Joan Benoit Samuelson is an American marathon runner from Maine who was the first women's Olympic marathon champion. She embodies the resilient New England spirit, and has trained throughout her life, both physically and mentally. As a Harvard Pilgrim Health Care member, Joan has a health plan that’s there every step of the way.
Personal note: Growing up in New England, she was a household name. So when we were able to partner with her, I had a major fan girl moment. We worked together many times, but the first time in person, I was 8.999 months pregnant and she correctly guessed it would be a boy!
Bring it:
CD/CW: Christine Cahill
Photo: Tony Loung
Video: Mahalo Content
Resilience:
CW: Carrie Downing / AD: Jen Campbell
Director: Daniele Anastasion
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is a proud sponsor of the Boston Red Sox (and one of my awesome clients) which means we have had the opportunity to work with them on a few very meaningful projects.
The first was a PSA campaign during Covid with catcher Christian Vázquez encouraging people to wear masks. What better way is there to slow the spread of Covid than with an equally contagious chant of “Let’s Go Red Sox”?
CW: Christine Cahill
We also worked with Alex Verdugo (and Harvard Pilgrim’s new holding company Point32Health) to remind people of the importance of taking care of your mental health. Strong Mind. Strong body.
AD: Hannah Weeks
CCO/CW: David Leonardi
500 MBPS? 1 Gig?
Before I started working on this account, these numbers didn’t mean anything to me. I learned pretty quickly that this is really fast interest.
Q: Who could possibly need this much speed?
A: Speed Freaks.
We’re talking about people who want speed to power every device, all at the same time. People who stream and stream and stream. People who might not even need all of this speed, but they want it.
It all takes place in a Frontier-branded studio, showing people interacting with their technology in a world made of the Frontier brand colors.
CD: Michael Shaughnessy & Spencer Deadrick
Director: Benjamin Gibson of Hill Holliday’s Brigade
It’s been a forever dream of mine to include a cat in a shoot. And I feel like I can rest easy now because we got to shoot not only a cat, but a cat in outer space. Her name was Helga.
This campaign included a :15 TV spot, social, and in-store extensions.
CD: Michael Shaughnessy & Spencer Deadrick // AD: Emily Nollet // CW: Jerry Roach
Director: Sally Tran of Ghost Robot
Forever Faster. This is Puma's endless movement to push sport forward. In 2016, leading up to the Olympics in Rio, we created a content series to tell the story of our athletes training for the world's greatest competition. We captured their athleticism, strength, and determination while training and their personality and individuality in a portrait series. These images were used in social media, retail stores, and PR media.
CD: Remi Carlioz // CW: Jenni Williamson
Photographers: Jon Johnson / Nils Ericson / Emily Maye / Nicolas Krief
What do a record store, children’s craft market, and yoga studio all have in common (besides being awesome)?
They’re all local ventures I’ve been lucky enough to work with to build their brand identity.
Gamers speak their own language, one I am definitely not fluent in. Working on this project was a crash immersion lesson in gaming for me. We created two videos inspired by GTA style play to show how real gamers need incredibly fast and reliable Frontier internet. We also made a series of social posts targeted to speak the very niche language of specific games. And truth be told, only real gamers get it.
ECDs: Kevin Daley & Marc Hartzman
CD CW: Alex Smulian
Producer: Melissa Hopple
Director: John Poliquin
Dunkin’ Donuts wanted to position their Frozen Lemonade as summer in a cup. We fondly called the art direction on this spot Cabana Chic. Working on this in the middle of a Boston winter had the entire team dreaming of sunny days by the pool.
CD: Michael Shaughnessy & Spencer Deadrick // AD & Illustration: Emily Nollet // CW: Cameron VanDerVeer & Jerry Roach
Director: Ahad Mahmood of SCHROM
We created this global brand advertising campaign for Puma to showcase our athletes and ambassadors and their motivaton for training. The campaign included print, billboards, digital and station takeovers in New York & Beijing.
CW: Jenni Williamson // Design agency: Neighbour // Photographers: Jon Johnson / Nils Ericson / Benjamin Lennox
We worked with Kylie as the ambassador for multiple drops of Puma's women's fashion training shoe, the FIERCE.
CD: Remi Carlioz // Video Director: Amy Carpenter
Photographer/Director: Lauren Dukoff
As part of the launch of our global women's campaign, we partnered with the NYCB to tell the unique stories of the dancers in the company. We continued to work with them for a second season to share our collection that was inspired by Swan Lake.
CW: Jenni Williamson // CD: Remi Carlioz
Season 1 Photogrpaher: Paola Kudacki
Season 2 Photographer: Nils Ericson
Avocados from Mexico wanted to help people expand their use of avocados and offer some helpful tips on storing and preparing them. We created 9 videos for them that are used in online display and social channels. More videos here. Online display here.
CW: Iman Omar // ACD: Sara Goldsmith // CD: José Luis Martinez // Producer: Jamie Guild // Production Co: The Wilderness
Add a little Volvo to your holidays. Through an integrated social, digital, print, and in-store campaign, we shared tips on how to add some Scandinavian flair to your holiday festivities. These videos were housed online and shared in Volvo's social channels. We made a total of six instructional videos. If you want to see the rest of them, check them out here. We also made a thank you video to send to loyal Volvo customers and fans.
CW: Brandon Fox, Mike Stone // CD: Luke Perkins, Erik Enberg // Production: Redtree Productions // Edit: Edit Bar
Safety is something that consistently sets Volvo apart from other luxury car brands. This spot and ad were designed to share the Volvo S60's performance in the IIHS crash test.
CW: Madhu Kalyanaraman // CD: Luke Perkins // Edit: Accomplice
New Balance created a shoe with an upper made of 95% recycled bottles. It's called newSky.
CW: Tim White // CD: Luke Perkins, Mike Howard // Photographer: Darrin Haddad
For metastatic breast cancer patients, the diagnosis is not about fighting and pink ribbons. It is about acknowledging the incredibly difficult diagnosis and offering hope for the best.
PIQRAY treats mBC in patients with a fairly common but relatively unknown gene mutation. A lot of our work was around education about this mutation and getting tested.
We created an unbranded global social campaign, a patient spotlight, and a series of educational videos for patients new to the treatment.
Historically, Ilaris treated rare auto inflammatory diseases in children. When it got approved for adult indications as well, we were tasked creating a new all encompassing brand campaign that worked across many diseases and demographics.
With an auto inflammatory disease, the road to diagnosis can be long and difficult. Following that journey, finding the right treatment and managing everyday life presents its own challenges. This campaign meets patients where they’re at and focuses on the possibility of the future.
A cohesive look and feel with variations for disease specifics was rolled out across multiple platforms. From social to in-office materials and a website overhaul and new blog, we modernized and matured the brand while maintaining its hopeful spirit.
Good ideas die everyday for reasons I cannot control. Here are a few of my favorites, may they RIP. Do you believe in reincarnation?