Penn & Teller

The bad boys of magic reached out to Caesars’ in-house ad agency for their post-pandemic brand campaign. In their tradition of relying on conceptual imagery centered on macabre humor, we brainstormed a number of scenarios. About a 100, actually. Tacked them all on a wall. We culled these ideas down and offered two dozen concepts. Penn & Teller were thrilled with the breadth of ideas. The hardest part was whittling those down to a lucky four for executing. We shot and retouched these with our in-house photography team.

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MGM + F1

When F1 rolls into town, the task is two-fold: Develop sales materials and a campaign for the marquee Bellagio Fountain Club featuring an uber luxe experience, and showcase the collection of spectacles happening at Bellagio, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and ARIA affectionally known as MGM Zone.

The first video below was developed for task one. 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.

Then we branded 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. We worked with Laundry Studio to create the animations for our hero video and social channels. The aesthetic successfully stood out against the cacophony of color around The Strip.

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Naughty Patty’s

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 campaign unfolded with a phase one teaser that embodied a modern take on vintage movie theater concession films. During phase two, we introduced Patty herself in all her innuendo glory. I invented the brand voice, collaborated on art direction and oversaw all shoots, creating assets that ran on on property, on marquees and across social channels. The launch of this eatery at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was a huge success.

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MGM Grand National Harbor

National Harbor’s ask: create assets for broadcast, CTV and paid social with their positioning: It hits different. Be cinematic and sophisticated they said. And speak to these targets: The Night Movers, The Power Players and The Gamers. We presented three Big Ideas doing their 360 thing. Each anchored in strategy and oozing with stylized leisure. All social-forward. All demo-savvy. They chose Main Character Energy.

After vetting directors and photographers, we selected Supermutt and Mathieu Young to bring our vision to life. It was a weeklong production with a number of highly talented folks collaborating on this $500k project. We delivered a 30-second mini-movie for each guest profile. The :15s and :06s too. And a 30-second master story. Print, digital, paid and organic followed. All giving fresh retro. Breaking the fourth wall. Bringing viewers into the story. And, best of all, daring everyone to Make a Scene.

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Virgin Hotel Las Vegas

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, including a record player we sent featuring a branded message recorded on a custom record, 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. The website showcased construction development and venue announcements alongside random content purely sourced for its entertainment value.

Unfortunately, just as the teaser campaign hit the streets, the pandemic put an end to the launch campaign before it could be developed. This is the manifesto video and concepts we put together for the pitch. When Virgin finally opened, their launch campaign had revised messaging to better align with the consumer mindset post-Covid, but the art direction was very much modeled after the campaign I developed with my partner.

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AquaValue Retail Stores

United Aqua Group’s retail brand, AquaValue, was in deep need of an overhaul. Since each shop is individually owned, consumers were unaware that they were part of a larger collective, able to negotiate supplier contracts together to achieve better pricing while still retaining their mom & pop feel. 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, cast, art directed and produced the spots—negotiating with those same suppliers to pay for the production in exchange for highlighting their brands. Then I built a website to help consumers find their local AquaValue store. The shops, who received the finished spots at no cost, aired them in their respective regions across local TV channels and even jumbo screens at minor league baseball games.

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Crystals

The shops at City Center in Las Vegas are some of the most exclusive flagships in the world. Think Prada, Tom Ford, Louis Vuitton and the like. The uber nature of these boutiques can be a little intimidating. You won’t find a Gap here. The least expensive item at the time was a $9 pickle at Wolfgang Puck’s. So I created a campaign that lent some whimsy to the art of luxury consumerism. We shot the models, snake and products, individually, then old-school composited all the elements to create the images below.

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Vdara

In a city with four spas per block, differentiating oneself from the competition isn’t easy. Fortunately, the Vdara Hotel has a key advantage: it’s serene ambiance. It’s the only Strip destination without a casino, and where the spa is the highlight amenity. The strategy positioned Vdara as the place to escape Vegas while still close enough to enjoy it. The photography and copy capture this serenity, delivering a sense of authentic bliss that’s absent from most spa advertising.

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El Encanto

SK+G Advertising in Las Vegas rehired my partner and I to pitch the lucrative Orient-Express North America account, which included NYC’s famous 21 Club among other bespoke destinations. “Embrace Anonymity,” our pitch campaign for launching the revival of Santa Barbara’s famous El Encanto hotel, which Orient-Express had purchased and chosen to restore to its former 1930s glory, leveraged the hotel’s history as a hideaway for Hollywood’s movers and shakers.

I wrote every word with a delightful wink to old Hollywood. The campaign won the account, and we launched most of it with hardly a note to the copy.

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