• Cannes Lions / Bronze / Activation
• Cannes Lions / Shortlist (x4)
• Effie / Bronze / Auto
• LIA / Silver / Social Media
• LIA / Bronze / Brand Content
• New York Festivals / 2nd Place / Branded
• Creativity A-List / Shortlist
Ford was launching their all-new aluminum F-150 –a potential game-changer for the industry and disaster for the steel Chevy Silverado.
To cast doubt on aluminum, 200+ Truck Guys were each invited into a room with two large metal cages– one made of steel, the other aluminum. A 700-pound grizzly bear was then released into the room, forcing guys to lock themselves in the cage they thought was stronger.
During the three-day activation, video content was gathered and seeded across social media and television. Chevy Silverado became the top trending truck of 2015 on google. Sales lept 33.9% vs 4.8% for Ford in July alone.
Directed By: Zach Merck
• Effie / Gold
• One Show / Finalist
• D Show / Best in show
• Radio Mercury / Finalist X2
Young artists are addicted, they spend hours and hours perfecting their craft. They can’t help themselves. Their parents are generally less enthused with their child’s artistic aspirations, wishing they’d go to school to become a doctor or a lawyer instead. We created a social media campaign for the College for Creative Studies that played up the duality of this relationship by mimicking anti-drug PSA’s from the 80's and '90's.
The campaign was even parodied by other groups.
• Cannes Lions / Gold / Rapid Response
• Cannes Lions / Silver / PR / Crisis
• Cannes Lions / Bronze / Media / Auto
• Clios / Gold / Integrated Campaign
• One Show Auto / Interactive
• One Show / Bronze / Integrated
• D&AD / Wood Pencil / PR Best Response
When a nervous Chevy Zone Manager fumbled through the World Series MVP presentation, we had a decision to make, run from the PR nightmare, or, embrace it.
But Chevy decided to embrace the phrase, quickly taking ownership of #TechnologyAndStuff to promote the new Colorado.
Overnight, we launched a social media campaign driving people to the website, ran a newspaper ad the next day - and even tagged TV spots with the new catchphrase.
That decision resulted in 5 million in free media coverage and a whopping 67.6 million impressions.
• Cannes Lions / Shortlist / Media
• Cannes Lions / Shortlist / Integrated
• Cannes Lions / Shortlist / Brand
• Cannes Lions / Shortlist / Promo
• One Show / Merit / Print & Outdoor
• One Show / Merit / Installations
• One Show / Merit / Brand Entertainment
• New York Festivals / Finalist (X4)
• AICP / Shortlist (X4)
• AICE / Best Visual Effects & Animation
• Creativity / Ad of the Day / Editor's Pick
• Epica / Gold / Product Integration
• Cresta / Silver / Promotions
For 75 years, the Batmobile has been one of the world’s most iconic cars. And for each of those 75 years the Batmobile has been powered by Chevrolet engines. Problem was, nobody knew it. So, Chevy signed on as the official automotive sponsor of The LEGO Batman Movie.
The campaign was one of the best-received partner collaborations ever, and garnered some incredible statistics as it swept through the auto industry and pop culture.
To date, 387 articles about the Lego Batmobile launch have been collected with an earned estimated reach of 11,135,972. Chevrolet also saw a 51% increase in brand opinion.
Not only was Barbie a trendsetter in fashion, she was also an early adopter of electric vehicles, years before they buzzed into the mainstream. She’s been behind the wheel of Chevy battery-powered Corvettes for nearly 50 years.
To debut the new Blazer EV, we built a life-size “Barbie Dream EV” toy box inspired by the classic Mattel designs and placed it on the pink carpet, at the heart of the year’s biggest movie premiere. Batteries included, of course.
• Cannes / Finalist
• Archive Magazine / TV
• D Show / Best in Show
Chrysler Super Bowl anthem spot to launch the brand new Chrysler 200. Started the “America’s Import” campaign.
USA Today's top 10 Super Bowl ads.
It was even parodied on Conan.
Directed By: Arnaud Uytennhove
• CLIO / Bronze / Radio Campaign
• Radio Mercury Award Winner
The new Chevy Equinox was leaps and bounds ahead of Toyota’s new RAV4 in terms of features. But we didn’t want to just keep telling people about it. It’d be far more compelling if our competitors did the talking for us.
So that’s exactly what we did – without them even knowing. We prank-called real Toyota dealerships around the Midwest, grilled them on the features of the two SUVs, and recorded everything. And while car salesmen in the United States typically have a bad reputation, our prank-call approach finally provided an honest portrayal of the Chevrolet Equinox from its direct competitors – the actual Toyota dealers.
• One Show / Creative Effectiveness / 2020
• Effie / Bronze / Brand Renaissance / 2019
• Effie / Finalist / Brand Renaissance / 2018
• Effie / Bronze / Automotive / 2017
• Effie / Finalist / Automotive / 2016
After 30 years of poor quality, recalls and broken promises, Chevrolet had a problem, they lost consumer trust. Even though their current lineup of cars, trucks, and SUVs were the best quality the company had ever produced, no one believed them. We needed a new, noncorporate, voice for Chevrolet, a voice that could be trusted. The idea: Put the new lineup of Chevrolets in front of real people, and let them do the talking for us.
