SUNOCO The Impossible NIL Deal

Effie Silver for Timely Response
Clio Sports Gold for Social Media
Clio Sports Silver x 2 for Fan Engagement & Sponsorships
Clio Bronze for Real Time Response
Webby Winner for Best Community Engagement, Nominee for Influencer
Shorty Winner for Organic Promotion, Finalist for On a Shoestring and Real Time Response

One of the hottest March Madness players was Adama Sanogo from UConn. Charles Barkley kept mispronouncing his name as “Sunoco.” A gift. Save for those stupid visa laws that kept us from approaching him.

Credits
CCO: Kathleen Wille
SR AD: Loren Purcell
SR CW: Clynton Kelly
SOCIAL STRATEGY: Alex Lambert

TWO HEARTED Never Trend

Ad Age Editor’s Pick

We learned the founder of this iconic craft beer was a stubborn bastard. Change the recipe? “No.” Change the label? “No.” A stance in stark contrast to the trend towards weird ingredients and loud labels. This campaign lived online, out of home, and in our hearts.

Oh, and then we learned, “Haha, just just kidding about not trending. We’re about to introduce THE trendiest style, a hazy.” That’s fine, we said, You’re a decade behind that trend.

Credits
CCO: Kathleen Wille
ECD: Brian Platt
ACD/AD: Nic Brenden
ACD/CW: Joe Stefanson

SKITTLES Super Bowl

D&AD Pencils for TV Commercial & Direction,
Cannes Silver Lion for Film,
Cannes Shortlist for Film Craft,
London International Awards Bronze for TV,
CA Advertising Annual,
Lürzer's Archive

Skittles' (and Wrigley's) first-ever Super Bowl spot, featuring a sleepy town where they settle every dispute the same way. According to USA Today, we were #1... most underrated spot. We'll take it.

Our director Dante Ariola had 60 prosthetic arms made, complete with veins, freckles and hair. They smelled like rotten eggs.

The extended version with an alternate ending for the ladies.

Two weeks before the game, we launched with a teaser.

And the biggest honor: We made the Brick Bowl!

Credits
ECD: Mark Gross
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

INTEL Weekends

Silver National ADDY

The competition had just come out with a faster processor. But Intel still had one big thing in its favor: Change is hard. We reminded IT bosses that switching would mean giving up every last second of free time. And we did it without ever showing a piece of hardware. These charming little spots and all social content were shot by Owen Trevor.

Credits
ECD: Glen Scott
GCD: Kathleen Wille
CD/AD: Jordan Gray
CD/CW: Rob Kleckner
ACD/AD: Julia Gramaglia/Dan Rosenberg
ACD/CW: Amy McVey

MICHELOB ULTRA PURE GOLD Super Bowl

1.5 billion impressions
#1 most YouTube comments for SB LIII
#3 most YouTube likes for SB LIII
100 Best Ad Meter Spots Over 25 Years

A little-known organic beer. A whisper of a wellness phenomenon. Together on the loudest TV event of the year. This shouldn’t have worked, but lucky for us, it ended up being the most successful organic beer launch in history.

And here’s the actual spot. Yes, Zoë Kravitz is that otherworldly in person.

In the days following, it was all about Zoë, Pure Gold and ASMR. We got tons of earned media from the Today Show, GMA, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and all sorts of mainstream pubs. The highlight? An article on the cover of the Wall Street Journal, complete with their signature illustration of Zoe’s hands and the bottle. Eee!

The spot was ranked 77th best of the last 25 years. It’s a Tide Ad was 70th. (Which is the closest we’ll ever get to It’s a Tide Ad.)

Credits
ECD: Jon Flannery
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Wille & Marianna Ruiz
AD: Erene Semanderes
CW: Sarafina Persaud
SOUND/MIX: Jason Ryan

MyQ GARAGE Launch

Never heard of myQ? You’re not alone. We led the pitch — FCB’s biggest of the year — then set out to raise awareness from zero. With terrible voices on 11, we sung our hearts out and sold these mini musicals slash product demos. Naturally, we partnered with Trish Sie, aka, OK Go’s director and choreographer.

Credits
ECD: Jon Flannery
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille
Digital, Social + Experiential
AD: Moogie O’Brien & Kelly O’Keefe
CW: Kim Sheffield & Lauren Lakin

AMAZON HQ2 Pitch

Just like 250 other cities, Chicago REALLY wanted to be Amazon’s next home. So the mayor came to us. We were asked to write a few pages to kick off the pitch book. “No direction. Just give it a voice. And a look.” The book is still top secret — and hundreds of pages. The videos are not. We hear Jeff Bezos called ours “the most creative submission of any city.” Shucks.

