I have a special place in my heart for everyone who's gone with me on the insane journey that is Madden. Year after year, raising the stakes and raising the absurdity. We got to make some amazing stuff and managed to put the Madden brand back on the map of cultural relevance in the mean time. Not bad work if you can get it.
The San Francisco General Hospital Foundation needed help launching a fundraising campaign to support an overburdened hospital working on the front lines of the city’s mental health crisis. So we created I AM THEIR PEOPLE, a campaign that asked San Francisco’s more fortunate to stand along side those who’ve simply run out of people to turn to. The campaign launched at the annual Hearts in SF charity dinner and featured a short film, an immersive audio gallery of patients stories and portraits, donation placards, and a custom Instagram filter let the support spread across social. The result? Hundreds of San Francisco residents and businesses pledged to Be Their People, resulting in over $5.5 million in donations.
Every financial services company talks about saving money. So to separate Transamerica from the fray, we stopped talking about wealth and started talking about health. Because if you retire with a robust 401K and withered ticker, well then you’ve missed the best thing about living to retirement - the living part. My team completely updated the brand, from a customer experience app built to help users form new habits to a visual systems overhaul across all digital and collateral. It was a true brand transformation - all the way down to the heart-unhealthy donuts that were removed from the cafeteria.
Sorry ‘bout that.
Ten years ago, EA came to Heat looking to turn its brand around. In the ensuing years, we went from talking about game features to talking about disrupting culture. We helped the brand expand beyond a shrinking core of gamers and appeal to a much wider range of folks who just wanted to be in on the latest latest. And we managed to help sell a lot more games in the process.
The U.S. Open is golf’s greatest challenge. But since it changes venues every year, ticket sales are a challenge as well, especially in our 4K coverage & Twitter highlights world. So to fill the galleries at the 118th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach we looked to history. More of golf’s iconic moments have happened at the Open than any other tournament in golf. And there’s only one way to witness history. Not on your phone. Not from your couch. You have to BE THERE.
The campaign helped the USGA hit their sales goals faster than they had in the last 10 years, ultimately selling out the tournament.
Credits: DIR/CW: Jon Korn
AD: Naomi Duckworth
Conde Nast needed help launching a new magazine that was all about shopping. It was basically Pinterest in magazine form. It was wildly successful. Then real Pinterest was invented and pretty much decimated the entire premise.
Texan pride is no joke. But awareness around the state’s new resource portal Texas.gov was. So we took over the state’s social channels to raise awareness (and pride) about skipping the line at the DMV, renewing online, and then getting back to doing what every one in Texas loves: being Texan.
Most agencies would love to work on THX. And when the business came up for review, we knew the competition would be formidable. So instead of just submitting a boiler-plate RFP and crossing our fingers that we’d get into the pitch, we decided to try and win the pitch there and then. Thus was born the first-ever interactive, playable RFP. It’s a total crowd-pleaser. And it totally worked. We won the business without creating a single piece of spec creative.
If you've never watched NFL Redzone, you really should. It's like mainlining football. You can watch every touchdown from every game live as they happen. It's amazing. It will give you ADD, but it's amazing.
In my not very ample spare time I write songs. Sometimes I even play them in public. And because 'WARREN COCKREL' will take up too much space on the marquee when I'm famous someday, I perform under the name SAM GUY. If you ask really nicely (or just click play) I'll sing you a song.
