In 2024, Starbucks wanted to be a catalyst for the joy of togetherness. Using a classic track to drive the energy and a cast of real people, we created an anthem spot that captured moments of authentic emotion with Starbucks organically woven in.
Password: mikelee
Drink-focussed :06s and social helped round out the campaign to show holiday coffee cheer.
Agency: SPCSHP
GCD: Me
ACD - AD: Lucy Downs
ACD - CW: Sean Pezzulo
Senior AD: Paula Coral
AD: Gustavo Gonsales
CW: Molly Baraff
EP: Eric Camins
Production Company: Smuggler
Director: Henry-Alex Rubin
Editor: Trish Fuller - Work Editorial
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Paze is a new online checkout from some of the country's biggest banks (and credit unions).
But most people don't care about online checkout until it becomes a problem—can't find their wallet, long form fills, lack of security, etc.
With competitors like PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay playing in a more negative-leaning space, we leaned into the joy of shopping and how Paze helps keep that shopping high going with a seamless and secure checkout—no matter how you like to shop online.
We developed the launch campaign soup to nuts—from TV and organic social, to a design system and social playbook. TV is below—more to come on the rest.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Creative Director: Bradford Gilmore
Senior Art Director: Ingrid Wu
Senior Copywriter: Lauren Jones
Group Design Director: Cory Galster
Associate Design Director: Cole Spiess
Director: Terry Timely
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The old Chase Ultimate Rewards portal used to be a place people went to redeem points and that's it.
With the launch of the new Chase Travel, we needed to shift perception and turn it into a travel inspiration destination for every part of your journey. So we created a multi-channel campaign that positions Chase as the place travelers go when they’re thinking about where to go next.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Creative Director: Kristen Kriisa
Senior Art Director: Sayako Minami
Senior Copywriter: Megan Williamson
Associate Design Director: Cole Spiess
Director: Marie Schuller
Photographer: Michael Turek
Chase JP Morgan is a longtime sponsor of the US Open, but had been struggling to create a unified outlet for their brand promise—make more of what's yours.
We stepped in to create a campaign and design system that worked across mediums to show fans how Chase helps them Ace the Open.
Our work covered everything from digital and social ads, billboards, in-stadium LEDs, booth wraps, signage, and even napkins. We made sure Chase had a clear, consistent, and elegant presence so people knew where to go to make the most of their Open.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Executive Creative Director: Steve Street
Creative Director: Kristen Kriisa
Senior Art Director: Rachel Wyse
Senior Copywriter: Tim Cahill
Group Design Director: Cory Galster
Design Director: Warren Teo
Associate Design Director: Jackie Dempsey
Animation Studio: Giant Ant
NBA fans, thanks to their gameday spending habits, were in a position to cashback a lot. They just didn’t know it yet. So we set out to make Chase Freedom Unlimited a part of NBA culture and get fans talking about cashbacking.
From Allen Iverson’s iconic “practice” rant to Stephen Curry’s signature mouthguard, from postgame pressers to announcer tropes, we played off NBA touchstones that resonated with hardcore fans but were accessible to everyone.
Our campaign ran across TV, online video, social, digital billboards, arenas, and more.
As a rabid NBA fan, this was so much fun to make—and we did it with only a fraction of a day to shoot it all.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Executive Creative Director: Steve Street
Creative Director: Bradford Gilmore
Associate Creative Director: Evan Gott
Senior Copywriter: Max Mitrani
Senior Art Director: Paula Coral
Associate Copywriter: Molly Baraff
Associate Art Director: Gustavo Gonsales
Director: Guy Shelmerdine
DOOH Animation: Gimmick Studios
Chase Freedom Unlimited was looking to update the persona of spokesperson Kevin Hart to something that better reflected who he was—a financially savvy businessman.
So we gave Kevin a new role as a modern CEO of his own life, bringing cashbacking and financial acumen to the people.
Our CEO of Cashbacking campaign launched in online video and social, massively outperforming every benchmark to the extent that the videos ended up running on TV as well.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Executive Creative Director: Steve Street
Creative Director: Matt Zelley
Senior Art Director: Sayako Minami
Senior Copywriter: Megan Williamson
Senior Art Director: Dorothy Austin
Senior Copywriter: Julian Tippins
Director: Jody Hill
THIS SECTION IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
(AKA, it’s a little janky and I’ll get around to fixing it soon.)
Unlike other Buy Now Pay Later options, Chase offers a much wider variety of purchase occasions and types, as well as more flexibility to stretch payments—all within the mobile app.
Whether you’re booking your next getaway, buying a gift for the holidays or covering some surprise expenses you haven’t planned for, our campaign shows off the breadth of use cases to take advantage of the unique flexibility these plans offer, across a wide range of audience segments.
Agency: Big Spaceship
Group Creative Director: Me
Executive Creative Director: Steve Street
Senior Art Director: Rachel Wyze
Senior Copywriter: Tim Cahill
Associate Art Director: Taylor May
Associate Copywriter: Denise Akerman
Director: Kirby McClure
Digital / Social / PR
It can be hard coming from a famous Bacon family. But just because one Bacon in your family is more famous, doesn't mean you're any less awesome.
That's why, Oscar Mayer Turkey Bacon teamed up with Michael Bacon (Kevin's brother) to bring you The Unsung Bacon story. Our goal: to make Michael Bacon the most followed Bacon in his family. We kicked off with a launch anthem that ran across digital in long-form and short-form video, along with a vigorous social and PR campaign from Michael himself (who was a truly generous and gracious partner).
