Children, as young as 18 months, were being taken from their parents at our border. Separated and kept in cages. Not enough people were talking about it, so we felt we had to. We created 24 protest pieces for RAICES, the legal and social work organization on the front lines of the Border Crisis. 24 cages outfitted with mannequins of children crying out for their families. Crying that came from real audio smuggled from the camps. In one night, we staged all 24 cages around New York City. #NoKidsInCages started as an act of protest and civil disobedience but it became so much more. We raised $9 million for RAICES and freed and reunited 1000s.
To date, it’s the most rewarding and important cause work I’ve done. I’d been at Badger & Winters for one week when I was told: “Bring in five ideas to fix the border crisis by Monday.” As you can imagine, it was a stressful weekend. But what I presented that Monday became the famous 24 cages around New York. So grateful for Badger & Winters allowing me to participate in this work.
The campaign was fortunate enough to win 1 Silver & 2 Bronze Cannes Lions as well as winning at ADC, International ANDY Awards, The Drum, Purpose Awards, and AICP.
The classic line “No One Lays a Finger On My Butterfinger” hung out there like a tease. Piro had a big idea - what if Butterfinger theft was real? So real, in fact, that it needed an entire law enforcement unit to combat it?
That’s how the BFI was born. An FBI-like division called the Butterfinger Investigators led by Agent Hugh Dunnit, played by the insanely hilarious Amir Arison. Every script has gotten better and it’s such a pleasure making that big ambitious advertising that people are begging for.
My favorite part is that Butterfinger, as a brand, has done what so many other brands have been scared to do - create real branded content. 3 to 5 minute webisodes that still have the most positive comments I’ve ever seen on a youtube video.
Olay approached Badger & Winters with the possibility of a Super Bowl ad. Olay usually goes for real and empowering. But this time they wanted funny.
Inspired by the first woman on the moon announcement, I pitched this spot(ish) and created a hashtag with a lot of double meanings - #MakeSpaceForWomen
#MakeSpaceForWomen was filmed by comedy genius Jamie Babbit, shot by the visionary Janusz Kaminski and starring Taraji P. Henson, Katie Couric, Lilly Singh, Busy Phillips and real astronaut Nicole Stott. Our whole team at Badger & Winters brought it together beautifully.
We wanted #MakeSpaceForWomen to make an impact. So we partnered with Girls Who Code to give young girls in science a boost towards their dreams.
For CRUNCH bar, we started a fake movement called CRUNCHing. We wanted to do a spoof on all those overpromising commercials of the 70s & 80s. Like the old Juicyfruit commercials.
Shot for TV. Built for social. It played well with hyper aware teens and young adults who are sick of being inundated with commercials online.
In year one, we used mental health ads as our inspiration. In year two, we spoofed testimonials. It’s given CRUNCH a real identity again and helped to drive new sales. ( I tell myself that’s what counts and not people laughing at my jokes…)
For Nickelodeon, I wrote for two seasons on the Emmy nominated comedy/mystery show Welcome to the Wayne. I created original characters, developed comedic voices, and fleshed out the mythology of the show.
We were twice nominated for Emmys. For Season 1 - Writing for an Animated Program. For Season 2 - Best Animated Program. And it was a very small writer’s room so I can assure you, I wrote the hell out of this show.
At Converse, we were very message forward at a time other brands were getting less vocal. It felt right to make the brand speak out loud. Besides Event, OOH, & Retail, I worked hand-in-hand with the t-shirt design team and I crafted all the messaging for seasonal inspiration. Plus, “Noise to the World” was the most successful holiday launch for Converse ever.
I love doing brand tone of voice. It all started at Converse when they let me open the hood and tinker with the voice. I fell in love.
For Pepsi, with the amazing team at Badger & Winters, we crafted the look, feel, and tone of Soulboost. It’s shifted slightly but I’m still proud of our initial designs and I feel like our TOV was right on for a chill but attention getting brand.
Now I do brand TOV for tons of beverages. It’s like creating a bunch of fizzy sitcom characters and letting them out into the world.
The forestry industry has changed. Gone are the days of hack and slash. A greener more sustainable future is now at the core of the forestry business.
The launch campaign for the Working Forests Initiative focused on a big part of the industry people don’t talk about - the planting.
We used hyper targeted social and CTV to change the minds of Americans about what kind of industry is rumbling around in their woods.
30 Rock was my first job in TV. For me, it was comedy college and I ate up every minute. During Season 3 and 4, I wrote for their webseries and character twitter accounts. It spring boarded my career into tv development and I’m forever grateful to have been a part of it.
