-Creative Director, Lead Writer, LLC Partner

Ok, this one is a life bucket thing. Archibald’s Next Big Thing is the story of Archibald, a chicken who can’t figure out what he’s good at or what he likes (other than lunch). This all changes after he receives a mysterious card in the mail that reads, “Your next Big Thing is here!” This begins an adventure that ultimately teaches Archibald and the reader to appreciate where we are here and now as well as the people who surround us.

I wrote this book with Emmy award-winning actor Tony Hale. The book has been featured on Conan, Letterman and was gifted at the Academy Awards and Grammy’s. Since then, we were invited to work with Dreamworks Animation to bring our little chicken to Netflix for three seasons before we were asked to join Peacock.

-Creative Director, Writer

“Tony, Spike TV wants to promote its new series on Amazon. Something called ‘The Mist’. Ever heard of it?”

I looked over at our new account lead, my eyes peering over my glasses, curious if he was merely making some cynical joke or was testing me. Then I remembered this guy was about 22 and fresh out of college. He was nothing more than a twinkle in his father’s eye when Stephen King wrote some of his best work. The poor lad. Probably doesn’t even know the secrets of YooHoo and its magical properties.

“Why yes Ryan, I do. Short story by Stephen King.”

“Cool, so they want to run something that talks about the show. Oh, and they’d like you to create an Alexa skill.”

“No. There’s too many Alexa skills out there already. I’ll talk with the brand team and see how we can use Alexa as a character. Oh! and Easter eggs. I wanna put in some Easter eggs into the spots.”

“What’s an Easter e…”

I pushed my forefinger to his lips. “Sssh. Never speak of this again.”

I worked directly with Spike TV and the King himself to develop this campaign, which kicked off the week of launch for the series. Placement included the Amazon “Gateway” homepage, fire tablet, fire TV and social media. The campaign received high praise from Robert Bakish, CMO of Viacom: “This is the kind of work we should be doing with Amazon on a regular basis for all of our show promotions.”

-Producer

We were challenged to develop a promo video promoting a breakfast event at the National Restaurant Association. Our take: Donuts aren’t like most overtly sweet things that are weirdly designed for breakfast. They say a lot about who we are.

-Executive Creative Director

I’ve always had a special thing for product videos. I think it’s the challenge of making something that people will actually enjoy watching. Like, if you can go beyond the mechanics of a product and capture the awe of a product, well, that’s pretty amazing. Axon’s Fleet 3 car camera allows police to read license plates across three lanes of traffic traveling at speeds of up to 140 mph. My first thought was, “Oh that’s total bullshit.” So, I took that doubt and made it the center of its awe. The result was a record breaking YouTube video for Axon, netting more than a half million views with a blistering 86% complete view rate.

-Creative Director, Writer

Amazon created a co-branded campaign for the Super Bowl featuring Alexa and Doritos. Then this happened:

Doritos: We want to do a post Super Bowl takeover with Alexa.

Me: What are you thinking?

Doritos: Like, one of those funny videos you write. You know funny.

Me: No, I mean, what are you thinking? The Super Bowl is a week away.

Doritos: Yeah, so make it funny.

Three days later, we got all the muckity mucks at Amazon, Alexa Brand and Doritos to give the thumbs up and I was in LA writing scripts while on set. Oh, and I had to cast talent in a bathroom the morning of the shoot because I got locked inside and had to wait for maintenance to get me out, which took an hour. I got free Doritos in the end so it was totally worth it.

The top one is the one we went with, but I added a few of the other versions that still make me giggle.

-New Business Lead, Creative Director, Writer, Voice-over Talent

I know nothing about cars, which is obviously why I was picked to lead a campaign that promoted Michelin tires during Season One of Amazon’s hit car review series, “The Grand Tour”. So, while I don’t know jack about cars I do know one thing about people who geek out over them: they want to see more, more, more. So I asked the guys at The Grand Tour if we could follow along with them and tell stories about car culture in the areas where they were filming. Then we’d release this additional content specific to the episode that was launching each week. Car geeks loved it. In fact, our Corvette piece was Michelin’s most watched, commented and shared video on Facebook in its social history. Best of all, I learned what a chassis is. Win win.

I’ll make this simple with two basic facts: First, AI is more than weird MidJourney images and Chat GPT prompts. And two, one of the biggest complaints from police officers is the absurd amount of time it takes to write reports. Some officers spend up to 3 hours per day doing this desk work, taking them away from what they really want to do, which is serve their communities. Draft One was created to address this major time suck. Launching at our annual conference in Miami in April 2024, Draft One was an immediate hit. I’ll be updating sales results soon, but the software has already captured national attention and has given agencies the ability to recruit more effectively with a new promise in time spent in report writing thanks to AI.

-Producer, Co-writer

My co-writer for Archibald’s Next Big Thing is one of the leading actors on HBO’s Veep so a lot the writing we did was done while on set for the show. During this time I met a fantastic actress named Dana Powell. Long story short, we decided to create this short film about a woman who loses way more than respect to win her latest boo while giving blood. Vimeo gave this top spot in its staff pick of the week during is premier.

