Creative Director/Brand Storyteller
A new smash burger joint with a saucy name deserves a cheeky voice and mischievous visuals. We were happy to deliver with playful lines and a mash-up of retro pin-up images wrapped in modern art direction. The launch of this eatery at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was a huge success inspiring many social posts and the selling a whole lot of merch.
F1 tearing up the Las Vegas Strip is the catalyst for a slew of spectacles. The collection of activations happening at Bellagio, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and ARIA is affectionally known as MGM Zone. We were tasked with branding the endless parties, shopping and meet & greets. To stand out from the mass of ads, we went minimalist, leveraging animated color vortexes and matching F1 cars against a rich black to communicate everything from speakeasy pop-ups to special menus. The aesthetic successfully stood out against the cacophony of color around The Strip. The first video below, however, belongs to the Bellagio Fountain Club, which offers prime seating and gourmet dining to a lucky few. We hired an animator to illustrate an F1 car racing around the iconic Bellagio Fountains, then interspersed that footage with clips from the previous year to communicate the energy and elevation of BFC. The BFC sold out and the activations were well attended.
The 2023 brand campaign introduced the platform: You Do You, and featured animated graphics that enhanced the lifestyle imagery, highlighting the bold and unique experiences to be had at a Gila Resort & Casino. In 2024, we were tasked with creating a more tactical version of the brand campaign that would showcase Gila’s various amenities and brand partnerships. I was the third creative director to be tapped to lead this initiative. I showed up on set and took it from there. The two-day shoot covered video and stills across five verticals: sports, gaming, dining, resort and entertainment. We developed assets for OOH, paid social, digital display and airport placements, over 200 in all.
How close are Luxor and Mandalay Bay to Allegiant Stadium and T-Mobile Arena? So close you can walk. Even in the desert heat. With drinks in your hand. To leverage this proximity, we developed The Fan District – a brand whose sole purpose was to amplify the many bars, restaurants and activations surrounding game day. We shot social-first video and stills, and designed a logo and signage, all to convey the high energy and spontaneous fun to be had.
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 I created our affable, but clueless pool guy. I wrote the scripts and produced the spots. Then I built a website to help consumers find their local AquaValue store. I’m pretty handy with WordPress.
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. My ideas and writing helped OH win 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. Unfortunately, just as the teaser campaign hit the streets, the pandemic put an end to the launch campaign before it could be developed.
WEBSITE
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 theme of which was “Spark.” The collateral pieces and ads that follow branded UAG as a modern, forward-thinking company.
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. The spots below, both of which I wrote and were created on a limited budget, ran in Las Vegas and offered a conceptual departure from your typical cancer center ad.