Museum of Contemporary Art

One sees a little bit of everything on bus shelters these days – from a sexy model drinking a martini to an ad for wart removal. So when we approached designing an outdoor campaign for Miami's hip, contemporary art museum, we wanted to stick out in an unexpected way. So we took the typical types of headlines one would see on outdoor but gave them an extremely low price. The shock of seeing an oil change service for a mere five bucks definitely turned heads. And copy explains "Experience what contemporary art does for one's mind, admission $5." AD/Illustration: Chris Patir, CD/Copywriter: me.

Knight-Ridder

While at the BS&P agency, I was assigned to publisher Knight-Ridder (now McClatchey) and asked to sell their subscription-based service called 'Dialog.' An online tool for finding articles, abstracts and citations. Upon further research, I found the service could query upwards of 330 million different documents. I thought, "Wow, that's really pounding it out"– thus my jackhammer plugged into a computer idea. The print ad ran full spread in Fortune and BusinessWeek for several months. John Cohen was the photographer and Steve Horowitz wrote the copy.

The Exchange

A loft conversion in a landmark building in downtown a Fort Lauderdale, FL needed to make a hip statement for their young urban professional demographic, so my team at S/A came up with the 'Anti-Condo' campaign. We started by designing the identity based on a badge we found from researching the original, 80 year-old history of the building. We then engaged in full-blown guerrilla tactics that included a sidewalk picketing demonstration, condo commando models wearing blue wigs and wielding semi-automatic weapons, taxicab toppers, beer coasters strategically positioned at nearby bars, microsites – any 'anti' ploy to help reinforce our campaign. The work was so effective, sales records were even set in a slow economy. Creative team included Chris Pastir, Manny Prieres and Fred Adkins.

f.y.e / Spec's Music

We needed to inform Spec's Music's (now FYE) young customer base of the variety of benefits offered in their customer loyalty program called 'Payback.' Instead of talking about the specifics of the program in a coupon-like tone we found the more interesting aspects and handled them in a more fun, fashionable and educational way. Not only did my campaign dramatically increase membership, but it got existing cardholders to use their cards 25O% more. The print portion of the campaign ran full page in magazines throughout Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Puerto Rico. A few from the campaign are shown below. Miguel Caballero and I wrote copy.

Hardee's

I was part of the creative team that created a campaign called 'Real Food. Real People.' for Hardee's, the nation's the third-largest burger chain. Reporting directly to Rick Boyko at Ogilvy & Mather/NY, I was responsible for designing such things as in-store displays, billboards, print ads and tv spots. We filmed folks at franchises all across the country enjoying their meals and telling their stories.

Soccer Madness

At one time, I handled the work for Soccer Madness owned by Sam Zighelboim. It was one of the nation's largest direct mail catalogs of soccer apparel and equipment based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We designed ads, brochures, apparel graphics, bus graphics, and even created brands such as Balistica – which became one of his more popular. The company was later sold to Star Struck / ProTeam and the very popular company no longer exists in its original form. One of my Soccer Madness logos was honored in the Communication Arts Design Annual, a juried competition that receives some 26,000 entrants each year.

American Express

When I was at Ogilvy & Mather - New York, I worked with Ray Johnson and Marsha Murray on the American Express 'Charge Against Hunger' campaign. The program in which American Express donated three cents from every transaction to fight hunger. The tv spots featured Bill Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength (SOS), and aired on NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX networks raising $21 million. The campaign has been recognized as a leading example of effective cause-related marketing by industry and opinion leaders including the Harvard Business Review and BusinessWeek.

Capital Bank - Classic Checking

Most bank advertising is instantly forgettable, so when asked to do a newspaper campaign for checking accounts, I wanted to do something that would stick out and be noticed.

What's funny about checkbooks is that they're always handy and easy to grab and be used for things other than a banking instrument – like a windshield scraper or a doorstop. My partner Mitch Koch and I thought about these funny uses and made our campaign around them. We then took the mandatory hard-sell account information and subtly inserted one funny in the middle of it. The campaign ran in The Miami Herald and various newspapers throughout South Florida.




































Agency: BS&P. Photographer: Andrew Kaufmann.

