Brochures, Online, Print Ads
and Social

When it comes to copy voice, BMW looks for flair, passion and energy with an attitude. 

Here are selected pages from three BMW product brochures: M5,
4 Series and iSeries.

M5 is BMW 5 Series’ high performance M configuration.  Here are the brochure’s cover and five selected interior pages.

4 Series is the first in a new series of BMW two-door models.  The trick was to emphasize significant differences between the new 4 Series and its 3 Series (four-door) cousin.

M2 is expressed and experienced in an interactive, multimedia digital brochure.

iSeries is BMW's all-new electric and hybrid brand.  This brochure is the first effort to introduce this breakthrough model line’s technology to the U.S. market.

Beyond pages and cover concepts for brochures like these, I’ve written articles for BMW Magazine , BMW online advertising, and social for BMW North America and their sub-brand MINI.

Design Agency: RITTA Paramus NJ

Social Ads

Communicator Award Winner

Brand new social video campaign for Welch’s Fruit Snacks. We’re emphasizing fun with fruit. Because, uniike the competition, fruit is Welch’s first ingredient.

Appearing on Instagram and Facebook.

Cult Brand Strategy and Copywriting

2020 Hermes Creative Awards Platinum
Digital Ad Campaign

2020 MarCom Awards
Digital/Social

2020 Communicator Award of Distinction
Social

Shown Here: Ad Panels embedded in Facebook and Instagram pages. Second image is animated.

On Day One our team realized that Early Riser’s distinctively descriptive name gives our client an opportunity to uniquely own the early rising experience.

We’re deploying a combination of advertising art and copy, branding, and organic content — initially on social media — to create a community around, and an emotional connection to, the brand.

The brief is to balance telling the early risers’ story with advertising that dramatizes Early Riser Coffee’s significant price advantage over their key competitors — specifically Chock Full O’ Nuts, Folgers, and Maxwell House.

Facebook and Instagram are being utilized to build brand awareness along with a community of loyal Early Risers by integrating organic content, brand messaging, direct response, and retail sales promotion.

Brand Strategy
Brand Development
Character Co-Creation & Development
Copywriting

Art Direction, Brand Concept & Design:
Jon Stapp atomicvibe design lab

Leanne Govitz, marketing director at Delta College, a top 15 ranked community college, had made the daring decision to change the school’s mascot from a pioneer to…a duck.

Leanne searched for a designer to realize her new mascot and came upon art director Jon Stapp of atomicvibe design lab. She loved his work and felt he was perfect for the job.

After Jon received her assignment, he called me, and we discussed it. Our reply to the client was a recommendation that, given her objectives in rebranding Delta, the duck needs to be more than just another ordinary and obvious sideline mascot cavorting in costume. (And completely different from the nationally famous duck at the University of Oregon.)

Reaching beyond obvious to original, Jon and I swung for the fences.

We created a fully formed character – with a backstory and all -- that connects to and unites the entire Delta community – students, faculty and alumni.

As Delta’s Ambassador of Enthusiasm, Duck waddles beyond the usual mascot athletics sideline role to center stage support and encourage high academic achievement for each and every Delta student.

Duck is the foundational brand asset of the school’s internal communications, merchandising, and external advertising -- a first for higher education marketing.

Jon did a brilliant job of creating and rendering Duck’s look and graphic assets, as well as developing concepts for character themed merchandise. Partnering closely with Jon, my role was co-development of the character’s persona, brand and creative strategy, writing the Strategy section of the Brand Guidelines, Duck’s backstory, and copy for internal comms media and external advertising.

It was all about making Duck smarter and more strategic than an ordinary mascot. Throughout our development of Duck (that’s the name, simply “Duck”) our mantra was, “the other mascots are idiots."

I’ll be posting more visuals for this groundbreaking brand soon.

Here's the tag...

We’re all Ducks in this pond

Brand Strategy and Copywriting

Here are five print ads for Pitney Bowes' Document Messaging Technologies (DMT) business unit.

In the ad at left, the client (the leader in mail and customer messaging technologies) needed to get the conversation started for an innovative technology for which it would be introducing new products: intelligent mail.  Here, I vectored the copy onto a provocative tack.  And it got results.  There were many requests for the ad's white paper offer.

The next three ads reintroduced Pitney Bowes docSense software technologies in the campaign I developed for them, "The Power Behind Documents."

The final ad is for Pitney Bowes' Mail Inserters, also from DMT, which are the industry standard in mail inserting equipment.  So much so, they've spawned a fan base all their own.

Art Direction:  David Grigg, Happy Dog Advertising

Shown here: four print ads

Brand Strategy/Development and Copy

Print and Collateral

SCCA Enterprises manufactures all-out racers that can be raced on a less than all-out budget.  My assignment: position and express this unique brand for two of their products for two different market segments. 

For the Formula E, shown below, our strategy specified an appeal skewed toward the rational because its buyers are more often looking for a racer offering a low-cost entry to higher levels of racing.

The strategy for Spec Racer Ford, shown to the left, is more social and emotional. It offers close-as-hell racing with a great group of racers for the minimum outlay of cash.

Art direction by Patrick Seymour of Tsang Seymour

Brand Strategy/Development
Print Ads and P.O.P.

In our world of smart phones, video games and virtual reality, parents are concerned about their kids being able to function confidently in the real world of, well, real stuff. 

