BENCRUZ

KRUPS was about to introduce a whole new line of breakfast appliances to the US market. It wouldn't be easy – the market had become increasingly crowded.

Most people recalled KRUPS' coffee machines, but little else.

Consumers felt that KRUPS was very German: respectable, precise, technical, sleek. But it was lacking in the one thing many of the millennial foodies and coffee connoisseurs were looking for: Emotion.

How do we turn that German attention to detail into passion? What if that attention to detail showed others just how much you cared? Carefully considered details that delight. And, delighting the ones you love. A duality that became a consistent visual theme in the work.

We asked consumers to choose a company that truly Delights in the Details. The one that, just like you, takes that extra little step to bring others pleasure.

Broadcast focused on the emotional aspect of the Delight in the Details campaign and ran nationally.

Digital Videos were more focused on the product details that delight and appeared in pre-rolls and social on Facebook and youtube, collectively garnering over 1.5 million views and counting.

A successful digital campaign that is currently being implemented at the global level.

1. Optimized Media for Ducati’s 2016 bikes.

Ducati reached out when July sales came in much softer than anticipated. The task? To make up for the weak sales with a targeted social media campaign that could pump a quick burst of adrenaline into the market for August, the last big month of the riding season.

Through social listening, we determined the most engaging messages for this period should revolve around three pillars: Seasonal urgency, a strong value message promoting a rare opportunity for Ducati lovers, and messaging for newbies who always wanted to ride, but needed a little gentle nudge to finally get going.

With the short timeline, there wouldn't be enough time to capture new assets. I'd have to work with existing footage and photography to create messaging. Ducati is a brand built on movement; so we supported that dynamic however we could, by editing clips and still photography into short films and cinemagraphs.

Potential Ducati riders were served up posts on Facebook and Instagram.

I applied a novel media solution that allowed us to guarantee results. That's right. We guaranteed the results. How? By micro-testing creative, we could determine who was most likely to respond and convert based on our specific metrics. We then optimized the campaign in real time, weighting media and serving up the messaging that proved to be the most compelling, which maximized returns and ensured delivery against our goals.

The result
2.2 million impressions. 26,600 clicks (102% of the guaranteed number and a click-through-rate over 10X higher than the industry average). 649 leads for dealers, reaching half the historical cost per lead.

2. The 1260/1260S Diavel: Test Drives

Build an external lead capture system to generate sales leads for Ducati Dealers, specifically for the new 2019 Ducati Diavel 1260


Our methodology was to develop & optimize digital creative via A/B testing. 
Choose platform & placement according to conversion rates
 Utilize Facebook marketing tools to create several outreach programs (look-alike list, interests and lead gen tools)


Working with Ardent Partners we built a parallel direct marketing system to 
the existing Ducati Website Lead Generation Mechanism (The Diavel 1260 landing page.)
 We generated leads for the Ducati Diavel 1260 
with a parallel direct marketing system
 then funneled the qualified leads

to the DUCATI dealerships. The hand-off of generated leads was direct to dealers with an automated system and concierge call center. In the end 247 leads were assigned to the dealers.

The O.G. of detangler brushes needed a historic launch, so we set about creating a campaign that was eons in the making. Once we created the campaign Mark Lowe my creative partner and myself directed this spot that got a standing ovation at the launch.

When LA based 80s beauty brand wet n wild needed to get wetter an wilder in order to boost their sales by 30%, they turned to me.

Outspent and outperformed in the beauty aisle, wet n wild needed a splashy reset. After conducting an extensive look at the brand, we discovered that it wasn't that wet n wild didn't have name recognition. In fact, women fondly remembered wet n wild as the first eyeliner or lipstick they stole from the drugstore. The problem was once these younger carefree girls became women, they graduated to other "safer" brands. The challenge was to translate that original passion for the brand into long term loyalty.

So we told them just because your goes through some pretty dramatic life changes as we mature... More important jobs. Deeper relationships. Even having kids. ...doesn't mean you can't reserve a little wildness too. After all, once a badass, forever a badass.

So we encouraged them to "Stay Wild." We reached out to these confident, sassy wild ones where they lived and played. Mobile, social, point of sale, digital video and television were all reimagined and given our unique interpretation of what "Staying Wild" meant, while we constantly monitored the work to make sure we were always serving up the most effective messaging.

The impact was immediate: 30% rise in sales.
Expanded distribution coast to coast. And a very happy client. An evergreen brand platform with sales that would make anyone wildly happy?

As you can imagine, these aren't purchases you make all that often. Or that you typically spend a lot of time thinking about. Nope, you usually get the cheapest one that seems good. And use it until it dies. Then repeat.

What if there were occasions when only the best would do? We looked for those moments where "This calls for Rowenta." Authentically relatable slice of life moments, when you really want to look your best.

The budget was modest to say the least. So we squeezed every last droplet of steam out of it. Like shooting supporting video while shooting our assets for print and digital.

The campaign proved popular. So popular, they decided to make it their umbrella campaign for their Air Purifiers launch as well. Challenging brand assignments? Give me a call.

