manifestos don’t have to be boring <3
Client: FITBIT
Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
Strong is beautiful.
Strong is inspirational.
Strong is motivational.
Strong speaks quietly and carries a big stick.
Fail strong. Live strong.
That which does not kill me...I don’t know, probably makes me strong.
Because all pain makes you strong.
Because blood, sweat, and tears all bought ad space
on this long walk for a strong sandwich.
Brands have put ‘strong’ on a pedestal so long
it’s collecting dust.
Which, when I look around,
is the one thing ‘strong’ most definitely is not doing.
Kicking up dust, maybe.
Winning at life?
Absolutely.
Because guess who’s having the most fun out there right now?
STRONG people.
Well-rested, well-rounded, emotionally sound people
who feel ready for everything
which makes them up for anything—
and they write MOVIES about people like that.
Strong isn’t some virtue.
Strong kicks down doors to the best things in life
then hands you an endorphin cocktail
that makes it all feel that much more worth living.
At this point
I’m not even sure what else I can say,
except to quote and then boldly expand upon the words
of Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper:
Girls...just wanna.
Men...just wanna.
People of all ages, genders, and ethnicities just wanna...
Have fun.
And, girl, Strong Is Fun.
FITBIT
Client: CONVERSE
Wake up.
There is no “next” coming.
Nothing’s coming.
Nothing in the chamber.
And not a one in the barrel.
No “next” to sit back and wait and see about.
And we don’t realize it because we’re too busy
sitting back and waiting for what’s next.
But what if “next” just stopped?
What if there’s just now.
And now. And now.
And more now.
And maybe a couple “no’s” masquerading as “nows.”
And no nows that feel like new nows
because “next” is what keeps now IN the now.
And now I’m just getting emotional
because what’s the point of “now”
without the thrill of that thing that comes NEXT.
A next that will never come…
unless we create it.
Now.
CONVERSE || Create Next
Client: DROPBOX WORKSPACES
Out of the box!
Everybody!
Outside the box!
Bring all your thinking
all your strategizing
all of it — outside the box!
In fact, once safely outside,
we'd like you to turn around and burn that box to the ground!
Then dance on its ashes,
you free-wheeling, free-thinking misfit!
You born-again hyper-individualistic norm-destroyer!
Because nothing's more valuable to us
than YOUR unique way of doing what you do—
oh wait, you work in Google Slides?
No, no, that's ok. We just typically use Keynote, but that's fine...
Wait, where's David? He works from home on Thursdays? Every Thursday?
It's just that Sheryl's supposed to be reviewing that design he—
Sheryl works from home on Thursdays, too?
Ok well did he mention if they put the files on the server?
Oh, it was in an email...well which email?
Well, what day was that?
No, I don't remember what day Jarret complained about the espresso machine not being cleaned properly.
Yes, I remember the unique GIF he sent of the disappointed...orangutan---
you know what?
Forget it.
Everybody…back in the box!
Yes, BACK in the box.
Grab all that fresh-thinking
And all your free-wheeling ways
with your shared docs and your Slacks and your Zoom meetings,
and your four-day, digital detox work weeks
and just bring all that stuff back in here with you.
What's that, now?
You already burned the box to the ground?
Well, then, we'll just need to build a NEW box.
A better box.
One that can fit all our favorite things from outside the box.
Because we've got an entire team of misfit, norm-destroyers
who need a space to collaborate efficiently
on which norms we'll be focusing on destroying today.
Now, granted, it does sound like we'll be making a magical box.
And we did.
Which is exactly the kind of cool shit you can expect
now that all the outside-the-box thinkers can finally get on the same page...
inside the box.
DROPBOX WORKSPACE || Work your way, together
Client: SPERRY TOP-SIDER
We’re not the ones for charmed lives.
Charmed lives are for trust funds and leprechauns.
When we inherit the sea, we’ll charm it ourselves.
Its tempest winds and cocktail breezes
Its stories of mostly cloudy nights with fully-clouded friends.
We want rocked boats and rollicking brains.
A life that undresses men on battlefields
And dance floors.
That spits mist in our face, covets our salty hair,
And both loves and hates how we’re never thrown.
Because the storm will end in calm waters soon enough.
Till then
It owes its waves to the living.
SPERRY TOP-SIDER || Make Waves
Client: PRICELINE
Bucket lists.
A 2007 trend that officially put some trips
on a pedestal above other trips.
Somehow making them feel more special
and even more out of reach than ever before.
But don’t worry.
They also gave us permission to wait on taking those trips…
just as long as you get around to them
BEFORE YOU DIE.
(wtf)
Yes, bucket lists are to travel what layovers are to travel.