Fun Fact: We used a stunt double for the fall at the end. She took the Red-Eye in from Chicago at 3am, then spent 13 hours waiting to for her moment, and we only had time for three takes. She never complained once. Those are the kind of people I love working with.

-Creative Director

Newell Brands owns everything from Elmer’s Glue, to Yankee Candles, to Mr. Coffee. They invited me out to New York to figure out how Amazon could develop a holiday site that sold its most popular brands in a way that didn’t look like a bunch of products threw a random drunken hot tub party. First, I devised a plan to arrange its content based on two types of shoppers; those looking for a gift and those looking to throw a party. From there, I developed a more relaxed shopping site that welcomed customers before pushing them to the aisle, similar to that of a Macy’s holiday window. Based on a “modern gingerbread” theme, we developed a series of cinemagraphs to give a bit a magic.

Our strategy worked. Dwell time per customer was through the roof, higher than two of its previous campaigns combined. That, and we sold out of three of the featured products in less than four days, a first for Newell on Amazon.

-Creative Director, Writer

Product demo videos don’t have to suck. For this one, I wanted to create a seamless single take that messed around with perspectives as specific benefits were highlighted. Neil Lindsay, SVP of Brand at Amazon: “This is the new bar on how we do these things.” At least that’s what I think he said. He has an accent so it was hard to tell. Either way, this video has now become the one the tablet team has used since then…they just took off the “8” and call it “Fire Tablets”. Those sneaky sunuvaguns.

-Creative Director, New Business Lead

I was asked to develop an idea with Acura that centered on this idea of innovation and the craft of taking an idea and making it a real thing. Since we don’t sell cars on Amazon, I had to figure out a way to tie it into our ecosystem in a way that wasn’t salesy or full of marketing jabber. So, I reached out to Launchpad, an Amazon platform for new entrepreneurs who have successfully brought their ideas to market. This led to the idea: Follow three of these stories and learn what it took to make their idea happen. From there, our team took about six months interviewing, filming and editing this lil’ engine together. Looking back, there’s so much more I would have done, but I think it’s a decent piece for what it’s supposed to be.

-Creative Director, Writer

As of this writing I have logged a total of 632 hours in the Destiny universe. This has cost me loss of sleep, forgetting a few key birthdays and who cares because I got to create a few spots promoting its new Alexa skill.

-Creative Director, Writer

If you checked out my work for The Grand Tour you already know I know nothing about cars. This is why I was the perfect candidate to lead up a campaign for the new Jaguar F-Pace. Jaguar wanted to tap into all those early adoptin’ folks on Amazon who fell in love with Alexa early on.

Quick story on this one: The Alexa brand team reeeeeally wanted me to add another functional Alexa command in this thing. We already had four. I told them they were being too serious with our customers. We needed something fun. Two minutes before the pitch I rewrote the script and added an Easter egg I found through Reddit. Not only did they bite, but it become the crux of the story of a man who is just waiting for permission to take the day off and go for a drive.

Creative Director, Writer, Actor, Producer, Editor, Wardrobe

We have collected 23,000 boardgames over the duration of our children’s lives. It was time to bleed out a bit, so I quickly whipped up this rad video and pushed it out on our neighborhood’s Facebook page. Every game was gone in less than two hours, and most would only interact with me if I did the “Boardgame Guy” voice.

-Creative Director, Producer, Writer

This was a fun personal project I did with the amazingly talented Brandon Voges. The idea: Take our favorite Garbage Pail Kids and create a real-life version of where they’re at now. Attention for this one grew fast because everyone loves GPK. Featured on Heavy Metal, Laughing Squid, Uproxx, and College Humor

It’s no surprise that most product videos suck. I’ve made a few sucky ones myself and swore that I’d never curse this world with another boring product video ever again. So, when the federal team at Axon asked me to make a short film highlighting all the sexy tech it makes to protect military bases, I told them I’ll only do it if I can blow up a car. Oh and I need Brandon Quinn as my lead actor, cuz he’s rad. And a helicopter. Blue….no wait…BLACK. Next thing I know I’m on a training base in Georgia with Brandon watching a bunch of guys strap some C-4 to a Jeep as a helicopter flew overhead. When we launched this short film at the Army’s largest conference, the marketing team from Army came by and said the film was absolutely incredible. I have a lot of respect for that team. Their revamped “Be all all you can be” campaign is stellar, and they blow stuff up all the time, so if they’re saying my explosion was cool then you know it is.

-Creative Director

After its massively successful holiday campaign, Newell came back asking my team to develop an idea for its spring outdoors campaign. That same night I caught a raccoon in our garbage. It had a piece of my son’s old shirts on its head. I thought, “Well that’s disgusting…but maybe there’s something here.” We presented the idea of a bunch of animals spending time together outside (and with 89% less garbage!).

