My work has appeared in case studies worldwide
My work has appeared in business and educational case studies worldwide, in multiple Super Bowl placements, and has won over 100 international and local awards and honors for creativity and effectiveness, including • Cannes • Effies • One Show • New York Festivals • ADC • LIAA • Webby’s • D&AD • IAC • Loeries • Silver Quill • AAA • DANDY • Bees • CommArts • Mixx • AME
Over 130 international and local awards
Some of my achievements include:
Mazda Brand
• As CCO I led all creative efforts on the Mazda US brand - much of which was used world wide.
• For two years I, the client, the WW CEO, and the local and worldwide creative and strategy teams worked on repositioning the Mazda brand entirely.
Led creative and collaborated with JWT Canada (Wunderman Thompson), JWT Taipei, Bravo Miami, VMLY&R, Ogilvy Mexico, Team COSMO Europe, GEOMETRY SF, Team Mazda Colombia, MIRUM San Diego, and POSSIBLE Digital Costa Rica.
To this end, I also led and collaborated with a worldwide spread of agencies, their strategists and creative teams from a rich and diverse selection within the WPP network, to concept on and bring forward game changing ideas, social and digital, experiences and rebranding proposals.
These ranged from JWT Taipei, JWT Canada, (now Wunderman Thompson), to VMLY&R, team COSMO in Europe, Ogilvy in Mexico, BRAVO in Miami, GEOMETRY in SF, Team Mazda in Colombia, MIRUM in San Diego, and POSSIBLE Digital in Costa Rica.
(this repositioning was both successful and effective -KANTAR). The Brand repositioning was done under an accelerated timeline, in two phases. These efforts bore fruit in the second year.
Results:
• August sales of 27,482 vehicles, an increase of 6.5 percent compared to August 2018. ( - Mazda Reports August Sales Results).
2019 Sales increase of 20.2%
• Mazda’s best-selling vehicle in the U.S., the CX5, saw its best August ever with 15,592 vehicles sold, an increase of 20.2% compared to August 2018
Creative “center of excellence“.
• Led Garage Team Mazda to become Mazda's worldwide creative “center of excellence”.
@SaatchiLA:
Space Shuttle Endeavour
“Ground breaking“
• Led and launched the renowned and ground breaking “Tundra Endeavor” campaign in which a Toyota pickup towed the Space Shuttle Endeavour to its ultimate resting place.
We created a documentary YT series, multiple branded content pieces, social content, websites.
Results:
31% jump in Tundra Sales
• 31% jump in Tundra Sales
• Resulted in one billion unpaid media impressions
One billion unpaid media impressions
• 4 Cannes Golds, 2 One Show Golds, 5 Gold AME’s, and EFFIE Platinum.
• Resulted in having components of my work permanently archived at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
Relaunching a truck category
Toyota Tundra - the launch of the entirely redesigned Japanese Toyota Tundra pickup truck to an audience of American heartland disbelievers.
• Biggest, most effective launch in Toyota’s history using world’s biggest demonstrations.
• I led the launch, directed and orchestrated a team of 28 internal creatives, as well as the creative departments of three independent “coopetition” agencies, the creative teams of our multi-cultural partner agencies, and all of our internal freelance teams.
Results:
$220,000,000.00 Biggest launch in Toyota’s history
• A launch regarded as the largest and most effective launch in Toyota’s history.
• The campaign delivered 11 billion impressions, the highest in Toyota’s history.
Tundra conquest of domestic buyers tripled
• Tundra’s conquest of domestic buyers tripled from the launch in January 2007 through August.
• Tundra dramatically reduced the monthly sales gap with its key domestic competition, improving 50% vs. Ford F150 and close to 56% vs. Chevrolet Silverado.
Tundra surpassed sales performance of Dodge Ram, #3 domestic player
• Tundra surpassed the monthly sales performance of Dodge Ram, the #3 domestic player in the market.
• Defined an entirely new white space in trucking category. This launch disrupted the category, changed the marketing approach to the USA truck category. (Literally, the “Big 3” domestic brands changed their advertising campaigns and strategies as a result of the Tundra campaign).
Brand imagery up by 150%
• Brand imagery improved by 150%
• Our campaign nearly put the Nissan truck product line, out of business
• Gold Effie
• Appeared in Super Bowl numerous times
Toyota’s first Total-market launch (Toyota Camry #BoldChoices campaign)
• I led Toyota USA's first effective large-scale, multiple-agency, multi-cultural total-market collaboration out of Saatchi LA, covering the full spectrum of creative communications, (Toyota Camry launch).
