Creative Director/Brand Storyteller
OH Partners called needing help with their pitch for Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. How could I say no? I worked with their team to develop two conceptual directions for Virgin’s new Las Vegas venture. OH won the business, and I got called back to help with the teaser campaign. For the latter, I suggested a website: whileyouwaitlv.com, to create anticipation for the grand opening. It’s now live and generating buzz.
Launched over 50 years ago by a small group of luxury pool builders, UAG has grown into a multi-million dollar company comprised of commercial and residential builders, pool retailers and service professionals. I was tasked with evolving the corporate brand for the next 50 years of growth. I created a new lead generation website to attract new members, and a print campaign, as well as a number of collateral pieces. The video below was developed to introduce the new brand to the company shareholders at the annual conference.
The budget was miniscule. The challenge: to give Crystal Geyser a personality, was huge. I called up a friend with the biggest personality I knew. Hired him to be “The Water Guy.” Myself and a tiny crew ran around San Francisco filming our new spokesman and his homemade water pack as he introduced Crystal Geyser to random people. Crystal Geyser sales rocketed. And my friend became a neighborhood celeb–and the currently stars as Big Baby in Cirque du Soleil’s Mystere.
United Aqua Group’s retail brand, AquaValue, was in deep need of an overhaul. My challenge was to carve a unique brand space within the already crowded pool store market. We wanted to position the brand as the local experts, a store you could count on for advice and repairs as well as products. And that’s how our affable, but clueless pool guy was born. We filmed a bunch of web videos and built a website to help consumers find their local AquaValue store.
A private venture to offer Nevadans a state-of-the-art comprehensive cancer treatment center close to home, NCI offered a simple message: hope thrives in the desert.
When Montbleu bought the Caesar’s Casino in Lake Tahoe, they decided to take the resort in a new, more Vegas direction. That meant a hip bar, sleek ultra lounge, and advertising that conveyed a youthful, irreverent brand. We played up the juxtaposition between nightlife and wildlife. A few days after our spot aired, life imitated art: an actual bear ventured into the parking lot.
In 2000, Macy’s hired Arnold Worldwide to come up with a TV campaign that would stand out from the typical retail spots they ran. A rookie writer at the time, I was given a shot at writing scripts. I came up with this idea for stream-of-consciousness that would imagine what Macy’s shoppers think about when they are browsing items. The client loved the two spots below (1 video montage). The rest was production history.