Writer by trade. Creative Director by title. Creative by nature. Here is some of the work I’ve led, done and won for.
Every day, a vast amount of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is uploaded and shared online. This means the original abuse is only the beginning of a cycle in which many survivors are left open to revictimization – fear of being recognized, online stalking and so on. They feel like they can never escape their tormentors.
This film dramatizes that feeling. It shows how the online presence of this material haunts survivors. It lays bare the fact that by refusing to take real action against the digital proliferation of CSAM, tech companies are allowing child sexual predators to stay in their victims’ lives forever.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
Awards
2023 Atomic Awards, Shortlist
2022 Applied Arts, Advertising Awards Winner, Pro-Bono Video – Single
2022 London International Awards, Bronze, Music Adaptation
2022 MAD STARS, Shortlist
2022 Caples Awards, Shortlist, Branded Content, TV & Video
2022 AICP Post Awards, Shortlist, Editing
2022 Clio Awards, Bronze, Film Craft: Music
2022 One Show, Merit, Film Craft: Music
2022 Campaign US Brand Film Awards, Shortlist, Not-For-Profit
Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children urgently needed a new operating suite. To help pay for it, they aimed to acquire 3000 new monthly donors in just 30 days – a truly ambitious target.
Our solution: an award-winning, Toronto-based campaign, which shifted perspective to make the city see our goal as much more attainable than the numbers made it seem.
With a data-fuelled creative idea and geo-targeted, contextual media placements, we showed Toronto that 100 new monthly donors a day isn’t actually that many in a city of nearly 3 million people.
Role: Creative Director
Awards
2017 Warc 100, Most Effective Campaigns
2017 Health Lions
Silver, Integrated
Shortlist, Direct & Promo and Activation
2017 Cannes Lions
Shortlist, Integrated
Shortlist, Direct
2017 DMA ECHO Awards
Diamond ECHO
Gold, Consumer Acquisition
2017 CMA Awards, Gold
Direct Engagement
Bronze, Advertising
In 2021, 85 million suspected pieces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) were found online. An alarming increase over 2020 of one film or image uploaded every two seconds.
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection wanted to make the growth of the global CSAM epidemic unignorable for everyone.
So we used AI to build an algorithm to create 85 million film posters. And we displayed them online and through a live, immersive experience that hijacked the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.
The Unwanted Film Festival is the world’s largest film festival hiding in plain sight.
Role: Digital Creative Director
Awards
2023 ADCC Awards,
Silver, Interactive, Nonprofit & Public Service
Bronze, Advertising, Public Service Non-Traditional
Bronze, Advertising, Experiential
2023 Cannes Lions
Shortlist, Health Awareness & Advocacy
2023 Marketing Awards
Best of Show, Public Service
Gold, Online
Gold, Experiential/Event Space
2023 D&AD Awards, Graphite Pencil, Spatial Design
2023 One Show, Silver Pencil, Spatial Design
2023 Clios, Bronze, Creativity/Storytelling
2023 Atomic Awards
Gold, AI
Silver, Atomic Engagement
2022 Epica Awards, Bronze, Events
2022 London International Awards
Finalist, Creative Use of Data
Finalist, Public Service
TWIVI is a content platform like no other: a mix of TV and Twitch that “takes ingredients like gaming, sports, and celebrity and shake them like a magic eight ball until they get something super sweet”.
In its lead up to launch, TWIVI was getting ready to bring us content we’d never seen before. So, to tell its story, we wanted to create a website we’d never seen before.
The tech community moves at the speed of light. Every moment a new, astonishing innovation. Blink and you’ll be left in the dust by those on the bleeding edge.
But, what if we could use that ‘blink’? What if we tapped into facial recognition and mixed-reality tech to stop our bleeding-edge, cross-segment influencer audience dead in their tracks?
We found the solution to our challenge in a first-ever, online experience that uses facial recognition as the basis of our functionality and navigational device.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
Awards
2021 ADCC Awards, Silver, User Interface & User Experience (Website & Apps)
2021 Webby Awards, Honouree, Best User Interface
2021 Muse Creative Awards,
Platinum, Experiential & Immersive, Augmented Reality
Platinum, Experiential & Immersive, Virtual Reality
Platinum, Website, Experimental
2021 Atomic Awards, Bronze, Immersive Reality
2020 Applied Arts Award Winner
An AMG vehicle is a monster. A race-car engine inside a luxury sedan. But that wasn’t just their differentiator. It was also their challenge.
How do you show people that horsepower and elegance can go hand in hand? And how do we do it in a way that will surprise them?
Working with sound engineer Watson Wu (Baby Driver), an AMG stunt driver and NYC-based Nylon Studios, we created an auditory experience that showcased the AMG engine. Then we revealed that the source of the experience was Mercedes-Benz.