So, we created our own focus group facilities and hired our own moderator, hid a bunch of cameras and invited unsuspecting non-Chevy owners to take part in a series of surprising social experiments. The campaign, consisting of 117 executions, ran on broadcast, cinema, preroll and digital for 6 years,
The results:
• 38 straight months of year-over-year sales gains.
• Car sales up 32%
• Truck sales up 24%
• Opinion up 16 points
• Consideration up 12 points
Director By: Zach Merck
• One Show / Merit / Moving Craft
• Art Director’s Club / Bronze / Television
• Art Director’s Club / Merit / Editing
• Clios / Shortlist / Video
• Cresta / Bronze / Cinema
• LIA / Bronze / Editing
• New York Festivals / 2nd Place / Craft
Since 1918, Chevrolet has been building the most dependable trucks on the road. So, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chevy Trucks, we wanted to remind people that what was true about our trucks in 1918 is still true today. So, we created a series of executions that bring this notion to life.
A transition campaign going from “Real People” to work that focused more on what Chevy vehicles can do for you.
Directed By: Rupert Sanders
Chevy wanted to get the world excited about their move to EV’s. We started with some modern sculptures to showcase the stylish Blazer EV.
And to show that Equinox EV can do it all we showed it in various landscapes across the US, without ever leaving the stage.
Directed By: Ben Tricklebank
2019 Radio Mercury Award Finalist x4
• ”Born” - (Radio Commercial)
• ”Motown Museum” - (Radio Campaign)
• ”Play Motown” - (Radio Commercial)
• ”Play Motown” - (Creative Use of Sound/Music)
D-Show Awards
• 2019 D-Show — Radio — “Born”
• 2019 D-Show — Radio “Play Motown”
"Hitsville U.S.A." is the nickname given to Motown's first headquarters and recording studio, a small house located at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. The house was purchased by Motown founder Berry Gordy in 1959. Today, the “Hitsville U.S.A” property operates as the Motown Museum, which is dedicated to the legacy of the record label, its artists, and the music that changed the world.
Comm Arts
2022 Public Service — “Play Motown” The Motown Museum in Detroit has long been a staple of Detroit's history and tourism.
During my time at Commonwealth//McCann, we offered them creative ideas as a pro-bono client.
You go to YouTube. Find the video you want to watch. Click it. And then, boom - you're hit with an ad! It's the worst, right? Well, we did our best to make them entertaining at least... Check out these "annoying" videos for the Chevy Cruze & Malibu.
Directed By: Zach Merck
• 2019 Communication Arts Award of Excellence
• 2019 D-Show Best of Print
Partnering with America’s leading publishers, we took over the covers of nine magazines all at once and created ads tailored to each unique magazine.
HQ Trivia / This app and daily trivia competition is still amassing live audiences bigger than many cable TV networks. For a special Silverado-themed game, HQ Trivia gave away an all-new 2019 Chevy Silverado High Country.
Moving on from “Real People. Not Actors” campaign Chevy was looking to extend the idea of “FIND NEW. ROADS.”
Here are a few of my favorite spots I worked on from this campaign.
“Mom” Directed By: Brian Buckley
“Safe Place” Directed By: Rachel McDonald
“Flex” Directed By: Jim Jenkins
“Video Game” Directed By: Jim Jenkins
“Future Flashes” Directed By: Lloyd Lee Choi
Amidst the onset of the 2020 Coronavirus quarantine, brands quickly adapted to an alternate landscape of branding and messaging.
Leveraging the existing campaign of real people, I recut some of our old spots into a new 30 and removed all the real people that were once there.
Because it was time for people to stay home.
• D-Show Social Media
When Ford redesigned the Explorer, naturally people had questions. And the best thing you can do with a question is answer it. In Explorer Live, people asked about the new Explorer on Facebook and we responded with daily videos, filming over 150 of them in six months. Some results included 34 million new impressions, 240% increase in incremental audience reach, brand loyalty doubled and most importantly a 14% increase in sales. Gotta “LIKE” that.
I have worked on multiple accounts over the years, including Ford, Jeep, and United Way. I have created launch work, retail work, digital content, TV spots, partnerships, and social.
Jeep Polar Edition “Snow Miser”
Ford Fusion “Invisible”
United Way “No More Bad News”
When we rebranded Warrior, we did something they didn't think was possible. Summed up everything they stood for in three words.
That’s when we came up with the “Cross the Line” campaign. And they still continue to use this line years later.
If you had 24 extra hours to do something nice for someone who deserves it, what would you do? We used Leap Day as an opportunity in 2016 to surprise a handful of people who were deserving of a little extra love. The campaign leaped beyond just the one day activation - and turned into a movement for other great moments using #DayItForward - which was the campaign idea and tag I came up with.
