Director of Strategy
Chicago
Favorites
Sweet Grace Adeline
A good taco and a shot of Patron Silver
Anthing that makes me laugh
Summer in Chicago
Biderman - cause Maverick needs Goose
Hometown
Marion, Indiana
Recent Posts
Vampires suck....HBO does not.
Do vampires exist? Hell yes. Do they suck? Of course they do...that's, well, you know, the definition of what vampires do. What you might not know is that vampires also have needs. Needs like you and me....for insurance and jobs and cars and motorcycles and razors and fragrances, just to name a few. We at DK recognized this early on when HBO came calling for a buzz-generating, no-holds-barred campaign to launch the sophomore season of True Blood. The show, as I'm sure you know, is about vampires living among us. And with that little piece of "faux" truth, we begat the reality-disrupting campaign that rolls out today with billboards in NYC and LA, print ads in Us Weekly, TV Guide and The New York Times as well as digital ads placed on CNN, Yahoo, Gawker and other entertainment sites. It wasn't easy working for seven clients at once but hey, look at the result. Pretty sweet. Much thanks to HBO of course, and all of the partner brands who had the foresight and guts to jump on board: Mark Ecko, Geico, Gillette, Harley-Davidson, Mini and Monster. True Blood Season 2 premieres June 14.
Disrupt the system
I like the idea of blowing shit up. I always have. Maybe it's the boy, the kid, in me. I love progress and I've come to despise anything that gets old or moldy or set in its way. I just want to blow shit like that up. That's why I love the industry now. Love the way people are communicating and taking in media. Love the way all the rules are getting bent and broken. Everything is getting flipped on its head. The financial industry. The car biz. The Government. And especially the MarCom industry. We have an internal mantra which is all about "disrupting the system." It permeates everything we try to do. So I am always on the lookout for anyone who's doing it successfully. These are two of my favorite cats. They each go about it differently but the result is the same. To use a British turn of phrase, "they take the piss" out of their respective targets.
If you haven't run across www.wwtdd.com (What Would Tyler Durden Do?) then you are missing your daily laugh. This is the only site I have gone to every day for the last 3 years. It's silly fun. But if you despise celebs as much as I do, then you have to check him out. He eviscerates them....in a funny way of course.
The other guy I like is Bob Lefsetz. He has a daily newsletter, The Lefsetz Letter (www.lefsetz.com). He's a music industry guy who writes about the idiocy of that industry and their continuing freefall from any of the values that ever made it good. He's always on point, never wavering. Sure, he's pissed off all the time but he never tires. I respect that.
Both of these guys are disrupting the system in their own way. It only takes a little.