UBS has a long history of supporting and fostering the arts.
They were looking to also launch a campaign designed to highlight their meticulous attention to detail as a financial institution.
We saw the opportunity to combine the two - and sought out the autistic English artist Stephen Wiltshire to create one of his amazing, meticulously drawn cityscapes as an example of what can happen when one pays strict attention to detail.
Crest was one of the leading toothpastes in the world - battling with its archival Colgate.
The conventional wisdom was that toothpaste - indeed, all oral care products - were designed to prevent cavities. Which is, of course, true.
But it also led to products that focused only on the negative - which made it difficult for consumers to form any kind of positive emotional connection to the brand.
The answer was this - not to remind people what they could avoid - but to remind them what was possible.
One spot in the long-running Get Out There campaign for Royal Caribbean.
When we began the campaign, cruise lines were all basically the same - blue water, blue sky, white ship. And the point of view was always looking at the ship from a distance.
And RC needed to begin attracting new cruisers - non-cruisers who were skeptical about cruising and its regimented meals and confined environment.
We realized that what was amazing about cruising wasn't only the boat - it was where the boat could take you.
So we turned the camera around, literally and figuratively - and showed people what was possible.
AFLAC was already one of the most recognizable marketing icons in the US - 96% unaided brand awareness.
And believe it or not, that created a problem.
While people knew and liked the brand, they had become almost overly familiar with the commercials. As soon as they saw the duck and heard the familiar "AFLAC" they felt they could stop watching. Not that they disliked the duck - it was that they knew that what came next was the same familiar construct.
In order to reinvigorate the brand, we had to be disruptive.
And so we decided to change the duck's role. Instead of being a spokesperson (of sorts) we would portray him as if he were an injured policyholder.
The second spot in the AFLAC campaign
The third spot in the campaign
CoffeeMate is one of Nestle's most well-known brands.
And, while enormously popular, the novelty of CM had long since worn off. For a lot of people, it was an integral part of their morning routine - but not viewed as a part of their lives.
We believed that routine, that ritual of stirring your favorite CM flavor into that all-important morning cup of coffee was a daily opportunity to begin anew.
To stir things up.
Hilton HHonors - Hilton Hotels' loyalty program - was launching a major membership initiative.
The ask was to feature all of Hilton's brands in one spot - and, you know, still have it make sense.
While many loyalty programs focus on either the math of rewards accumulation or the tropical vacation end-game, we wanted to come at it from the perspective of the person who is accumulating those points...the road warrior, business traveler out there week after week, trip after trip.
By showing that we understood the emotional aspect of the sacrifices business travelers make, we were able to remind them that, hey, with the right reward program, it's all worth it in the end.
