Reclaim, Samsung’s Eco-friendly phone.
Most old phones end up in drawers. We piloted a “Let it Go” program through DM, social and print designed to look like personal ads that personified people’s phones while encouraging them to finally do the right thing and recycle them.
As part of the launch of a new suite of education apps and tablets, we created an interactive DM piece included an inspirational series of films showcasing real teachers who were benefitting from the new technology.
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The recipe for Michelob was created in 1896 by Adolphus Busch. It was brewed in small quantities to be a "draught beer for connoisseurs." Arguably, this was the first craft beer. That's the true story we told when we re-positioned Michelob as the home for mega-brewer Anheuser Busch's craft beers in TV, print, OOH, packaging, in-store and digital. We somewhat successfully disassociated them with the mother-ship, creating a new, stand-alone brewery -- the Michelob Brewing Company. It's still part of the official tour. For a time, they created some pretty unique beers and even did well in festivals. When the InBev buyout happened, AB decided to start buying craft breweries instead of making them (Red, Hook, Goose Island, Breckenridge). One of the Michelob Brewing Company's beers, Shock Top, became so successful, they invented a brewery for it, too.
Here's an encapsulation of everything we did to reposition Michelob and create The Michelob Brewing Company.
Television
Television
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Television
We built a web site experience to reflect Michelob's craft beer heritage.
Foam as rorschach test? We invented an online game encouraging drinkers to send in pictures of the strange things spotted in foam.
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Andy Goeler, now the CEO of Goose Island, talks about what we accomplished for Michelob.
Some brands just aren’t meant to survive. By the time we started working with Blockbuster they were getting the Netflix kicked out of them on one side and RedBoxed to the head on the other. We identified the only point of difference they had – through a loophole, they had access to some movies almost a month sooner than their competition. It kept them alive a year longer than predicted.
Founded in 1949, Circuit City was THE electronics superstore of the 80’s and 90’s. Sadly, their bricks-and-mortar format became impossible to maintain in the 00’s. We tried to keep them going by leveraging their one price promise, their new Firedog service and in-store pick-up in this campaign directed by Mike MaGuire at MJZ – but, like I told the police, they were dead when we got there.
Ironically, Blockbuster tried to buy Circuit City for a billion dollars in 2008 but their bid failed. I can’t imagine why.
TV and Web
A year after we shot the raccoon spot, the lead actor won the academy award for Best Screenplay (The Descendants).
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On the heels of Best Buy’s successful launch of The Geek Squad, Circuit City realized they needed to create their own IT support brand. They had the name firedog and a logo. I led the pitch to win the account and helped create the rest of the brand story. Our work included in-store materials, kiosk design, customer journey, uniform and vehicle designs, TV, print and radio. The strength of this relationship led to us winning the Circuit City business a year later without a review. It was fun while it lasted.
Turns out creating a brand from scratch is a lot of fun.
I convinced the client to launch a firedog energy drink along with the service and sell it in their stores. It became a hit in its own right -- their second biggest selling food SKU.
We tried to make everything about this brand interesting, including making sure firedog technicians had sweet smelling breath. These were also sold at checkout.
Even those who carry these cards need to know it's not just a job. It's a mission.
It wasn't all glamour. Interfacing with the internal team at Circuit City on the weekly circulars was a critical part of the business.
Launch TV
Launch TV
What is inside that thing? Springs? Coils? Few categories are as mysterious as mattresses. And the term "Mattress Salesman" conjures up a host of images - none of them good. While it's hard to get excited about mattresses, dreams can be pretty awesome. I've always liked how these TV spots turned out, positioning your Serta mattress as a ticket to dreamland. Emotive. Soothing. Weird without seeming silly. Just like real dreams.
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In 2013, I started working with Havas/Impact, to help build the experiential side of their business. They were great at sampling. But experiential - with its natural ties to digital and social - wasn't something they were excelling at. I think it is one of the most fun mediums to work in and was thrilled to help out. Together, we've won business for Birds Eye, Wells Fargo, Lysol, Peet's Coffee, General Mills and more.
