Directors cut, plus the DVD commentary. A few of my personal favorites with a couple little stories, too.
Fish Hands
You've gotta give the first fake ad that got you your first real job the first spot right? As a young writer trying to break into the business in Minneapolis you had to have two things in your book. Some hard-working headlines. And some strong-willed fishing ads. I always wanted to copy Rapala stuff but we decided to do Berkley instead. My Art Director student partner Ken Geiger thought it would be cool to make the colors of PowerBait stand out in black and white. I think it's cool for it's time circa 2010. The line is now a simple trick for most writers. Take a common saying and flip it. But it was fun.
Probably a Lobster.
Hardly anyone put good headlines on websites back in 2011. Even fewer people do now. But my Art Director pal Alan Josephson and I thought one of our favorite Duluth Restaurants deserved to stand out and be a little different. The Blackwoods website was full of rich photography, dark woodsy design appeal, and a lot of personable headlines. Mac Likes It. Like a lot.
This just happened. It might look like a print ad but it's more of a snapshot of a brand on a mission to serve a tiny group of farmers. Hope you like it as much as Mac Ehrhardt does.
Wood-chip Your Pants
This is just a screen grab of a dynamic banner ad, but before this Bobcat had a really hard time buying headlines that had the gumption needed to get the attention of weary screen scrollers. Phil Hunt is a prolific writer who works on Bobcat at Flint. He and I, along with the Flint team worked with Bobcat to take on a bolder persona. Shout out to Justin Fisk at Bobcat for approving this ad and starting a movement, that's growing as I type.
I'd Tap That
We had an app to launch and needed a video that would catch peoples' attention. The cool thing about the Mortarr app was that you could tap or click images of brick and mortar spaces and see who did it or how to get it. Everyone was excited to tap that app. And a great idea was born. We had $0 for the budget. All the actors are co-workers, family, and friends. Good times making this with Lynsie Stortroen, Taylor Friehl, Colton Jensen and many, many, more.
Test Drive Karaoke
Same shirt. Different shoot. When you're a creative director at a small shop sometimes you have to write, direct, or even act in the thing. This Test Drive Karaoke video features me, the guy in the black polo, and the GM of the card dealership. We actually have become good friends since filming this. Cringey or bingey?
Pioneer Rep Radio
If you listen closely in this spot, you can hear Dan's voice crack. That's because he started tearing up. That's how much being a Pioneer rep means to him. This is a real Pioneer seed sales rep.
If I would have known then how rare it would be to work on a project like this, I would have stayed a little longer. I love working with Andre Bergeron, owner and audio engineer at BabbleOn in Minneapolis and also with Gloria Schafer, producer. We traveled the country one winter talking to Pioneer seed reps and turning their stories into radio spots. You might not think that's a flex for a writer, but letting the story come to you is one of the hardest lessons I've learned over the years. Sometimes we are story seekers or story tenders or story stokers.
T-Series Radio
I'll wrap it up for now with a another radio spot from my Pioneer days. My friend and fellow writer Jay Walsh and I worked on these together. It was fun to work with engineer Andre Bergeron and producer Gloria Schafer on these as well. T-Series was a line of soybeans that didn't have much to improve on compared to the last line of new soybeans so we leaned hard into the name. Great Ts in history was born. Can't believe Pioneer approved these. And that's why I like them.
I could add more but you'll probably never make it this far.