As a tribute, I wrote a spec script. A love letter to one of my favorite shows. This script lived in my writing packet for years and got me a lot of jobs but I finally retired it.
For all the 30 Rock fans out there, I hope you enjoy.
This was my third year concepting and designing SXSW houses.
We had the perfect idea for TWIX at SXSW - bring together the duality of TWIX and the famous duos of music. We called it the House of Duos and from door to stage, everything came in twos. You couldn’t even get in the venue unless you came plus one.
I was working on the big Mars brands (Snickers, M&M’S, Twix, etc.) when I was asked if I’d like to take on Combos. A brand that had literally stopped advertising for a couple of years. My first question was: Can I get weird?
This is probably the most hands-on project I’ve ever executed. From personally hiring the company Nevercenter Games, to hand-drawing the characters, to coaching the VO actor, to creating the moves for each fighter, I guided this thing from beginning to end.
We were launching a new type of fundraiser for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. It’s hard to understate the importance of crucial lifesaving work.
As I walking to work, the name of the campaign hit me and it all fell into place.
The brochure was my favorite part. Because in this digital age, how often do you get to design a book anymore?
For Citibank, I worked to tackle a big issue they believe in and I believe in - fixing gender pay equality and addressing the gender wealth gap.
Badger & Winters let me pitch all the disruptive ideas I wanted. And we picked some escalating stunts on how to get their stance out there.
For research, we interviewed women across all ages about fairness and equality. For our first campaign, we set up a street stunt outside the New York Public Library. A claw machine that was rigged against men to give them a metaphor about gender unfairness in the workplace.
(The final stunts were cancelled due to the pandemic.)
The VP of Brand Design took a chance on a crazy humor writer to come in and reinvent/refine/push Converse’s brand voice. It was their major relaunch of Jack Purcell and CONS, so I helped lay the groundwork there as well. Here is a peek into the Converse Brand Voice deck I wrote and designed.
We had six days for a pitch.
“James, do you know what a DSP is?”
I responded, “Give me four hours and I’ll know.”
Four hours and six days later, we pitched and won Viant, a technology company and DSP (demand side platform) looking to revolutionize the media game.
We launched a social first campaign, powered by their very own proprietary software across established and emerging channels. Proving their own algorithms on their own advertising.
To illustrate Viant’s vision for an integrated future, we created a spot that blended the digital and real world.
Tasked with bringing M&M’S iconic colors to SXSW for an experiential concert series, we created the M&M’S Sound & Color experience. A house filled with instagrammable pockets of color that were true to each distinct M&M’S character’s personality. It was a wild success at SXSW and the number of impressions was somewhere in neighborhood of “Buttloads.”
We took all the weird fun of Combos to the biggest pop culture event of the season: Z100's JINGLE BALL. For the event, we created a experiential concert activation, unique celebrity swag, and a :30 commercial to premiere at the live concert. The commercial had unique parameters: green screen, small budget, heavy product placement, and Z100 radio talent.
Well, we threw it all in. As in we actually threw lots of bags of Combos.
I love Experiential. I just dig being able to prompt interactivity, performance, or that “I have to snap this” feeling. At SXSW, I designed a house for Maltesers. Because it’s such a blank slate in America, I wanted every room to scream the brand, like an excited host at their own party yelling “Welcome to Me!”
For Season 2 of Billy on the Street, I submitted man-on-the-street gameshow ideas. It was fun, Billy has such a unique energy it was fun to craft ideas that he could nail. Though a version of this sketch went up, my favorite I submitted was “Name This Famous Cracker!” where Billy would hold up a picture of a famous white dude like Patrick Stewart holding a snack cracker like a Triscuit. The setup, obviously, was giving Billy a reason to yell at people and call them racist.
It’s no secret I like doing cause work. So when Intuit came to Badger & Winters with a chance to shoot their work in depressed communities, I was way on board. We created their new hashtag “Together We Prosper” and traveled to Bluefield, West Virginia to film locals excited about Intuit. The hope people felt at the jobs coming in was palpable and we tried to capture that.
Savers has been trying to raise awareness about the fashion industry’s rampant wastefulness for years. One arm of their organization offers a fundraiser that lets you Marie Kondo your house and raise money by just decluttering.
It’s called FUNDrive (cute name) and it’s a tiny bit complicated. So I proposed an explainer video and a series of ads in a matchingly cute vector style to get the word out.
Produced this as a purely social campaign and targeted it towards local non-profits looking for new ways to raise money.
I’ve made splashier campaigns but this one just makes me smile.