Add to that growing worries over the safety of some imported toys and the future of American manufacturing and you have the perfect opportunity for a start-up like Luke's Toy Factory.

Shown here: two print ads

Art Direction by Mitch Achiron

mitchachiron.com

Social Media: Visual concepts and copywriting

LinkedIn ad campaign for Income Discovery, an app for financial advisors to help them plan their retiree clients’ retirement income spending.

Brand Strategy and Copywriting

We’ve all seen, or perhaps have been to, those duty-free shops at the airports. Many of these stores are owned and operated by International Shoppes.

This poster series, which is on display in the TSA lines at many U.S. airports (see on-site installation below), encourages travelers to head straight over to an International Shoppes duty-free shop right after clearing through TSA.

Design Agency Partner:
Studio Rappy, New York

Brochure, direct mail -- cover, inside overleaf, and spread

Of course, there are patriotic reasons for joining the Army Reserve.  Among the others: there's one weekend every month that's guaranteed to be anything but boring.

Shown here, top to bottom: cover, inside overleaf and inside spread

Art direction by Steve O'Neill, NW Ayer

Bringing a bold new product/lifestyle brand to life.

Chase Motors was created to produce, in America, limited runs of custom redesigns of classic motorcycles — Chase Originals.

Beyond the bikes, it’s a 360-degree owner/member experience to include a Chase Original Bar and Restaurant, events, entertainment and more.

I worked closely with a creative team of Chase co-founder rock musician Andy Chase and graphic designer Patrick Seymour on this breakthrough motorcycle brand. As copywriter/strategist, I partnered with Andy and Patrick to develop a compelling, distinctive brand voice, including the “Chase Originals” brand name.

For a close-up view of body copy text, please access this section on your mobile device and expand.

Graphic Design Partner:
Patrick Seymour of Tsang Seymour NYC

Print Ad-insert

Hunger isn't an end in itself, but symptomatic of other conditions in people's lives.

Dimensional Direct Mail

IBM urgently needed to reach the CEOs of America's 30 biggest banks to tell them about an important new hardware/software solution, Netpay/MVS, which helps those banks attract and keep their largest customers: other banks.

OUTER COVER:  The big one that got away...
INSIDE COVER:  ...won't get away anymore.

An LL Bean fish net is inside, along with with brochures for the CEO to pass along to their bank's key decision makers.

Did it work?  After this mailing dropped, the IBM sales team went from having exactly zero presentation meetings to 18.

Art direction by Jeff Bretl at Grey.

Brand Refresh and Brand Voice - Package Copy

Many of us remember Eight O’Clock Coffee as that coffee that mom had ground at the checkout counter. Today, Eight O’Clock, while still a premium coffee, needed a brand refresh and creative new flavors to appeal to new generations of coffee drinkers.

I provided a fun, new take on back panel package copy that’s a bold departure for the coffee category.

For the “Barista Blends” package copy, see the last two samples, below.

EOC Flavors of America Web:

https://www.eightoclock.com/coffee-varieties/flavors-of-america

EOC Barista Blends Web:

https://www.eightoclock.com/coffee-varieties/barista-blends

Shown here: six package back panels

Direct Response Banners and Emails
Copywriting and
Brand/Creative Strategy

In the overcrowded extended auto warranty segment, SnoopDrive is both start-up and upstart.

Their unique actuarial model is configured to serve employees of select corporate partners. This prequalifies prospects to enjoy premium rates well below the competition, while providing BBB A+ service.

The client insisted on keeping their playful corporate name. My
take on this was that their name is an asset that can be leveraged into a unique CTA to drive prospects to not just get a quote, but to
Snoop a Quote.

I leveraged their name to create a call-to-action tagline:

Snoop first. Drive Smarter.

Seen here are a banner and a kick-off email.

The subject line for the email is:

It’s like an airbag for your budget.

Agency Partner: The Mixx
Art Director: Jonathan Aguilar

Online, Broadcast
and Brand Development

This client hosts online classes for colleges and universities.  I created the branding and tag line: "Enter the E-Class," along with the brand's iconic button.  This is a storyboard for an animated banner.

Hear my EVCI spot over on the Radio page on this site.

Art direction by Dick Thomas

Dimensional Direct Mail

Here's another example of using dimensional direct mail to seize the attention of senior executives.  In this example, it's owners of $5 million-plus businesses.  The challenge here was to be sure that the items inside were, in fact, made in Connecticut.  Six BIC pens with black ink did the trick.  And attracted businesses to the Nutmeg State.

Art direction by Don Carter.

If you're going to poach copy, poach from the best, I say!  In this case it's from no less of a copywriter than Ben Franklin for this cardiovascular medicine practice in New Jersey.

Agency/Design Partner:  Barnett

Dimensional Direct Mail

Caples Finalist Award

My toughest client?  Bob Devol.  That guy wants everything.  He's a real pain in the ass.  The good news is that he offers 100% share of the profits to his copywriter when a mailing succeeds, as this one did.  So I guess he isn't that bad after all.

Art Direction:  Barnett Design

Andy Awards Finalist

What if house pests could read? Well, no. But what if? This mailing was a big hit for America’s Number One pest control company.

Agency: JWT Direct

Art Director: Steve O’Neill