Millions of people suffer heartburn, and the advertising that goes with it. We dispense with guys burping and hearts catching fire, and position the product as a simple way to live a carefree life without ever getting heartburn.
With this national TV ad and corresponding video contest, Excedrin generated the most “friends” of any over-the-counter medicine on Facebook.
JWT Creative Head Bill Hamilton asked me to find an idea big enough for Merrill Lynch to get behind, and to communicate it to senior clients in a way that would get people excited. By focusing on the way that financial planning had helped unusual people reach extraordinary goals, we used a documentary-style approach that lent real person credibility, and humanized an intimidating process from a big company.
When the SEC forced films to separate operations and management consulting operations, KPMG needed to convince business executives that a firm of management consultants who used to be known for their accounting skills were capable of creating real business insights. The result was a focus on specific knowledge gained from that experience, applied to complex international management issues.
Internationally, the letters KFC don’t mean Kentucky Fried Chicken. The infamous bucket packaging was tossed aside for an ugly striped box. And Colonel Sanders, some feared, might call to mind military dictatorship. In a series of spots designed to re-assert the brand’s place as an American icon, the campaign refocused on the bucket, “finger-lickin’ good” and other unsung tools in the brand’s architecture, as it sought a place in a cluttered international fast food landscape.
GTE wanted to offer customers a different experience in telecommunications, leapfrogging comparisons to the Baby Bells in hopes of being perceived as a forward-looking technology company with a healthy disdain for bureaucratic bungling. Two years later, they were sold to one of those very same bunglers.
This campaign for Duracell was a Finalist at Cannes for 2 year. The effect, created by dressing actors in prosthetic suits designed as caricatures of the actors themselves created instant buzz, with greater recall by consumers than heavyweights like Pepsi and Budweiser, as well as the competition the ever-present Energizer Bunny.