Launched in cinemas with the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we showed Canadians what kind of power an AMG engine has – without showing much of anything.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
Recognition
Stimulant feature – 2018
For over 40 years, the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) have had a presence at Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (RAWF), offering an in-person learning experience to teach kids about all things dairy. In winter of 2020, with COVID-19 numbers surging in Ontario, the Fair closed to the public and pivoted to a virtual fair.
For DFO to continue its long-standing relationship with The Fair, and continue to engage children similarly to in-person events, they needed to go virtual.
The solution also had to be classroom-friendly and congruent with Ontario educational curriculum guidelines. It needed to break physical boundaries and bring the farm into the classroom (or the classroom @home).
Kids learn best when they are having fun and it doesn't feel like traditional “learning”. Like field trips. Or games.
Role: Creative Director
Awards
2021 Canadian Marketing Awards
Bronze, Customer Experience
Bronze, Engagement
2021 Atomic Awards, Silver, Immersive Reality
For the Canadian launch of their Electric Drive vehicle, smart came to us with an interesting challenge: smart is serious about fun.
This is an electric vehicle. So, we need to make electricity fun.
Now, this car may be small, but that doesn’t mean it can’t do something big. So we began thinking about what we could do that was fun, electric and held true to the smart brand. And while our budget was going to keep us to the digital/social space, we wanted to do something that would go beyond that.
So we set a World Record.
Role: Creative Director
Recognition
Guinness Book of World Records, “Most Balloons Suspended By Static Electricity.”
Ads Of The World – 2017
Social video of our World-Record setting content piece.
The long-standing platform for 4Matic, the Mercedes-Benz all-wheel drive offering, was about “making moments happen”. And in 2018, we were asked to showcase that in a new way – one that would appeal to Canadian Mercedes-Benz drivers and prospects alike. So, we brought them a moment that was uniquely Canadian. This took us north. Way north to the Sunrise Festival in Inuvik, NWT.
Mercedes took us there and photographer, Tom Parker helped us capture the first sunrise in 30 days – a spectacular moment.
Social and pre-roll videos drove to our digital destination. Here, visitors could follow our drive north, get a behind-the-scenes look at our content series and watch our long-form film, “A Moment In The Sun”.
Role: Creative Director
Long-form hero video
:15 sec social video
:60 sec pre-roll
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, RioCan properties across Canada were shuttered in response to government mandates that required any non-essential businesses and enclosed shopping centres to close.
As the government began easing the lockdown restrictions, non-essential businesses and enclosed centres could start to think about reopening. But as RioCan properties and tenants began to plan for this, they realized they needed a way to welcome patrons and pedestrians back safely.
We knew that the world had changed. What we valued and deemed essential had changed. Even what we left the house with had changed. We didn’t just need our keys, wallet, and cell phone anymore. Now, there was a new essential that people wouldn’t yet be used to bringing with them: masks.
So, we proposed a local solution to address a global problem.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
Awards
2020 Applied Arts Award Winner
The best direct mail is that which uses the medium to help deliver the message; where the format itself has meaning. This piece is a perfect example of that.
To sell Rogers Rocket Hub, a mobile Internet solution, we targeted Manitoba, as the province has the highest per-capita cottage-owning population in the country. Also because their cottage country has some of the lowest Internet service in the nation.
What else does Manitoba have? Mosquitos. In fact, residents joke that the pest is their provincial bird. So we helped Rogers bring the “net” to cottage country.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
2014 Caples Awards, Finalist
2014 CMA Awards, Bronze
2014 Incite V1.03
2014 Directory 30
2014 International ECHO Awards, Bronze
Mercedes-Benz is the #1 luxury automaker in Canada. But while their advertising efforts painted a grand picture for people who might, one day, drive a Mercedes, communications to current owners were remarkably lacking. We needed to change that, so that today’s owners wouldn’t just enjoy their current Mercedes, but their next one and the one after that.
The Mercedes Benz Lead Management Program was a first-of-its-kind platform for the automaker. A standout example of a highly-strategic, data-informed customer journey that drove impressive sales and turned prospects into longtime advocates.
Role: Writer & Creative Director
Advertising is a small world. But when covid came, our small world got blown up. People lost work, breaking into the industry was harder, internships were cancelled and networking was nearly impossible. Those who were still working were doing it from home. New hires and interns still haven't seen the inside of an office.
But, despite feeling farther apart than ever, we did something that would bring us all closer together.
To help keep our community connected and thriving, we became No Fixed Agency - a network of mentors not just from NFA’s offices, but from agencies around the world. We created a place for anyone in need of support, guidance, or just a shoulder to lean on. We took the workplace beyond the workplace to help out everyone who was affected by how the pandemic has changed our industry.
No Fixed Agency showed us all that we can change the industry again for the better. Together.
Role: Founder, Writer & Creative Director
