COMMERCIALS

Making an impact.

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Over my time at Bleacher Report I had a number of opportunities to work on content that was shared on linear broadcast as promotional commercial content for Bleacher Report both from a brand awareness perspective but also for shows that we were producing or even around social content that we were promoting around key tentpole moments on our sports calendar such as the Start of NBA season or the stretch playoff run. These commercials were meant to act as large scale reflections of the brand used to grow awareness and bolster fan sentiment around our voice.

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These types of commercials allowed me to take different roles, everything from building the content from the ground up on a motion graphics and design and conceptualization standpoint, to art direction, creative consulting, building a campaign around them in partnership with our marketing team, and developing repeatable vehicles that would use these linear broadcasts as a funnel to promote internal content. Getting our content in front of a diverse and widespread audience was key in driving interactions with our social content as well as our owned and operated BR Team Stream app.

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One of the first instances where I had an opportunity to work on a campaign that would promote Bleacher Report's social content on linear broadcast was during the NBA Playoffs on TNT. With the launch of B/R's new Media Lab daily sector, one of the major initiatives was to develop programming that would excite people not just about the games and the players, but Bleacher Report's unique elevated coverage of the moments. This type of social driven linear house ad campaign would become a staple of the type of content that I would often be tasked to create; high level north star setting content that delivered a punch for both our audience and brand awareness.

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The Rise Up campaign was one that was developed as a part of the Lab. These were meant as promotional material that would run during the Playoffs during bumpers. The footage was turned around quickly using plays from previous playoff series or from game footage from earlier in the season to ensure a high level of relevancy to fans. It was all a part of our larger holistic strategy as a brand to streamline social and linear broadcasts and make the barrier between them as seamless as possible.

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These promotional featurettes would run in between time out plays as a way to promote interest in Bleacher Report social channels that were paired with a house ad call to action on broadcasts with the announcing crew for that night. These types of coordinated commercial promotions would push eyeballs from the games, to fans phone screens once the final buzzer sounded and would have fans clamoring to interact with our content on social. It was this give and take on both platforms that really strengthened our approach to marketing.

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These initial experiments with highlights as a promotional tool coming out of the media lab would set an interesting precedent as Bleacher Report was in a unique position having recently been acquired by Turner Sports who had footage rights to the NBA. Being able to manipulate this footage, and do so in a timely manner with relevant content would form the basis for our future social moments team and more specifically our video highlight team that would become a significant part of our social revenue model.

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Our partnership with Turner Sports and their deal with the NBA allowed us to access footage quickly and use a digital media strategy and highlight editing special effects library that I put together to turn around "elevated highlights" for social, which would be a game changer in the marketplace. One of the prime directives for this creative mission that I was tasked with was to increase the "half life" of NBA highlight content so that we could extend the time that fans would interact and engage with the moment. I led the development and creative direction of these initiatives as a way to really put our highlight treatments on the map.

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The key value proposition for Bleacher Report was that we could now give the sports audience something novel compared to seeing the same replay of an exciting play numerous amounts of times. Instead of simply showcasing new angles or a new high frame rate slow motion camera, the philosophy around these treated highlights was to really find ways to take all of the footage we had access to and bring it together in a way that not only tells a story, but also stays true to the personality of the team, city, and player while adding in a cool effect.

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By showcasing some of these higher end pieces such as the Kevin Durant one above, BR was able to position itself as a unique content provider in the crowded sports highlight space. Instead of going to NBA.com or youtube or even tuning into the Sportscenter top 10 to catch a replay of a big moment, users would more than likely have seen that replay on their social feeds within seconds of the moment happening, so these types of elevated highlights that offered something totally new for users was a unique way not only to take these moments and give them a second life, but also an eventual path towards monetization of these assets. I found myself in a unique position to really impact the brand perception of BR with these far reaching pieces of video content that would be seen by millions of eyeballs. By partnering with brands we were able to amplify this creative message and bring in entire new subsets of audience.