We discovered BET had long been the go-to network 
for people who love black culture. But with an increasingly saturated market, the brand needed to reaffirm its position as the leader of what’s hot, what’s next, and what matters. In this 360º campaign, I reasserted the primacy of the network for everyone 
who loves black culture with one single-minded idea.

Our challenge was in discovering what was unique to BET that we could leverage towards a successful rebranding campaign. Through careful exploration of the network’s programming repertoire and audience, we determined that BET content was specifically directed at those who tend to be marginalized in the media for their race, sexuality, or background. It was our support for the BET audience that inspired our campaign tagline: “Nobody’s got you like we got you.”

Trust. It's the basis for how we relate to our world. Without it, we're lost. Trust tells us we're safe. Trust can relieve our stresses. Removes paralyzing uncertainty. And allows us to be the most confident version of ourselves. With Trust, we get the permission to take chances. To push past our limited comfort zone. Trust makes us more efficient. Including with heat, once you know you are using TFal it puts your mind at ease. It just takes..Trust. —T-fal. Heat. Mastered. We developed the campaign on this insight and shot the spots. They have been translated to a few different markets since. Just took a little trust.

Charolotte’s Web has had the distinction of changing the mind of Dr. Sanja Gupta into a medical believer. For this reason they are perfectly position to change the mind and hearts of communities around the nation.

As part of Charlotte’s Web charge of Hemp education and raising the awareness of the benefits that range from calm, focus, anti anxiety and recovery from exercise induced inflammation from this ingredient we will create the first ever CBD mixology competition .

Revered the world over by 3 star Michelin restaurants. And just about any chef that takes their craft seriously. When you think about the world's venerated cooking brands, even those who aren't professionals know the name. And now All-Clad wanted help expanding their customer base. Expanding their base wasn't the challenge. Expanding their base without losing your authenticity among those who make them so legendary, that's a different story.

Using social listening tools, we discovered All-Clad fans were a legion. And connected with the brand in ways most people don't. A very real passion. A truly aspirational brand. Their customers took great pride in their All-Clad cookware. Going so far as to post their purchases on their social media feeds. A brand that ignited the passion of All-Clad’s cooks as well as their kitchen. Finding actual posts about All-Clad we recreated those moments of excitement in a 360 campaign.

Brand development for an online academic community of 23 different schools with a single url for the Paris Chamber of Commerce.

The first thing my team did was to spend 2 months interviewing, students, instructors, and the Paris Chamber of Commerce. I developed specific questions for each group to get at how they each wanted to use this online community. This was imperative in inform my thinking.

Comments about mixing, collection, parts, shaking it up, kept rising up. A place where all these different entities; schools, students, faculty, administration, industries, and parents could come together and mix. A true learning environment to share knowledge in a secure place across multiple disciplines. My response took the form of a cocktail shaker. Specifically the top where the collection of ingredients spill out.

The design of the Shaker logomark was a series of circles. The outer most circles represents the community as a whole while the circles that reside within are the community of academic users.

After developing wireframes we designed a responsive website that leverages iconography that represented the different functionality of the community. Now each user could have a public profile, deposit work, blog, create a group, organize a event, share teaching tools, recruit, post portfolios and much, much more.

When the most distilled and award-winning Vodka of all time asked me to design its new communication platform for the US market, I didn’t want to say no. My team attacked the project with an intensive research phase that taught us everything we needed to know about Purity’s distinguishing attributes. Through client interviews and conversations with wholesalers, we discovered that Purity had not only been awarded Vodka of the Year – but had also won top honors in all seven categories of Vodka-dom. So why were competitors like Grey Goose and Kettle One stealing the buzz? Grey Goose was known as The World’s Best Tasting Vodka. Kettle One was known as Premium Distilled Vodka. What was Purity known as? No one really knew – and that was the problem that we needed to solve by giving Purity a strong brand identity that could be leveraged across media platforms.

The Purity consumer was intelligent and confident. The market demanded more craft spirits from artisanal brands with a unique story. What was Purity (besides the best)? Tastings with a variety of reps confirmed that the drink was balanced and crafted in taste, beautiful to the eye, smart in production, and generally sublime. These qualities became our brand attributes.

Now that we knew the consumer, the drink, and the market, it was time to develop a brand platform that was clever and sophisticated, yet witty enough to hold the attention of all those jaded, high-brow vodka connoisseurs. SUPERIOR TASTE. It was the right mix of catchy, provocative and – most importantly – true. After all, Purity was founded on excellent taste and tasteful clientele.

Our campaign was designed to highlight the complexity behind these attributes. Instead of shooting the product like every other brand, we chose to highlight the bottle’s facets by adding a customized pattern of colors and shadows to the print.

There was a time when all amazon.com did was sell books. Then they came to us with this idea of offering groceries. Working at Fly Communications I developed this campaign to start what would become the growing Amazon empire.

Launch a new category? Why yes thank you.

Jeff Bezos tasked us at FLY with developing a campaign that captured this new way of enjoying books, newspapers, and blogs. We realized that that having access to “80,000 books in the palm of your hands” was a very compelling argument to setting down those heavy text books.. The landscape was defined, since then there have been copies but the original image we created at FLY became the one that defined an entirely new product category.