They delay everything you’re excited for
while statistically reducing the probability you’ll ever actually get there.
Well, Priceline knows a bucket list
is just a wish list with better PR.
And it is our understanding that wishing is still not considered
a viable form of travel in most states.
So, if 2007 was the year of the bucket…
let’s make 2023 the year to book-it.
The year Paris, France leaves room
for an additional trip to Paris, Texas.
And one more to that family reunion in Rome, NY.
The year rubber finally meets foreign roads
and you show the universe
you’re done wishing on stars.
So buck bucket lists.
Less bucket. More book-it.
PRICELINE
Client: SHUTTERFLY
Thanks to human innovation,
our world now moves at a speed that
…wait for it…
isn't very human.
Each day, moments fly by us faster than the day before.
So, we whip out our phones
and we capture everything...
and we share everything...
and we remember...nothing.
It all ends up being kind of a blur.
Like randomly capturing hundreds of bees from a swarm
and expecting to somehow memorize each of their faces and names and stories when,
in this particular analogy,
you've already got about 30 terabytes of bees stored online.
Do you realize how many bees that is???
You will one night, when you can't sleep
and you're scrolling through thousands upon thousands of bees
that you don't even remember capturing.
Sure, most weren't worth remembering.
But some were...
Bees that made you laugh. That still make you laugh.
Bees that make you pause.
That make you wonder why you ever lost touch.
Bees you kick yourself for forgetting.
Bees that were unlike any you've ever met before.
Bees that legitimately changed your life—
You know I'm not actually talking about bees, right?!
Because while this analogy has clearly gone on too long,
the moments that really matter in your life won't.
If you want to save them, you don't need more storage.
You need to grab hold of those moments
with your own two hands,
and create a memory.
SHUTTERFLY || Hold the Moment
Client: CHEVY
When did ‘sameness’ become a dirty word?
There’s 600 trillion feet of DNA in each of our bodies.
And 99.9% of it — exactly the same.
It's why we've survived.
Giving us common goals like:
”Let's get out of this tree and find some food.”
Or, “Maybe get back in the tree, that thing keeps eating us.”
Or, “Let’s march a million people to Washington
and shake this country like a rag doll that's misbehaved.”
Our sameness has been the source of power
for any cause that’s ever actually caused anything —
the 600-trillion-gigawatt amp that makes sure history hears us clearly.
So while other companies focus on our differences
and promise to be "unlike anything anyone has ever seen before,"
sameness is why we engineer for what 99.9% of us see every day.
That's the 0.1% that makes us different.
Chevy Runs Deep
Client: TURTLE ROCK STUDIOS
(written for the zombie video game title: Back 4 Blood)
Ever been on a night-out with your friends
and everyone’s having a great time
and then some minor wrench gets thrown into the evening
like maybe the Uber driver can’t find your pick-up location
so your group’s thinking about maybe walking to the next bar
but there’s that one friend who’s not feeling the change
and so they just kind of pout and pack it in
and just like that their night’s over
and it kind of fucks with the vibe
and so everyone else starts asking
what do you think, do you want to stay out or should we call it?
and that just puts a bullet in the back of the head of whatever good vibes were left
and now the whole night’s dead
when you all could have been out getting high on White Claws
and that’s not good.
You don’t want to be that group of friends.
You want to be the group that’s down for whatever.
That’s not afraid to actually embrace change
and by embrace it, I mean
if necessary
revert to a sub-primal state of survivalist humanity
where there are no moral compasses
and the only mandate is you’ve gotta be cool with
blasting anything that moves, hisses, or twitches
before it vomits parasitic zombie worms into our mouths
or caves in our chest cavities with the mutated semblance of a club arm,
until they’re all dead, or I suppose, ‘til we are—
which is basically just Darwinism
only in this reality, Darwin’s a 9-foot tall mutant flesh monster
and you’ve just picked up a nasty Mountain Dew habit.
I mean, c’mon, it’s been a year since the Collapse
and I know the original plan was that we’d all just hole-up
and try not to die for the next 20 or 30 years—but know what?
The zombies didn’t stick to any plans.
They started changing and getting all bizarro mutant death-machine-y
and after a few run-ins
I’m not sure we’re still feeling the “head home early tonight to ensure survival” vibes.
Not when there’s still so much night ahead of us
filled with hyper-violent alternatives that are wayyy more fun
inviting you to rage all night
fighting like hell not to die
and all because you want the chance to wake up tomorrow
to do the whole thing over again.
And I don’t know about your post-apocalyptic kinks
but ‘round here, we don’t call that “survival.”
That?
That’s called living :)
BACK 4 BLOOD || Don’t let the good times die