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One of the big things working in the sports space is the cyclical nature of the sports calendar that allows you to predict when certain tentpole events happen or when awards would be given out. Brands would partner with Bleacher Report for moments such as these because they could plan for them in advance and we could elevate their assets and pair them with NBA footage to create experiences that capitalized on user attention and engagement. I was given the responsibility to find unique ways to truly make this content stand out on our social feeds. One great example of this is when Adidas approached Bleacher Report with an opportunity to partner up to produce a commercial for the new James Harden Vol. 1 sneaker around the storyline of him leading the Houston Rockets to a top seed in the hotly contested NBA's Western Conference on the way to his first league MVP award.

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The piece did extremely well for a piece of branded content, pulling in upwards of 12.9 Million total engagements over broadcast and digital platforms, setting the stage for future collaborations with Adidas. This relationship would prove to be one of BR Kick's most important brand partners and became one of the principal sponsors behind our experiential "Drop Up" events as well as live House of Highlights events along with sponsoring our Instagram Story Boost Week Takeover and a fun video project digging into the Evolution of the Ultraboost. It also lead to a similar follow up piece that I got to lead as creative director on featuring the Adidas Crazy Explosive sneaker campaign with Andrew Wiggins. These types of elevated hype tapes became a staple of our branded series I influenced like The Remix.

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The key for these types of partnerships was to highlight the brands while really using the creative backbone and aesthetic that I helped develop for our BR elevated highlights and to add value for our consumers so that the content would be fresh and provide something that would not only stop them in their social feeds, but also translate to a broadcast medium where it could be used to amplify the brand messaging through BR's owned and operated channels such as TNT or Tru TV or CNN. Something that I felt was an important aspect of Bleacher Report that was important to showcase our editorial sensibility and storytelling outside of just promoting the elevated treatments we could provide to brands.

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For instance, in 2016 we were approached by Under Armour as a part of their omni channel media blitz around Steph Curry winning his unanimous MVP as the Golden State Warriors demolished the league en route to a 73 win season. In response I helped create a timeline of his most impactful moments throughout the season that showcased why he was winning back to back MVP awards, and this content was able to be informative for a broadcast medium where it could be analyzed and broken down with additional commentary by the NBA on TNT guys, but also could run as a standalone piece on social or as a web based digital advertising campaign. The content vehicle came as a response to the release of his upcoming sneaker and would lead to a number of fruitful opportunities with the brand in the future including Steph appearing on our Sneaker Shock and Unboxed series in the future as well as an unreleased mobile game and social content for their sneaker drops. This project really laid the groundwork for much of this partnership.

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The quality of our elevated highlights really became a calling card for our social moments team as we were able to successfully sell multiple ad campaigns against them, even resulting in cross platform promotions from endemic sponsors like Taco Bell that was running a larger partnership with the NBA and wanted to promote itself on shoulder programming. Being able to take examples to market with our sales team we were able to take the social content we were creating and use it to monetize and fuel the growth of the team.

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The beauty of working with large scale omni channel campaigns like this was because a brand like Taco Bell could now reach fans at the local level with their free taco promotions on game day when the home team hits an offensive or defensive milestone, then they could capture the broadcast audience with a sponsored segment like the "Doritos Locos Tacos Fiery player of the Night" and then also be enabled to have a digital presence within our app and on social media to capture the second screen experience as a consumer touch point as well. Having a unique digital offering in a saturated space that our marketing team to take to sponsors and integrate into these large scale ad buys really gave Bleacher Report value to the organization at large, and working on projects like this really allowed me to showcase the impact that my work could have at scale.

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These type of white glove creative agency style executions preceded the development of our own branded content team as this became a viable income stream for the company as it expanded. In many ways this signaled the importance of developing a distinctive "visual passport" that could translate to an elevated aesthetic that could be distilled into pitch decks as these ideas and RFPs were taken to market. One great example of this was the Dunk Dominators Verizon commercial we launched after I was able to create a lane for Instagram Takeover content which delivered a full commercial broken up into 9 separate parts for easy social consumption and a large scale takeover of a social profile. Working with Dan Worthington and Kasper Nyman once again we pumped out the project as a part of our predictive team and it became a 7 figure monetization vehicle. These type of commercials became an integral factor in growing the team out by having these long term money making content executions for the team to plan around.

