-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.”