If Cracker Barrel has their own McRib, it’s their foil-wrapped Campfire Meals. Folks get EXCITED for them. So we introduced their fans to the Foilthusiast Family whose passion for these meals is at the next level. Then we took the awareness campaign to the next level by encouraging people to #GetCampfiredUp for the meals’ return by wrapping whatever they could find in foil. And they did.

Cracker Barrel sold so many they ran out of chicken halfway through the promo. The following year we even had to print disclaimers on all the menus.

I also played producer on the Foilthusiast Family shorts, pulling the cast from friends in the improv community.

As the holidays approach, families gather to share presents, memories, and pecan pie. But with the 2020 presidential debates and election looming, those holiday get-togethers were going to be a conversational minefield. Americans needed a safe, controversy-free issue to argue with friends and family. So we posed a simple question - one only The American Pecan Council (yes, it's a thing) could ask. Is it PEA-can? Or puh-CON?

*One Show: Shortlisted: Creative Effectiveness, PR/Media Relations
*New York Festivals: Bronze: Creative Marketing Strategy/Effectiveness; Finalist: Public Relations-Products & Services
*Epica Awards: Bronze: Confectionery & Snacks
*WARC Awards for Effectiveness: Shortlisted: Collaboration and Culture

In 2017, we relaunched the Cracker Barrel brand by reminding America of all the little things they love about their favorite place to get things country fried.

Sonic Drive-In needed a facelift. And most of their body, mind, and soul needed some work too. I helped develop a consumer ecosystem and zone strategy, overhauled the brand with a new style guide and brand guidelines, and revamped their POP, menus, packaging, and photography. We even developed simple promotional animations, capturing a social aesthetic ahead of it’s time.

Overall sales immediately jumped 20% and average ticket sales went up 30%.

To show how Cracker Barrel handcrafts their entire experience we handcrafted several entire spots. It took lots of tiny rocking chairs, a few 30 foot tall walls, and one continuous take each.

At Cracker Barrel, we always try to make everyone feel at home, even in the cold, digital wasteland of social media.

Meet Kyle Bone (pronounced bo-nay), inventor of the anti-shirt. His story proved that with Microsoft Small Business Accounting software, any idea, absolutely any, could be turned into a business.

With an intentionally amateurish website and commercial, Kyle and his crusade against the farmer’s tan seemed so real, he even got picked up by some agri-business sites.

Kyle’s unlikely success helped inspire thousands of other Americans as we looked for the best new small business idea in the country in the next phase of the campaign. The winner was rewarded with free retail space in New York City for a year and $100,000 in start-up costs. 

Shortlisted at Cannes.

Ready, set…tell an entire brand story in five words or less for one of the biggest OOH advertisers in the country. It’s a huge job, but you dive in and even wade into a copywriter’s greatest enemy, Excel, to organize all the specific boards and manage all your messaging objectives, and still have a lot of fun. Here’s some of the best from doing this 3 or 4 times in as many years.

Autolite has been Americas #1 spark plug for over 100 years. They just needed a tagline that reminded mechanics of that, giving them the confidence to recommend the spark plug to their customers no matter what they drove.

Mechanics and countermen not only recommended more Autolite plugs, they requested the ads in poster size for their shops. So we printed and sent out over 10,000.

How do you handcraft something that’s recorded by machines in a studio? Foley all your SFX and cast community theater actors.

Cracker Barrel’s biscuits play well with just about anything. This social campaign lightheartedly paired the biscuits with some other favorites to remind folks to stop on by in between their favorite summer activities and treat themselves to a biscuit.

Everyone thinks of Crate & Barrel when they’re registering for their wedding or moving into a new place. But most people don’t consider them as a place to find holiday gifts. We turned that around with a campaign focused on the joy the gift-getters feel discovering C&B’s goods under the tree.

When Cracker Barrel decided to update their fleet of trucks, we saw a golden opportunity to remind folks of what they love about the brand in a big way, and have some fun with people’s expectations of what they might be hauling around the country.

The Bank of Montreal wants to be the go-to bank for businesses with ambition. We created a campaign in which each execution was tailored toward a specific industry and placed in trade publications targeting that industry.

As Campfire Meals season wound down for the year, we created a product to keep folks campfired up until the limited specials returned. The Campfire Meals Candle captured everything folks loved about the meals in a package they could enjoy all year round. We ran out of candles in minutes.

They also smelled…kind of terrible.

A companion to the TV, the Enjoy Every Little Thing radio campaign told stories about folks discovering so much more to love about Cracker Barrel than biscuits and gravy.

A passion project for a horror movie fan. That passion may or may not have driven me to some light trespassing to get one of these shots.

This website is part of a viral campaign highlighting MEGA Bloks’ belief that creativity can save the world. The crux of the campaign was a series of viral films that followed two creative kids as they broke the balls of politicians, professors, and UN officials about how to solve the world’s problems. Needless to say, the adults didn’t have a clue. The website housed the kids’ videos, fun ways for other kids to exercise their own creativity, print out coloring books, and a link to a flickr page documenting the kids’ adventures.

We worked with Valspar to strategically curate their colors of the year to deliver a calming influence that brings simplicity to the home and the mind. So we leaned into this and partnered with sound therapist Sara Auster to provide a new resource for peace-seeking consumers: 12 soothing tracks based on each of the colors of the year. These audio expressions allow DIYers to experience full sensory immersion in the shades that either invigorate, calm or comfort their home and self. Here’s a few of my favorites.