The traffic hitting the Amazon landing page so far above expected projections that Amazon quickly sold out, they announced a 3-4 month back-order period. Amazon Kindle has been a success ever since.

While at Fly, Pernod Ricard asked for a multichannel campaign that answered the question of why so much responsibility messaging falls on deaf ears. It was less about deaf ears and more telling about the excuses we tell ourselves when we choose to get behind the wheel of a car. Filling the glass with those excuses created an iconic irrefutable campaign. The campaign was a success from a PR standpoint and went on to be translated into 5 different languages throughout North America, Europe, and Australia.

What do you get the clientele that has everything?
—A different kind of experience.

Every year Cartier invites their top clients during the Fall Biennale to preview their new Jewelry collection in different parts of the world.. For the 3rd consecutive year, Cartier asked us to develop an invitation and an itinerary leveraging "L'Odyssée de Cartier". My solution was to send iPads loaded with a dedicated App, especially developed for Cartier's clients during their high-end trip to Lisbon, Portugal.

We worked out detailed wireframes knowing that each of our users would need a specific itinerary tailored to their needs.

As part of our concept we decided to continue the panther's journey into Lisbon. We chose to create original illustrations featuring locations throughout Lisbon that the clients might travel to.

Next I found an illustrator (Mollie Little), who best captured the elegance of Cartier in their line. We worked with Mollie Little who developed a style that bridged both pen and ink and wash over 16 illustrations. On a parallel path we developed the code for the App that allowed us to update the client’s individual experience remotely.

Finally I housed the iPad and its App into a tailored made Cartier box and hand delivered the Lisbon Journey experience.

The Cantu brand had history and a loyal following, but very few consumers knew about the full range of Cantu products and that there is a product for every hair texture.

Through research, we learned that unlike the general market, consumers with textured hair aren’t swayed by celebrity endorsements or big brand names, but rather by testimonials from friends and fellow consumers. We also identified a growing trend within the natural hair community – "cocktailing" product recipes – and set out to reposition the Cantu brand as the expert of all things textured hair and your guide to get the style you want with Cantu.

So all we needed was a virtual megaphone, and a rallying cry: “My Curl. My Cantu.” We tapped into that robust online cocktailing community to help spread the word.

When the French Culinary Institute decided to 
refashion themselves as the International Culinary Center, 
they needed a new logo and a vision to unify their different programs and brands.
With this 360º campaign, I helped establish the International Culinary Center as a complete and comprehensive educational institution for the culinary arts.

I was honored to be part of an international brand team that was asked by Blueship International to bring the spirit of Okinawa, Awamori and introduce it to the audiences of the west. We traveled to Okinawa to lead an in-depth discovery session, we meet with three highly distinguish distillers of Awamori who graciously shared their stories and their culture with us.

Over the next 3 years we would create the Ryukyu 1429 brand story, and create a new bottle design that celebrated the heritage of this spirit. During that process we set up a Awamori Taste Wars competition in Reykjavik, Iceland leveraging the three distilleries, the competition has invited other European countries including; Germany, and Amsterdam.

I grew up with Blaxploitation films being one of the too few sources for people of color empowerment in cinema. Shaft, Super Fly, Three the Hardway, Coffy, Sweetback was my jam. Years later I was working with Leroy and Clarkson when they were approached to pitch AMC’s Mad Men 7th season promo. Mad Men was entering the 70s, and I had this idea about a Mad Men Blaxploitation mash up. Julian Bevan & I pitched this concept to the Mad Men team at AMC. The network people thought it was hilarious, but said they could never touch it in a million years. They did, however say; “you guys should do it” hinting that they might not sue us if we just went ahead and made it on our own dime. So Daniel Fries, ECD, owner of L+C, and Director in this case, decided to make the investment in this fan-boy trailer. In six scrambling weeks we produced Don-O-Mite, just in time for the Mad Men season premiere. A dedicated staff of super talented people came together to make this happen. I feel very fortunate to have been part of it.

Historically Buying media has at best been an exercise in guesswork. Marketers try to pick shows that are most likely to have an audience interested in purchasing their product. Brands spend millions of dollars and basically hope for the best. NBCU will improve those odds by introducing “Audience Targeting Platform” that identifies the best inventory across the TV inventory for specific advertising categories.

I worked with L+C in developing a multi-media 360º campaign for NBC Universal to announce a new way of buying media across all of their networks; NBC, Bravo, USA, SyFy, E!, Oxygen, and Esquire.

I created the campaign tagline “ALL TOGETHER. DIFFERENT.”.
— “All Together” Spoke to the unification of all of NBCU networks in this new way of buying media.. “Different” allowed the networks to retain their identities while also connoting we had something brand new for marketers and advertisers. We found that we could hang the strategy, positioning, and headlines off this tagline.

The “ALL TOGETHER. DIFFERENT.” campaign headline proved to have legs. We could use the line to speak to specific shows and networks depending on what those properties were known for. So in our teaser campaign we had; All together Entertaining, All together UnExpected, All together Newsworthy, and so on.

In the consistently changing environment of television this campaign lived to the ripe old age of 2 years as NBCU used it the following year due to it’s success.