In support of Healthing -- Lysol's corporate mission to position themselves as a brand that cares about the overall health of moms and families -- we created a Pediatrician's office on wheels to visit communities where not all moms have regular access to the advice of doctors.
Thanks to its roots as an industrial strength cleaner, people don't naturally associate Lysol with luxury and pampering. When it came time to launch their Touch of Foam hand soap, we countered that perception by creating a spa just for hands. From a celebrity event in New York City to the parking lots of your local WalMart.
To help re-connect today's athletes with the classic brand Wheaties, we created a unique event at Tough Mudder... and a unique way to eat them.
From veggie burgers to energy beer.
From the Cubs Program Parody
Gardenburger 2.0
Catalogue
This ran in the suburban paper and someone was so offended they taped a nasty note to the door in the wee hours. I consider this a victory.
Won the pitch with this campaign. Tested great in America. Died in Canada.
Gardenburger 1.0
Packaging
Enjoy this carefully preserved collection of work from the past.
I pitched and won Subway at Hal Riney and Partners and ran the account for 8 years. During that time, they became the fastest growing franchise in history. We produced crazy amounts of work. I coined the term Sandwich Artist. Gave speeches in front of thousands of franchisees. We even launched the low fat/fresh platform they still use. I left to start RPA just after meeting a kid in Bloomington, Indiana named Jared. We did everything for Subway, including this spot - their very first national commercial. Back then, they wouldn't let us spend more then 50 thousand dollars per spot.
This spot won a Cannes Lion. We had to produce it way in advance of the air date for a convention. Ironically, a particularly vocal bottler complained loudly about being sick of seeing it all the time when - surprise - it hadn't even aired yet. Ladysmith Black Mambazo did the music.
For the launch of Mortal Kombat 3, we hid frames of game codes within the TV spot and leaked word on gaming chat rooms (remember those?) that these codes unlocked hidden moves in the game. The only way to get them was to record the spots on your VCR (remember those?) and find them frame by frame. People did. And MK3 became the biggest game launch in history... at least for a few months.
What ever happened to Kinkos? Don't blame me. We did some pretty cool work for them back when I was at Hal Riney and Partners, including a series of ads featuring real customer success stories. They were doing great when I left.
When Frosted Flakes wanted to flirt with snacking, we created this homage to intermission at the movies. Interestingly, we contacted Film Mac - a Chicago based company that did the original Intermission films and they said they'd make this for a whopping 10 thousand dollars. We paid 40 times that. I wish we'd taken them up on their offer. Maybe they'd still be in business.
When I was a kid, 7UP was my favorite drink. I consider myself lucky to have worked on the business for a number of years at Leo Burnett. I was the co-inventor of "Spot," a character who not only was featured in their advertising, but also made them millions in licensing. Stuffed animals. Video games. Fridge magnets. For awhile, he was everywhere. This commercial ran for years during the holidays. My mom would always call me when she saw it.
I worked with Gardenburger at Riney and RPA. It was, at the time, the number one veggie patty. They have a great story. After working with Paul Wenner, the founder, I even became a vegetarian for a couple of years. This spot ran on the last episode of Seinfeld, an event the media dubbed, "The Superbowl For Women." Unfortunately, Gardenburger executives played coy when it came to being acquired -- rejecting initial offers from Kellogg's and General Mills. All they could do was watch as their two competitors (Boca and Morningstar) were bought, well-funded and suddenly hogging all the space in the freezer. This was Samuel L. Jackson's first ever commercial, and boy was he excited.
I wanted these spots for Solo Cups and Plates to feel like a series of short films. We did a bunch, with David Wild, directing. You'd be surprised how many people use plastic dishes every day. I've seen them in focus groups. It's a bit scary.
I worked on John Deere for many years at Hal Riney. This spot, directed by Leslie Dektor, was a favorite.
A toucan? A tiger? When I worked on Kellogg's, I invented a Chicken-Wolf-Moose-Pig, now trending on eBay.
