Polar Latitudes is a travel company that runs cruises exclusively to Antarctica, where some of history’s greatest explorers had made their bones, many at the cost of their own lives. But what does it mean to explore today – not for the death-defying few, but for the bucket list many who aspire to go there? Why do people travel to this magnificent, unearthly place? What do they discover there? And how does the experience change them? We dug into that question, and found not just one answer, but many. “We are all explorers” became a unifying and differentiating message that continues to carry through all Polar Latitudes communication.
At the time off this work, opioid addiction was already a massive problem affecting millions, destroying lives, and yet somehow avoiding mass awareness and understanding. We wanted to shine a bright light on the problem, and establish Orexo, a relative newcomer to the pharma industry, as a leader in addressing the issue head on, through awareness, education, and prescription management. And we wanted to do it in a way that would be hard for both patients and the medical community to ignore. This integrated work won a Cannes Gold Lion.
Social media and pets are undoubtedly made for each other. For Nature's Variety, makers of Instinct pet food, this provided a great opportunity to demonstrate our own commitment to healthy, happy lives for all pets, by asking rescue dog owners everywhere to post a photo, be part of an ambitious social film project that would inspire a million more people to adopt. Within a week of its release, the resulting film had been shared and viewed by more than 3 million pet lovers.
At the time, Jim Beam was a bottom shelf brand that needed to get its confidence back. They needed something big, bold, and talk-worthy. A year after the Bold Choice campaign broke, Jim Beam reported positive sales growth for the first time in 20 years. Our work on the brand also earned us a number of industry awards, including ANDY Awards, AICP recognition, and an Effie. This film, featuring Willem Defoe, is now a part of the permanent film collection of MoMA.
When you have a great story to tell, with all the richness and authenticity that comes with 225 years of history, sometimes its better to get out of its way, and just let the camera roll... especially when your tag line is Make History, and your Master Distiller is a great storyteller by the name of Fred Noe.
Our challenge: How to position a Middle Eastern airline poised for rapid global expansion, in a highly skeptical post-9/11 world. Rather than focus on their geographic roots, we took ownership of a hopeful, all-inclusive future, a world without labels or borders, where the possibilities are endless and everywhere, and belong to those who view the entire world as their home.
To promote their new Minimus running shoes, New Balance wanted to capitalize on the movement toward more natural “barefoot running,” so we turned a running shoe into a life philosophy, engaged ultra-marathoner and minimalist practitioner Anton Krupica, and spent 12 hours in the Colorado hills running, carving up shoes, and capturing the essence of the Minimalist ideal.
Johnnie Walker, and scotch in general, had long had long been associated with the idea of success. You win the big promotion, you and dad toast with a well-earned glass of Johnnie Walker. But times and ambitions change. Walker needed to stand for something a new, younger, increasingly entrepreneurial target would care about. And it needed to stand out in a crowded brown spirits field. We created a simple graphic language, utilizing an overlooked icon of the brand and a simple yellow line. In so doing, we modernized their message and revitalized their relevance... without uttering a single word other than their tag line, “Keep Walking.”
Belize had been following all the rules of tropical vacation travel – honeymooners on the beach, tall frosty drinks, massages by the pool. Two problems: It was generic travel advertising; and it wasn’t at all true to Belize, a truly unique and even somewhat oddball destination. So we ignored all the rules, focused on a largely ignored group we dubbed Adventurous Explorers (not tourists), and created a campaign that's as unique and quirky as Belize itself, resulting in their largest growth in tourism ever, as well as a 2.4 increase in overall GDP.