American City Business Journals

When American City Business Journals was headquartered in Kansas City, my company proposed a national billboard campaign in which individual markets could snipe in their individual paper's masthead into an outdoor campaign. Although the corporate marketing director Bob Silvy loved the creative very much, his budget for the year had already been spent. Nonetheless, the creative is still for sale and while some publishing companies are having a tough go at it lately, I hope to have these ACBJ boards lovingly posted in your city someday soon. • Copywriting credit goes to Jim Houck.

Florida Gold Orange Juice

When you get an assignment for fresh squeezed orange juice, you know you're in Florida. Such was the case at the BS&P when we we're asked to do some tv commercials for Florida Gold Premium Select. Our first thought was to avoid the breakfast table drink n' smile clichés that you see in most cereal and juice ads. Next was the limited budget, which meant not using a high-priced director and a bunch of actors. So, we came up with an idea to do an affordable tabletop shoot with title cards. Our tongue-n-cheek execution was called 'Lick The Screen' and it was shot in Brooklyn with director Dominick Rossetti. We ended up cutting up some 70 different oranges to get the perfect slice shot. The music was done by Zen Music/NYC and the voice-over talent was the smooth and sexy voice of ex-NFL Films great, Earl Mann.

Credits include Jim Houck, Sherri Fritzson, Joe Perz and myself.

Flower Trading Corporation

Our client needed to identify the reason why their branded flowers (a type of distribution that goes directly to the florist) are superior to the flowers hand-picked at the wholesaler. So we arrived at an 'untouchable quality' strategy and used the headline, "How many people handle your flowers before you do?" The spread ad ran in flower trade publications and had a record number on inquiries for the company. The ad was featured in the 'Exhibit' section of Communication Arts magazine and won a National Addy award.

Credits include Steve Horowitz, Joe Perz, Steve Kupinsky and myself.

St. Regis Resorts

While at S/A, I completed a 6-minute video for St. Regis Resort & Residences, Bal Harbour. Phillip Ruesch's team at Canvas Films shot and edited the video starring Alicia Cervera Lamadrid showing Bal Harbour, Florida's premier address for couture living. We used several locations throughout the city – including some time at the world-renowned Bal Harbour Shops.

The pristine, oceanfront setting in Bal Harbour is St. Regis' newest addition since the hotelier began some 104 years ago at their Beaux Arts landmark in midtown Manhattan.

The creative team included T. Martin, D. Mereoff, J. Robertson and myself. The video can be viewed here.

Tri Rail

Tri Rail runs commuter trains in South Florida serving West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and the Miami area. The organization hired the BS&P agency to stimulate ridership with an advertising campaign.

For the television commercials we hired ex-SNL alum, parody director Matthew Meshekov to produce a series of funny spots. After looking at most of the available real people talent in Miami, we settled on a cast of 9 to act in our various spots.

The creative team included Rob Stewart, Joe Perz, Robert Maya, Sherri Fritzon and myself. The campaign received 'Best of Show' at the Show South advertising competition.

Miami Ad School

I was an instructor at the Miami Ad School the first 6 years it was open. It was an exciting time full of extremely talented students. Most of my students now have great careers at the top agencies around the country including – Bobby Appleby at Fallon, Lynn Sarnow-Born at CP+B, and Miguel Caballero at DDB.

Today the Miami Ad School has new partners and has branched out all over the world. It now boasts having schools in Berlin, Hamburg, Minneapolis, San Francisco, San Paulo and Madrid.

One year, I talked the owners Ron and Pippa Seichrist into letting me create some ads for the school. The campaign was a conceptual parody of the art school ads one might find in the back of a 50's magazine. The ads ran Miami's New Times and got quite a response. They also cleaned up at the award shows that year. Rob Stewart and myself shared the writing duty.

New Design Miami

My company was one of twenty featured in a chapter of Rockport Publishing's New Design Miami: The Edge of Graphic Design. The hardcover book captures the vibrant work and international flavor of the city's top creative firms. Eight pages of our work is displayed including advertising, logos, brochures, posters, illustration, title sequences and custom-designed typefaces.

New Design Miami can be purchased online at Amazon.com, or at any Barnes & Noble or Border's Booksellers. Rockport's series includes other cities like Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin.