IN-HOUSE CREATIVE DIRECTION AT: Care.com (IAC), Rizzle, Verizon, CH Media / Electus
AGENCY APPOINTMENTS [Creative Director and Copywriter]: Momentum, McCann New York, The Barbarian Group, Publicis New York, Euro RSCG / Havas New York, Decoded, Giant Spoon, MRY, LAM Design, Pereira O'Dell NY
References and additional work samples available on request.
EMAIL: thomwoodley@gmail.com. LINKEDIN.com/in/thomwoodley
CLIENTS INCLUDE: Millercoors, Dos Equis, Care.com, Verizon, American Express, Microsoft, Visa, The Botanist, Tsingtao, Heineken, GE, Pepsi, truth, NHTSA, Trojan, Marpac, Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, Mentos, GE, Orbitz, EA Games, Sabra, AT&T, New Era, Duracell, The EPA, Hornitos, Sauza, Bacardi, Jim Beam, The Olds whiskeys, Samsung, Dentyne, Pepto Bismol, White Castle, Universal, 5hr Energy, Scope, Hilton, Lacoste, Lysol, The Atlantic, Coppertone, LiveActive, Motorola, Dodge, Expedia, Peavey, McClure’s Pickles, Advair, Pfizer, Ritz, Frank’s Red Hot, Hyatt, Insider, Melissa & Doug, AARP
SELECTED AWARDS LIST: Cannes Lions, Addy, D&AD, Oneshow Gold Pencil, Webby, Radio Grand Mercury, AICP Awards, Andy Awards, London International Awards, Golden Drum, Brand Grand Prix, Effie, Writer’s Guild of America, IAWTV, Streamy Awards, Digiday Publishing, Telly, NY TV Fest Best in Show, Experience Design Awards, Chiat Strategy, PSU Notable Alumni
There's no brand quite like Dos Equis, and there's no advertising icon quite like the Most Interesting Man in the World - he who doesn't always drink beer (but when he does, prefers Dos Equis).
I was one of the first writers on the Most Interesting Man campaign, and worked on it for almost five years, seeing it go from a regional ad buy to a national phenomenon.
Bringing the Most Interesting Man in the World and his many legends and exploits to life was an exhilarating challenge. It required nuanced writing and art direction to ensure that the Man never became gimmicky, and always retains a sense of mystery and class.
My extensive work on this brand has had its results:
- over 1.89 million active fans on Facebook (the most of any beer brand)
- multiple award nominations and wins (Cannes Lions, Radio Grand Mercury, Effie, D&AD)
- countless references and imitations as a pop culture touchstone
- 40% growth sales since the campaign went national
I was integral to the success of the campaign, creating interactive, TV, radio and print work from concept through delivery.
How best to introduce this high quality Scottish gin to Americans in 2022? How about the Super Bowl itself? And when The Botanist realized it had only two months to conceive, produce and release a big game spot that would tee up the brand and its dedication to helping the restaurant workers of America, they came to me.
From scratch to final delivery in two months, I created The Botanist’s first US spot, along with their social media presence.
I served as Executive Creative Director, Head of Branded Content for Electus Digital / CH Media. Among my responsibilities was overseeing all branded content for the #1 YouTube comedy channel, CollegeHumor. In this capacity, my team was named Digiday's #1 Best Video Publisher for Brands in 2019 - based on the successful performance of some of the videos below.
When it came time to surprise people in the days leading up to the 2014 Pepsi Halftime Show, most other agencies pitched big glitzy, youth-oriented stunts. Instead, we made a genuinely heartwarming documentary about making Super Bowl halftime dreams come true for one lucky old man. And it worked.
Childhood asthma is scary enough. Why does their advertising have to be? We knew that if we could put a message into clickworthy pop songs by internet vet Parry Gripp, that kids would watch over and over again - and that means their parents would also learn the lessons that could keep their children from having attacks.
These videos were produced in partnership with The Ad Council.
Amazon approached us, wanting to figure out a way to explain their hot new show, The Man in the High Castle, to a young and edgy demographic. Knowing that our audience loves weed as much as they love labyrinthine alternate history, we decided to get a bunch of comedians high, and then have them try to explain just what the hell was going on in the show. This series successfully introduced the new season to a new audience that might have never found it.
Once Netflix realized that people were using YouTube to search for information on how to use Netflix, they turned to us to make the experience better. Our team produced many quick turnaround SEO animated videos to make the process of searching for info on the nation's best streaming service better and a lot more fun.
Truth, the famous anti-smoking operation, approached us to create a series of comedy music videos, each targeting a different demographic (like urban youth or rural smokers) with a different piece of crucial information (like the social dangers of vaping or the facts about Big Tobacco's RICO case). These songs were massively successful for Truth. We dare you to get them out of your head!
Working with McCann's Microsoft agency, m:united (the biggest account in advertising history), I focused on core products including the Lumia / Windowsphone with Cortana, the Surface Pro 3, the Lenovo Yoga. The campaign began with a very guardrailed 'white cyc' approach that I found interesting ways to break through.
In one Valentine's Day TV run, we turned expectations of phone owner's relationships with their phones on its head.
In another, I got the chance to turn almost 10,000 billboards around London into updates from Cortana, Windows' clever A.I.
For many people, the concept of switching from an iPhone to a Windows phone is insurmountable - even though the Windows phone features Cortana, an A.I. significantly more advanced than Siri. We wanted to make light of this difficulty for Valentine's Day.
For many people, the concept of switching from an iPhone to a Windows phone is insurmountable - even though the Windows phone features Cortana, an A.I. significantly more advanced than Siri. We wanted to make light of this difficulty for Valentine's Day.
Marpac came to us wanting to show varying audiences how important good sleep was - and how easy the Marpac white noise machine made it to achieve. So we conceived of a live-streamed real-time Competitive Sleep League, treating sleeping as if it were a high stakes competitive sport. We released a four hour facebook live stream of the event, as well as a 3-minute cutdown for social. This project was recognized with a 2018 Adweek award.
When we started as the lead creative team on Pepto Bismol, they had a problem: how to grow sales of a product that practically every American already has in their medicine cabinet? Let alone one that for everybody is linked to 'upset stomach, diarrhea'.
We chose to focus on shared occasions, holidays and cultural milestones. You know, the times when everyone tends to gather round, eat and drink a little too much… or a lot too much. By focusing on the celebration rather than the symptom, we started to change people's concepts of what Pepto is and why you should always have it handy.
In nine months, we almost tripled the Facebook fan count. And about that double digit growth? Sales grew 16% before the year was out.
FOOTAGE COMING SOON!
To kick off the 2015 US Open, American Express created You Vs. Sharapova, the first truly interactive consumer application of the brand new HTC Vive virtual reality headset.
Fans got to go head-to-head with tennis legend Maria Sharapova, returning her volleys, groundstrokes and famous serve. And American Express, who are all about giving their Card Members access to amazing experiences, got to give them an opportunity no one else could.
The press loved the game, and wrote about it weeks before it even came out:
From experiential to out-of-home to social to digital to traditional all things in between, here are some other pieces of work I’ve creative-directed or copywritten.