Leading 4 very different cultures and mindsets
• This meant successfully leading, concepting and coordinating the teams and the creative development from four separate agencies with four very different cultures and mindsets.Namely the multi-cultural, the Hispanic, African American and Asian American markets. (Saatchi, Conill, Burrell, and InterTrend respectively).
I established many of the guidelines, processes and protocols that remain to this day, and which positively impacted the relationships from a political-ridden environment to a collaborative and respectful partnership between four agencies representing four very different aspects of contemporary culture.
It was key that I partner with these agencies with integrity and it paved the way to this becoming the de facto way of operating between Toyota and the four agencies.
Results:
2015 Camry top selling car model: +40% YOY increase
• This launch resulted in Camry being the top selling car model in 2015,
totaling $259M (+40% YOY increase)
Swagger Family (Toyota Sienna Minivan LE)
• Led and launched the completely made-over Toyota Sienna Minivan.
We created a massive integrated ecosystem: enormous amounts of content and many multiples of engagement.
The campaign became a cultural phenomenon despite launching during biggest safety recall in Toyota history
Results:
Sienna #1 branded channel on YT
• Two days after posting the videos on YouTube, Sienna was the #1 branded channel on YT.
“…cultural phenomenon…“
Multiple celebrities and personalities, tweeted and commented
100’s of bloggers, fan videos and fan pages
100’s of bloggers picked up the story
100’s of different pages created by fans
Dozens of YT video parodies created by fans
Dozens of TV and news channels worldwide
Many dozens of TV and news channels worldwide covered it (150 unpaid broadcast segments, articles and blog posts)
“People are going crazy over [“Swagger Wagon”].
…most watched viral video in the world
It’s one of the most watched viral videos in the world over the last few days…Plus everything that Toyota’s been dealing with—this is a little bit of their clever way of getting back in the game.” (CNN Viral Video Rewind).
• Impact:
145% jump in sales in declining category
145% jump in sales (in a declining category) - Brandchannel Feb 3, 2011. Sales fig comparisons: Nov 2009 compared to Nov 2010.
• Campaign garnered 16+million views (Swagger Wagon video in excess of 22+million)
• Effie-winning
• And importantly, even during this difficult time for Toyota brand due to the recalls, the Sienna ranked 4th on cars.com
• “…improved Toyota brand perception, and increased the desirability
of the mid-sized van segment overall.” (J.D. Power and Associates: Automotive Marketing and Media Annual Review 2010)
• Sienna Campaign voted best Social Media case study in the Saatchi & Saatchi global network.
• 8 years after the launch people were still writing in about Swagger Wagon and requesting the Swagger Wagon chromed badge.
Swagger Wagon (Toyota Sienna Minivan SE)
One single YouTube masthead
One single YouTube masthead HPTO led to the following staggering outcome:
…staggering outcome
• 19+ Million unique YouTube views (AdAge)
22+ million views
later surpassed 22+million
• Two days after posting the video on YouTube
Swagger Wagon averaged 115 tweets per hour (Twitter)
“Swagger Wagon” phrase averaged 115 tweets per hour (Twitter)
Listed #6 YouTube “10 years of YouTube ads“
• Listed #6 in YouTube “10 years of YouTube ads” (YouTube)
(Old Spice’s, “The man your man could smell like was #5)
• Third most shared viral video of all time, Facebook, Twitter, blogs.
(Unruly Media’s Viral Video - June 3, 2010)
• #1 on CNN Viral video
• #2 on the AdAge Viral Video Chart
• Voted # 22 of 31 “top videos of 2010” (YouTube)
• Over 150 unpaid broadcast segments, articles and blog posts
• 2010 Jay Chiat Awards winner - Social Media
• to this day #swagger wagon and #swaggerwagon delivers conversation on social
RAV4 Hybrid “How Far Will You Take It” campaign
• A world first - we created a 120' wall climb. Live. In Times Square. With someone who had never climbed before
• A shout out from Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook) for the innovation of the Facebook aspect of the campaign.
Toyota RAV4 #wishgranted Super Bowl campaign
• Launched, led and supervised the highly successful fully integrated launch of the Toyota RAV4 CUV. It began with a Super Bowl teaser and commercial combo for the all-new RAV4 titled “Wish Granted”, leveraging social media savant and star of “The Big Bang Theory,” Kaley Cuoco.
The concept was integrated into social media before its debut in the 2013 Super Bowl, with a contest that asked fans to share photos for the chance to have their snapshot appear in the commercial.
Results:
• AdAge winner of Super Bowl Pre-Game.
• Within 5 days of posting, we reached 22,000,000 views.
• Over 700MM PR impressions.
• 2013 RAV4 #wishgranted Campaign - the most successful Super Bowl effort of that time
Truckers Bible
• Developed and published a 260 pg coffee table book: “Working America” which tells the story of the blue collar truck driving American worker.
It became the Toyota and Saatchi “Truckers reference bible” for nearly a decade after.
All-new 2015 Camry Launch
Launched the 2015 Camry with two attention grabbing Super Bowl spots - one starring the indomitable Amy Purdy against VO from Muhammad Ali's famous speech.
The spot, an emotional take on the boldness of true fathers, and their lasting legacies.
Results:
• In less than 24 hours, Toyota reached 48M unique people (~100M impressions)
• Camry became the top selling car model, totaling $259M in 2015 (+40% YOY increase), while competitor, Nissan Altima closed the year out second ($249M, +4% YOY).
• My Bold Dad.
(Super Bowl 2015)
- Positive buzz around “My Bold Dad” drove a 23% lift in overall conversation volume over 460 PR/earned media mentions
- Highest USA Today AdMeter result in Toyota history (#7).
• Social experiment: "To be a Dad"
- 2MM YouTube views, 9.5MM on view count across all media (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
- Toyota’s pre-game video campaign was more viral than the 2014 campaign. “To Be a Dad” and the Amy Purdy content both surpassed 2014 benchmarks for the views/paid media impressions ratio.
• Father's Day redo (video)
- Facebook placement: 46MM Impressions, 3.5MM Video Views
- Twitter placement: 7.2MM Impressions, 538K Video Views
- Giant Media placement: 1.1MM Video Views
- On Facebook the 2 min Core video was 10X more effective at driving earned reach.
• Father’s Day monument
- A one-day live installation, extremely small footprint (Santa Monica pier) which gave pretty big results.
Results:
- Covered by local news channels
- on-site Instaprint technology to give users branded photos of their monument Instagram photos.
- 1,010 tagged photos
- 90,080 photo likes
- 2,057,544 total impression
• The overall media buy was guaranteed to deliver 54.2 TRPs - yet Nielsen reported just over 61 TRPs (approximately an additional $250k value).
Newport Beach Film Festival - "QUOTA"
As always this is pro bono work. No budgets, everything is donated.
• Adweek - 25 best ads - 2018
Toyota Venza
I launched the Toyota Venza to active Boomers.
Results:
- The Venza campaign was noted as being the highest performing campaign across all automotive brands of 2011, and set new benchmarks within Toyota.
sales up by 21%
- cross shopping up by 58%
- Recognized (then), as Toyota’s best case study for integrated launch and social media.
- Twitter tie-in resulted in the rich media piece being recognized as the best performing digital media for automotive, in 2011
Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, Australia
I was “loaned” to Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney to help defend the Toyota business and retain the Toyota client. Which we did, successfully.
High School Football TV Mini-Show
I led the development of, and launched the Toyota High School Football TV Mini-Show: “Line of Scrimmage” which ran for 4 consecutive years.
African National Congress Political Campaign
I worked on, led and launched the massive advertising campaign out of South Africa that helped bring the African National Congress (ANC) into power in South Africa in 1994.
Interesting fact: Each communication needed to have the message translated into the 13 official languages of Southern Africa - all within the same communication. From poster, to radio.
Apple Launch
• Launched the Apple PowerBook line • one with the biggest laptop screen ever (17”) and the most compact full featured laptop (12”). Starring Yao Ming (NBA) and Verne Troyer (Mini Me).
Results:
• voted ADAGE best spot of the year
Infiniti Q45
• Launched the new Infiniti Q45
Results:
• Best of Show and DANDY Award, Best Ad Campaign by a New Car Manufacturer
Nando’s Fast Food
• I created the first ever theatrical moving OOH Billboard in South Africa.
It comprised of a continually smoking, burned out VW Beetle towed around the city streets selling the idea that the extra hot sauce in Nando’s Peri-Peri fast food was something to be reckoned with.
• Within days, thousands of telephone calls to the HQ. Some concerned, most highly appreciative.
Rent-a-Sign National OOH Competition
• As a junior at JWT I won the first ever South African national OOH competition aimed at the full spectrum of creatives in the country. I won out over all the top creatives including the ECD’s.