A small collection of curious things I've done.
For some crazy reason, when clients had limited funds, I found myself volunteering to direct the spots myself. This happened a lot. And when it happened, I'd always shoot more than they asked for. Since I wrote most all of these spots, at least I didn't have to suck up to creatives on set.
When an arcade game suddenly flashes and makes strange noises to lure people over, it's called attraction mode. I convinced our clients at Williams Entertainment to let us go out and shoot a series of "attraction mode" films for them to project loudly above their booth at the E3 show in Los Angeles. There were no scripts. No boards. Just my promise they would be weird in a good way. The films had the desired effect with large numbers of confused people drifting over to see wtf was going on.
When we moved into our new offices at RPA, there was only one place in the hood to eat. And we ate there every day. Every single day. Eventually, we traded ads for food so we could eat at a discount. Wrote them by the dozen. Not sure they needed the ads. I think they just felt sorry for us.
Our office was trying to make a story about a supposed chicken wing shortage in the days before the Super Bowl for Kraft. While driving to work, I spontaneously decided to create a wing-obsessed character. I filmed myself and posted my crazy rants on YouTube. While it didn't exactly go viral, it did get some press and earned me a certain reputation.
One of the best things we can do for brands is find ways for them to be part of popular culture. It's the opposite of "advertising." I had the crazy idea of turning an event at a Potbelly into a festival worthy documentary film. Potbelly was not the star. There was no hard sell. But when you watch the film, Potbelly seems like a really cool place. Damian Riddell and Foundation Content agreed to shoot this project for next to nothing. The film was set to play at festivals and then air on the Discovery Channel. Unfortunately, Potbelly got mad at Jef for some undisclosed reason and pulled the plug at zero hour. That's the film biz for ya. If you've got 29 minutes to kill, fire up the microwave and make yourself some popcorn.
I found an actor in casting who I thought would be great in a Diet 7UP commercial we were shooting. He was funny and fat -- but not too fat. He had a part in a show on Broadway at the time, so he asked for scale and a half. I told our client he was worth it. That's how we ended up with this John Goodman guy in our commercial.
My first writing assignment on my first day at work at my first job was to write a ten second tag for a free M&M snack pack inside specially marked boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Just saying those words takes almost ten seconds. But that didn't stop me from presenting 47 different scripts. Forty seven. 10+10+10+10+7 = 47. That was quite a meeting.
While in college I wrote for some friends who had graduated into the real world and were creating strange, parody publications. The first one, an Onion-like version of the Sun Times (before the Onion even existed) was a huge hit. The second one was an attempt to capitalize on the Cubs rare appearance in the playoffs. In typical fashion, the Cubs lost just as this hit the newstands, making it a hugely funny failure.
The PizzleCo family of companies includes PizzleCo Persuasion, PizzleCo Ditties, PizzleCo Novelties and PizzleCo Pictures. What began 20 years ago as an old fashioned novelty company behind innovations like, The Stick, Suppositives, Mr. Chub, The Pocketuey and PinWheel Pasties has grown over the years to include a marketing arm, a record label and a production company. What's next for PizzleCo? Stay tuned.
Shot on a shoestring. Played well in festivals. Even the rejection letters thanked us for submitting The Best Short Film Ever Made.
Please enjoy this vintage recording of the PinWheel Pasties Theme song. Once the ubiquitous flagship offering from PizzleCo Novelties, PinWheel Pasties in their original packaging are now highly sought after by collectors.
In the days before Kickstarter, we raised over a million dollars with this teaser. Sadly, we thought we needed twice that. Somewhere in a box is a VHS tape with the previously unheard-of David Arquette and Noah Wyle auditioning together for the two leads.
I recently came across this letter in an old journal of mine regarding a script that came within an eyelash of getting made. Back then, I had not heard of the actors Mr. Oz was approaching. I have now.
Like a second chance lottery drawing, some scripts keep coming back. This project is kinda-sorta in pre-production (again), with Alexander Roos directing.