Did we succeed? No, because Kevin Bacon is an unstoppable social media machine. But did we get Michael and Oscar Mayer Turkey Bacon a lot of new fans? Damn straight.
Agency: 360i
Senior Copywriter: Me
Senior Art Director: Michele Jaret
GCDs: Aaron Mosher & Dave Yankelewitz
CCO: Adam Kerj
TV / Digital / Radio
New Orleans is an amazing city with endless ways to experience it. In effect, it's a different city for every person who visits. To demonstrate, we interpreted one script in three different ways—same actors and voiceover, showing different stories. Even the music was three different takes on the same theme. To hammer home the variety, these spots aired back-to-back in the same media pod. Adweek thought it was clever.
To extend the campaign online we built a website that allows users to generate, customize and share their own version of New Orleans. We also tapped influencers like Anthony Bourdain and Trombone Shorty to share their NOLA experiences.
Agency: 360i
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
GCD: Megan Skelly
CCO: Pierre Lipton
PR Stunt
High-end steakhouses are, by and large, pretty similar in terms of their offerings. So, how do you get diners to make Smith & Wollensky their go-to steakhouse? Our answer was to truly make it the diners steakhouse by putting their name on the restaurant instead of Smith. And not just on the restaurant, on everything from the menu to the cocktail napkins.
We chose a different lucky reservation every day for a month to show Smith & Wollensky’s dedication to its customers. Spadaro & Wollensky? Lewkowicz & Wollensky? Yeah, it happened, and as proof, here's a NY Times article about it. (Deep dive bonus: a lawyer in Arizona loved the “Terms & Conditions” I wrote)
Copywriter: Me
Art Director: Jillian Dresser
CD: Deacon Webster
Agency: Walrus
2013 One Show Merit Award winner
2013 North American Effie Award winner
Summer is Malibu Rum’s biggest sales season—Malibu’s ability to create endless combinations of refreshing cocktails makes it the perfect pairing for any kind of summer fun.
To help make Malibu the drink of summer, we combined Malibu’s amazing mixability with our target audience’s tendency for spontaneous summer Googling to serve up Malibu cocktails to fun-seeking millennials. When people Googled popular summer search terms (everything from BBQ to July 4th), we hit them with video inspiration for the right Malibu cocktail for that activity. People could continue the search to find a secret Malibu cocktail recipe.
We continued our push to be wherever people were seeking summer fun through a series of Snapchat ads geo-targeted to music festivals and the first nationwide Snapchat lenses by a liquor brand.
Our campaign helped increased the brand’s profits by 4.3% for the year alone. WINNER, BEST USE OF VIDEO IN A SEARCH CAMPAIGN 2016 U.S. Search Awards.
Agency: 360i
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
Copywriter: Erika Yost
Art Director: Caitlin Harsch
GCD: Aileen Calderon
CCO: Pierre Lipton
Social / Digital / Search
My partner and I were lead creatives on Malibu social/digital for a year with the goal of bringing their summer fun vibes to millennials in a relevant, targeted way (here is an article in Digiday about our approach). We started with Spring Break, targeting that most neglected of fruity cocktail drinkers, the bro.
Society likes to clown on men who like delicious, fruity drinks, and that's just wrong. We wanted to give these dudes the confidence to drink the drinks they love by giving them something to rally around—#Malibros. A highly shareable anthem video, a Jersey Shore influencer, and a whole lot of sweet, sweet Malibro swag led to 10.6 MM impressions and a 58.10% video completion rate (compared to industry average of 10-15% for videos > 50 sec) over the course of the three-week long campaign.
Agency: 360i
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
Copywriter: Erika Yost
Art Director: Caitlin Harsch
GCD: Aileen Calderon
CCO: Pierre Lipton
Digital / Social / PR
Body hair is hot. Like temperature hot. Fortunately, Hanes X-Temp is a line of sweat-wicking T-shirts, underwear, and socks that can help even the hairiest guy stay cool. And if it can help them, it can help anyone.
We created this campaign to not only run across digital and social, but also live events and even a 1-800 number. The engagement rates broke records at Hanes and drew over 10 million views.
Agency: 360i
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
Copywriter: Paul Elicker
GCDs: Aaron Mosher & Dave Yankelewitz
CCO: Pierre Lipton
Digital / Social Campaign
Oscar Mayer P3 Portable Protein Pack is essentially a protein-packed Lunchable for adults who workout. It takes you back to a simpler time—before fad proteins and trendy workouts—when this great country was in its infancy. For our founding fathers, life was the workout and they got their protein from real food—meat, cheese, and nuts.
Our campaign spanned digital and social, including a dedicated landing page.
Agency: 360i
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
Copywriter: Paul Elicker
GCDs: Aaron Mosher & Dave Yankelewitz
CCO: Pierre Lipton
Digital Campaign
Bros and bro proteins didn’t build this great nation. But if they did (or tried to) this is what it might have looked like. Brought to you by the original proteins—meat, cheese, and nuts, AKA Oscar Mayer P3 Portable Protein Pack.
ACD/Copywriter: Me
ACD/Art Director: Greg Dalbey
Copywriter: Paul Elicker
GCDs: Aaron Mosher & Dave Yankelewitz
CCO: Pierre Lipton