The team had an idea to show Amazon just how welcoming this city is. Not just to businesses, but to immigrants from every country.

Credits
ECD: Kevin Grady & Jon Flannery
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

SKITTLES Smile

Cannes Bronze Lion for Film,
Clio Awards Shortlist,
CA Advertising Annual,
Lürzer's Archive,
Creativity Top 5, Adweek Top 10

An integrated campaign about a young man awakening to the power of his own smile, shot by Randy Krallman.

He was 16. She was 24. The best day of his life... had his mom not been on set.

Once it became clear what a Skittles grill could do for the awkward sort, we marketed it in style magazines as the next hot accessory. And then we gave some away. Not many. Those things were expensive.

Do not neglect the Skittles grill. Did I mention how expensive they were? So we marketed a whole line of care products.

We put tons more ads on Facebook because the photo shoot was so fun.

Credits
ECD: Mark Gross
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY Rebrand

Jay Chiat Awards Gold for Nonprofit,
Lürzer's Archive

To relaunch one of the world's largest charities, it wouldn't be enough to join the fight against cancer. We needed to redefine victory. That brought us a powerful thought: advantage humans. Cancer is a formidable opponent, but it will never have our humanity.

We partnered with cancer survivors for the production, including director Rodrigo Garcia Saiz and photographer Sandro Miller.

Sandro cast patients and their families for print and out of home.

We've proposed city takeovers many, many times. We finally got to do one. Several, actually — in NYC, Atlanta and Chicago.

Corra Films interviewed the survivors, including our photographer Sandro, for long-form digital content.

Credits
ECD: Jean Batthany
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe & Karin Rose
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille & Mary Beth Adduci
AD: Colleen Keesey

STATE FARM Concert for Sandy Relief

Adweek Ad of the Day

We were on a shoot for State Farm when we found out they were sponsoring 12-12-12, the concert for Hurricane Sandy relief. We had Joe Pytka, some kids and no time. We wrote scripts that night, then shot two the next day and shipped within the week. The second spot ran. The first one might've run if we had gotten to Eddie Vedder in time.

Credits
GCD: Barry Burdiak & John Hayes
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe & Kurt Riemersma
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille & Matt Ben-Zeev

MILK-BONE Dogs Are More

This iconic brand was ready for a new platform. As fanatical dog people ourselves, we kept coming back to one thought: Dogs are more. More intuitive. More empathetic. And, let's face it, more human than most humans. Let’s treat them that way.

Our fully integrated campaign included film, print, digital, social and experiential. Here's just a small sampling of the work.

New retirement idea: Live on a farm with hundreds of dogs.

It would seem I have a thing for smush-faced dogs.

Credits
ECD: Susan Treacy & Jon Flannery
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

BLUE BUNNY Give In

We won the pitch with a promise: Okay, fine, we won’t kill the bunny. But it was time for this longtime mascot to grow up. Goodbye, childish cartoon. Hello, enabling roommate who prefers good times over all else. He’s kinda like The Dude with fur.

Credits
ECD: Jon Flannery
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille
Digital + Social + Experiential
ACD/AD: Paige Miller
ACD/CW: Morgan Richter
AD: Miles Jappa + Victoria Rosselli
CW: Matt Bush + Jim Choy

3 MUSKETEERS Whipped Good

A print and digital campaign for the fluffiest chocolate bar around. We hoped to cast and costume the actual employees who do the whipping. Not surprisingly, that didn't happen.

We crossed our fingers that trucks wouldn't tear down the rope.

Credits
CD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
CD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

STATE FARM Hank

Adweek Ad of the Day

Life insurance is a typically dour category. We turned to Tim Godsall to change that.

Credits
GCD: Barry Burdiak & John Hayes
ACD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
ACD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

RMHC Super Bowl

Anastacio was diagnosed with leukemia at just 3 years old. He lived hours away from the best children's hospital, so the Ronald McDonald House welcomed his entire family to stay during treatment. Happily, right after we produced this spot with Malcolm Venville, Anastacio was pronounced cancer-free. Proof that when families stay closer, kids heal faster.

Credits
ECD: Bill Cimino
ACD/AD: Marisa Groenweghe
ACD/CW: Kathleen Tax Wille

MILKY WAY Apologies

We dropped a four-ton tree on a car, hung a couple parachuters in a tree without harnesses, and angered a wild bull take after take ’til 5 a.m. Only in Uruguay. We promised two spots and delivered nine.