The client loved the idea. All was going well until we heard the dreaded news. The client had no budget for a custom photo shoot. After a mild panic attack, I thought, “You know what, that raccoon in the trash didn’t have budget either.” This did nothing to help us out, but it did give me time to think whether or not we could do all of this in Photoshop and make it look good in a very short amount of time. I’m happy to say that the outcome was far from trashy.

-Creative Director

After seeing the work we did on Jaguar, Hyundai asked me to help devise an idea promoting its new Alexa skill whereby drivers can start their cars and set the temperature remotely. Well hot dog. This premiered on the Amazon homepage and social channels and eventually made its way to broadcast.

-Creative Director, Writer, Voiceover Talent

Ok first off, you have to experience this the way it was meant to be experienced. Click here (sorry, desktop only), and then come on back when you’re done.

The incredibly talented Bruton Stroube studios asked me to help cook up a holiday greetings video for its clients. The result was Shiftfaced, a back-and-forth experience showcasing the right and wrong way to cook a turkey. This one got a lot of press and made the studio smell like turkey barf for about a month. Oh yeah, and that’s me doing one helluva horrible Julia Childs voiceover.

-Creative Director, Writer

Another holiday greeting video card I did in collaboration with Bruton Stroube studios. This one was supposed to be a sweet, endearing love story between a porcelain angel and a nutcracker. Then we had some drinks and everything changed. Apparently the good folks at Vimeo agreed and promoted it to its staff pick of the week.

-Producer, Voice-over Talent

A while back I decided to try my hand at being a producer, mainly because I wanted to know the kind of torture I put them through. I had the chance to work with our friends at Cannonball to create this piece about what Santa really wants in lieu of stale cookies and milk. Oh, and I also got to be an elf voice too. Another check off the ol’ bucket list.

-New Business Lead, Creative Director, Writer

Clean water, good life. To be honest, the public has heard it all before. So, how do we break through the monotony of a message to make real change? I work with water and sanitation organizations to develop new ideas that raise a renewed sense of awareness for clean water in developing communities. I’ve had the chance to work with great leaders in business, sports and entertainment and local churches and have served as a guest speaker on the subject in rooms of ten to ten thousand. This journey has taken me all over the world, meeting people whose stories have given me a perspective on life that is both profound and grounded. This is the work that matters.

-Creative Director, New Business Lead

There’s no question AI is taking over. While I am sure this will ultimately lead to robots going back in time to hunt down Sarah Connor, for now it’s nice turn on my hallway lights by simply asking Alexa. But what if I wanted a bag of Doritos? Jeff Bezos challenged a team to develop a way to make it easier for customers to get their chip fix (and any other fix) through Alexa. I developed a best practices for brands to implement our Alexa bugs into any current broadcast and social video content, as well as a guide for online and on product placement.

-Creative Director, New Business Developer

Amazon Studios was early in figuring out how and if co-branding should be a thing with its platform. During that time it was wrapping up its first season of its fashion competition series, Fashion Fund. Sonicare stepped up as one of its key sponsors, so I was asked to develop a few ideas utilizing a few of the fashionistas (Aurora James and Baja East) with the super sexy world of toothbrushes. I don’t know about you, but I for one have been waiting for these two worlds to collide. Here’s a two of the :30’s we created, which ran on social as well as :15 cutdowns for midroll during the show. I love that I got to help be a pioneer for Amazon with this new platform. I also really love my Sonicare Diamondclean (they didn’t pay me to say that).

There was never a question that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was going to be big. The question for our team was how do we help Universal make it even bigger in a way that made sense to our customers? “Dinosaurs.” Well, yeah, duh. But what kind? What sort of experience? How can we make it memorable? That’s when our team discovered a fun little fact: Those rad T-rex inflatable Halloween costumes are hugely popular, especially in June. I know, I don’t get it either. But they are, and so with this we knew we had to concentrate on some T-Rex experience. This was the result of that little shopping metric.

It’s a scientific fact that people like to have fun. If you can figure out a way for people to have fun and relate it to your business….well then holy cheese chili do we have something special. That’s the philosophy of Bruton Stroube Studios. As Executive Producer, one thing I was tasked with was creating amazing events that would get people buzzing with excitement. One of my favorite’s was the slo-motion event. Keep in mind super slo-motion wasn’t even a thing yet, so I can say that this event officially made it a thing, which caught national attention and was duplicated several times over. Was the event successful? I’ll let you watch and make up your mind for yourself.

Depending on when you’re reading this, the pandemic either sucked or still sucks. The point is, pandemics suck. We all had to make adjustments, and one of the biggest adjustments I had to make professionally during the pandemic was move an entire in-person three day conference to a four hour online gig. But it was much more than porting in-person content to online content; the entire theme and proposed topics no longer resonated with our core audience as the pandemic brought on entirely new challenges within public safety. In three months I rebuilt what took eight months to plan, new theme and all. “What matters is how you respond” became a rally cry to public safety. It became a message that both challenged and offered a thin pinpoint of light during a very dark time in our world. The result was one of the most attended and highest ranked conference in Axon’s history.