Friday, February 27, 2009

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.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

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.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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.

The Park Central Hotel

One of the original re-inventors of South Beach, Tony Goldman asked the TS&P agency to help their company (Goldman Properties) revitalize their logo and collateral materials for The Park Central Hotel. Having feel in love with the art deco beauty that is South Beach myself, this was a dream assignment – especially since The Park Central is one of the Art Deco Preservation League's more noted buildings on Ocean Drive.

Goldman Properties had used heavyweight designers like Todd Oldham for their other South Beach properties like the T, so the bar was set pretty high. I began by studying authentic art deco alphabets and type from the 1920's. I then began sketching and putting letterforms together. After awhile I found solutions that made everyone happy.

Next was the brochure, it had to be contemporary and hip without losing the original art deco integrity. We hired Bruce Weber's one-time assistant Lynda Churilla to do some sexy lifestyle and property shots. The result was 18-page duotone and full-color beauty that showcased the history and luxury of the hotel. In the end, our team (Greg Wheeler and Soren Thielemann) received the ultimate compliment when the notably tough Mr. Goldman gave the team a grade of "A+."

Helmsley Hotels

While at the BS&P agency, the owner was close personal friends with the 'Queen of Mean' herself, Leona Helmsley and took on the Helmsley Hotels account right after her release from prison. So, we decided to turn this almost surreal moment in time into something that would help us by using her persona in the ad campaign. I guess this is what you call making lemonade out of lemons.

I started by rebranding the identity with a badge I found on a gate while photographing the six different hotels in New York City. This badge would serve as kind of a new look for the dated-looking existing logos. I then worked with photographer Bill Sumner to shoot detail shots of all the properties as well. One of the better shots was when we used the reflection of The Park Lane from a lake in Central Park (see lower left corner of ad).

The work was well received and got various mentions in USA Today, The New York Post and The New York Observer. In fact, some of the ads are still posted in Grand Central Station today. Talk about a woman with staying power...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Nickelodeon Latin America

My company competed against several Miami agencies to win the Nickelodeon Latin American account. Our first trade campaign targeted cable executives in Argentina and consisted of print and direct mail. One print execution featured actual Nickelodeon executives wearing masks from characters of their #1 show The Rugrats in a conference room and read, "Successful cable operators connect with kids, do you?"

Our trade campaign competed against some 3,600 entries from around the world to win the "World-Class Award" at the 21-st annual BDA Awards held in New York City. AD/CD: Me. Copy: Piper Hickman and Debbie Reznik-Meija. Photog: Louis Jay

MTV Networks, Inc.

My first job in New York was at an agency owned by a couple ex-MTV creators named Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman. We handled all the advertising for MTV Networks, Inc. including; VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick At Nite, and even introduced Comedy Central. The creatives were Noel Frankel, Tom Godici, Norm Magnusson, Bill Horvath, Bill Burnett and myself. I couldn't have asked for a hipper place and a nicer group of people. On most days, we'd have anyone from John Leguizamo, Drew Carey, Paulie Shore, The B-52s, Harry Connick, Jr. to Sting in our offices.

We worked with many of NYC's hottest artists like Lou Brooks, Jenny Holzer, Janet Woolley, Chip Simons, Al Jaffe and Charlex. In addition to MTV, we also did the advertising for Barq's Root Beer and put then unknowns like John Leguizamo and Drew Carey in their first-ever, tv commercial.

I worked mostly on logos, trade ads, billboards and direct mail for MTV. Above and below are a few samples of some of my work and a photo of some of the crew being weird.