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For instance, I was tasked with creating a creatively elevated piece around LeBron's upcoming birthday and tying it into the release of a new Nike LeBron 15 colorway, and I was able to leverage this distinctive visual playbook in a rapid manner to help our sales team close the deal and work towards publish on a tight deadline around the holidays. The resulting project was an over the top ode to LeBron's unique style and his groundbreaking new Nike LeBron 15 collaboration with Kith that he wore for the All-Star game with an elevated video experience with a distinctive 80s vibe that would stop users in their feeds with its vibrant colors and next level effects.

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As we continued to expand our repertoire in this category, I wanted to build up new ways to elevate this type of sponsored content without simply relying on NBA footage. Taking a page out of our BR Kicks unboxing playbook I worked on series such as the Nike LeBron 16 "The Hunt Never Ends" promotional video below I pushed for us to utilize things like cinematic shot footage of the sneakers themselves as a way to differentiate our offerings when we go to brands.

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Working with an artist in the Netherlands, Kasper Nyman I worked as a creative director and did some of the video editing and motion graphics as well in getting this project across the finish line. Offering a deeper level of engagement to the fans and adding a layer of diversity to the content as well. Slowly elevating our offerings over time allowed for me to continue to explore new styles and methods of creating this content and it constantly refreshed the things we could offer our partners.

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Getting chances to work with our portfolio brands, like BR Kicks or BR Football, Iwas often brought in to help shape motion graphics, or art direct the look and feel of some of our most premium executions that were meant to be scaled and viewed by a large amount of new consumers we were trying to convert into social audience. One such undertaking was when Turner acquired broadcast rights to the UEFA Champions league and I was tasked with taking the work we had done with NBA and translating it for our London UK office to apply to the start of the new season which resulted in the exciting piece below.

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Not only did we work in partnership with brands to promote their products such as the above examples for Under Armour, Nike, or Adidas, but we also worked with companies such as record labels to promote music and create commercial content that promoted their new releases. One such partnership was with OVO Sound where we paired the release of Majid Jordan's hypnotic new single with the brilliant animation skills of one of my favorite independent artists to work with, Khammy Villiasang as a play to dive listens on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

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This really was a natural step, after buildoug out the real time social moments team, now the stage had come to take these vehicles and monetize them, and strategic partnerships with record labels ended up being a successful commercial endeavor for us. Anything that expanded the company's scope and allowed us more room to maneuver asa company and position ourselves asa distinct content voice with powerful creation abilities. Partnerships like these were mutually beneficial and we welcomed the chance to elevate our content in a way that made all interested parties happy and satisfied.

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Animation was a bucket that we often turned to when it came to building promotional commercial content, as can be seen in this collaboration I helped produce with CJ Toledano and our BR Entertainment week as we were heading into All Star Weekend in New Orleans. Turner owns the rights to that weekend's broadcast coverage and was activating with a comedy show around the festivities and wanted to be able to create an animated promo that could run prior to the show that was more game centric and could be used as commercial collateral to promote our events.

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One of the important aspects about launching our animation department was that we were able to set the bar for that type of entertainment within the industry and became a definitive voice for consumers as a curator as well. So when a brand like Champs launched their own animated ad campaign they came to Bleacher Report to help amplify awareness around their new video series. I led creative direction on a number of elevated hype tapes that would become awareness vehicles by capitalizing on social audience eyeballs as a gateway for partners to get their message across as well. This wouldn't have been a viable opportunity unless we did all the groundwork in creatine shows like Game of Zones and building out an audience that came to B/R for that kind of stuff.

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Amplification really is a key word for the type of commercial projects that I helped shape, as this promotional video below for the brand shows. Bleacher Report was seen as a tool to amplify a message and drive awareness and drive new eyeballs towards a brand. As such, one of our lab projects that I worked extremely closely on as an art director, NBA Emoji which was so successful as a project that we used it as the basis for our own commercial to promote the brand and app but also was something that got on the NBA's radar as they eventually released their own NBA emoji keyboard after we revved up consumer demand with our project. Again, this shows how important having an analytical data driven approach to content is and how important it is to listen to your audience.

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I also created promotional commercials for series that we worked on such as this one for our collaboration with Marshawn Lynch for a Facebook Watch show that we created with him the first time he retired from playing football. Similar to promotional content for things like Game of Zones this would run on broadcast as a way to drive a new audience to our digital platforms. This particular promo for "No Script with Marshawn Lynch" is a great example of a project that had to go through a heavy and rigorous revision process due to a picky client. However I was able to help deliver a final product that was used to promote the show despite having to make a number of changes to satisfy the needs of our partners. Working on projects of this nature truly give insight into the fast moving world of media and sports and force you to really think on your feet and actually be nimble. Having the flexibility to build modular design solutions that can be adapted based on client feedback is an integral process of producing these promos and commercials.

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Working with an Athlete like Marshawn who some have described as mercurial really was a crash course in being able to roll with feedback and to produce changes to fit new directions quickly. Having experience under my belt working with a guy like that really prepped me to coordinate and compromise with brands and clients in the future. This particular project ended up being pretty high stakes due to its nature of being Bleacher Report's first experience with licensed content to a publisher like Facebook Watch. Being a launch partner for a company as big as Facebook we knew we had to be uncompromising on the quality of the show and the promotional materials for it as well. Setting this bar for quality high is something that I carried with me to all other future executions of this nature.

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I would often be brought on to find creative ways to promote our most popular shows or our biggest swings so that they would appeal to our target demographic. My sensibility of internet savvy techniques and references paired with my unique creative vision afforded me the opportunity to sit in many rooms as we discussed marketing and promotional plans for the release of our best and biggest projects. One example of this was our Michael Vick Documentary that we produced where I was asked with creating a social commercial we would run and promote on endemic platforms to drive viewers to our youtube link.

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Similarly, I was also brought in to help Adam and Craig Malamut on some of the initial shot selection and ideas for the trailer when we were launching new Game of Zones seasons. The trailers were delicate as they were made before all the episodes were finished, so bringing someone like myself in who could help suggest iconic moments or visuals that could be instantly recognizable as an NBA meme from the trailer was a helpful asset. The promos would run on TNT during games and on channels like Adult Swim or TruTV on owned and operated networks.

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However, for a show like Gridiron Heights where we were using a much simpler animation style, instead of putting together a piecemeal trailer for our promo materials, we were able to create original animation and writing just for our promo commercials for broadcast. Originally sitting on our social moments team where the Gridiron Heights weekly animated show concept was first developed, and then moving over to our BR Entertainment department that dealt with all of our longform shows, animations, and studio shoots I was uniquely suited to help ensure the right voice and was often brought in on projects like this for shows like Gridiron Heights for my creative expertise or to be in the writers room spitballing ideas.

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Some other opportunities for broader brand commercials came about when we decided to rebrand bleacher report and launched our new identity and overall brand aesthetic in its first foray into brand advertising. On these projects I was a part of a larger team that came together and worked with our in house marketing team to produce these commercials that ran on television to promote the new look and feel of B/R. I played an art direction role in helping to nail the right tone and work with the right casting to put across the best image, while also helping with the motion graphics and ideation.

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For instance, in a larger partnership with Turner around the NBA awards we were able to leverage some of Bleacher Report's unique social moments content and Game of Zones stylized animation to create more "What If" content in the line of Reflektor or our Beyond Reality projects that I was a central part of. This feature that ran during the NBA awards broadcast featured the question of what the NBA would look like if Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were drafted today and a part of the modern era.

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Our first major broadcast commercial centered around the app was a collaboration with the OG rapper Gift of Gab and Blackalicious in a new twist of their classic 1999 song Alphabet Aerobics working with the original creators of the song to give it an updated sports remix almost 17 years after releasing the original.

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Assigning each letter a different style, and quickly transitioning from one vignette to another, the overall piece comes together to feel like a fun-filled dive into the depths of sports terminology as the rap intensifies in speed as it runs through the ABCs, now riffing on football, basketball and everything else sport. Everything from alley cats serving up alley oops to each other for “A,” to a 3D hockey goon getting a puck through his mouth for the letter “G” to an anime inspired easter egg that our audiences went wild for with the letter "V." The timing for the spot worked out perfectly as Danielle Radcliffe had just gone viral for performing the original rap on Jimmy Fallon garnering over 100 Million views and bringing the song back into the spotlight.

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As can be seen in the case study breakdown of the commercial below, the significant undertaking required working with 26 separate animation styles to progressively work through the alphabet along with the rap and to develop an elevated animated look and feel that would ring true to the ethos of Bleacher Report.

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I was instrumental in building out the right lyrics that would resonate with a young audience, making sure to include current references to memes or sports moments that folks would recognize throughout the video. Early on I worked in a writers room that consulted with our creative agency as we put together the commercial. In their coverage of the spot Vulture called it "Better than Sports Themselves" and the piece saw widespread interest in it from places like Complex, Billboard, and NBC Bay Area.

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Working in collaboration with Bleacher Report's then General Manager Dorth Raphaely and our director of emerging media Bennett Spector, and project manager Will Leivenberg I played an art director and tastemaker role producing and curating the styles and animators, helping work on lyrics, coordinating assets like social and album artwork for Spotify, Itunes, and Youtube and even programmed and launched a deep dive microsite for the lyrics showcased in the project as we navigated 26 different animation styles with our partner agency Gentleman Scholar and BarrettSF. The spot would run on television late night on Adult Swim and particularly got a ton of social attention while running in those time slots going as far as people even seeking out the commercial on their own as is reflected in the youtube comments.

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As Bleacher Report grew and decided to rebrand itself with a fresh new logo, I was given a chance to work alongside our design, social, and marketing departments with our partner ad agency Johannes Leonardo as we launched a new “Up Your Game” brand campaign shining a light on the intersection of sports and culture. The campaign is a direct challenge to one-dimensional fandom, aligning with B/R’s mission to ignite the power of sports culture to make moments that matter. The marketing campaign was featured across television, digital and social platforms and is a reflection of the brand’s vision as it strives to develop an unrivaled experience and deeper connection with sports fans.

Today, it's not only about highlights and box scores; it's about the world around it. At every turn, it’s the culture that feeds our fandom — be it through music, drama, style, controversy, rumors and so much more. It's the culture that draws us in, connecting us to what happens on the field in a deeper, more intimate way. The culture is the soul of every play, every highlight, every game. And that is why you have to get sports culture to get sports. This was the message that the spot was aiming to show. Along with a complete rebrand, updated site and new mobile app, the B/R launch spot is an introduction to the new Bleacher Report world. And a bold statement announcing we’re here and taking over the game.

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I was brought on to the project as a consulting producer and art director to ensure authenticity and to make sure we were hitting the right chords visually but also with our casting. The commercial, in many ways, mirrored our social content voice that I helped spearhead by emulating the "if you know you know" mentality and the easter egg filled spirit of some of our best social posts.

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Especially since social was such an integral part of the future of Bleacher Report, I was brought in to make sure the commercial that laid the vision for this next stage included the right tone and attitude that mirrored what we had cultivated on our accounts through the content we were making. From the merch to the little easter eggs embedded within each frame such as the nickname the answer behind iverson on the step and repeat pattern or the cupcakes from some of our best posts from the Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook beef.

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The layered commercial had multiple references to things that happened in the world of sports, as is broken down in the case study below. From Allen Iverson's practice rant, to Benjamin Kicks resale business, to Antonio Brown's haircut, to Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant's cupcake fiasco and more, the commercial features appearances from famous actors and athletes and underscores the dramatic nature of sports and how much storytelling can happen with such rich characters and plot lines.

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I also had a chance to work on trailer and promotional content for our elevated series such as this preview for our B/Real series that ran on television during the NBA season as a way to drive awareness around the launch of our new show that paired all star athletes with inspiring you up and comers who have faced adversity in their path but have persevered through sports and add value to our sponsored partnership with Cricket Wireless. Building the trailer from scratch while we were still working on the show was a challenge but I was able to tell a cohesive story and bring across the ethos of the series using the assets that I had and was able to turn around a piece within 48 hours to deliver to our broadcast partners for airing while getting Carmelo's approval on the commercial before airing.

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When our e-commerce team was launching a new project with Mitchell and Ness, I helped them concept around the launch commercial with Travis Scott in terms of art direction and overall look and feel as we had a chance to produce a promo featuring the Houston Rockets x Cactus Jack jersey that we were releasing as a part of our rappers x NBA e-commerce activation. I worked with our branded content and E-comm teams to help shape the storyboards and creative aesthetic of the piece as well as pushing the result in post production to feel even more on brand for both BR and Travis. The piece features a social extension featuring James Harden as a social hype video meant to drive attention back to the purchasing site. This initial execution would become the template for many similar ones moving forward when it came to Bleacher Report's merchandising strategy.

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From time to time I would be brought in as a consulting producer and art director for different projects started by our branded content teams and our playmaker squad. These teams focused on sold content and often times my keen editorial eye and keep social and content sensibilities would come in handy in developing new campaigns. For instance, in the below promo that ran on air leading up to and through March Madness and the NBA Playoffs where I was brought in to help come up with different creative solutions as to how students in the classroom could be watching the game and I pushed the idea of the fake arms guy and the iPad as a face guy. These type of branded content projects would always bring folks like me into the room to make sure the idea resonated on a social level before proceeding. Even with our branded content, we knew that our audience would be smart enough to know that it is sponsored, but we still wanted to maintain as true a vision as possible to our authentic brand voice.

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Another opportunity firmly in the kicks lane that I had an opportunity to be a consulting producer on as we developed a concept to pitch Footlocker for an incoming commercial shoot involving the right players and setting up a meaningful scenario for a series of commercials about "finessing." Working with our Playmaker team I helped them land on using influencer talent like Pia Mia or JD McCreary alongside the reigning NBA Sneaker King PJ Tucker to maintain a sense of authenticity for a commercial like this. The original concept started to get too complicated and convoluted involving a time travel plot, and after simplifying it and spending a considerable amount of time throwing ideas at each other, we settled on the vehicle of a letter to help tell the story, and being able to tell that story from different perspectives and tones to tease out the twist at the end of the commercial.

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However, instead of just lending my expertise on the editorial and storytelling side I also often submitted direct creative feedback and worked more traditionally as a creative strategist or art director on other projects such as our BR Live launch package. Working with Method Studios, the same setup that I collaborated with on our Reflektor project with Grant Hill, I helped develop a cohesive look and feel, specifically for the social media and NBA sections under the direction of Tina Shah. B/R Live was launched as a platform to allow fans to find and watch their favorite sports content anywhere, anytime and on the screen of their choice. The initial promos were shown live at the Bleacher Report office at a launch event featuring David Levy and NBA commissioner Adam Silver. Thousands of live sporting events are available through the B/R Live streaming service, making it a central hub for passionate fans to find and consume content most meaningful to them and communicating this effectively was key.

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The final brand spot I was brought in to help work on during my tenure at Bleacher Report focused more so on the community features of the app and the ability to share stories amongst friends in DMs and to tag each other throughout the app. This was driven by a "social moment" engineered by Dwyane Wade, who Turner Sports had recently agreed to a deal with to make him talent on TNT on Tuesdays as well as Bleacher Report's creative director. The spot actually took a post that our social team had created as a trigger around D-Wade's final game before retirement against the New Jersey Nets and repurposed it for the commercial.

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Working across teams and platforms on these various commercials for Bleacher Report really challenged me and allowed me to develop different skillsets along the way, ultimately shaping my creative sensibilities. Being at the company for such a long time during its transition from a startup to a far more professional nationally known brand I was able to work on campaigns of differing size and scope. I gained a ton of valuable insight from all of these projects and I think I was able to make an impact on audiences by creating distinct and creative visual landscapes that represented the authentic voice of Bleacher Report whenever I got a chance.

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Key Collaborators: Adam Malamut, Craig Malamut, Joe Yanarella, CJ Toledano, Dan Worthington, Luke Booth, Kasper Nyman, Johannes Leonardo, Gentleman Scholar, BarrettSF, Chris Neeley, Khammy Villiasang, Matt Sullivan, Lauren Fisher, Will Leivenberg, Craig Malamut, Rich Lopez

Tools: After Effects, Final Cut Pro, C4D

Deliverables: High Resolution Video files for Broadcast

Category: Creative Direction, Motion Graphics, Producing, Directing, Design, Writing