El Gaffney

Obama Baton Dot Com

Big news in the life of our idea: The Obama Baton site is live.

Clay + Kevin + the rest of the Hustlewood team have been working their butts off, Giorgio (can’t resist the Zoolander reference) and have managed to get a site up and running (can’t resist the pun) in less than ten days. We’re still revising it and will likely continue to do so over the next week (if not more) as we learn what’s working and discover opportunities to enhance the experience. What that means is making the idea and call to action more clear and compelling, the blog portion more interesting and useful, and the pieces (Twitter, Flickr, Facebook NYC & CHI, etc.) work more seamlessly and effectively together.

As I said in my last post, we’re trying to be as transparent and inclusive in building this idea (and we hope, movement) as possible. We’re using our blogs and now the blog on obamabaton.com to do so. (Please comment over there with any Obama Baton-specific thoughts you have.) And we’re learning quite a bit along the way. But we’ve still got a long way to go—a couple of marathons at least—before Barack wins on November 4th. So please visit the site, show your support, and Pass It On.

Tags: obama, obamabaton, running, web2.0

Work and The Work

I’ve pretty much been ignoring this blog save a few running for charity and starting a non-profit posts.

What a good guy!

But truth is, most of my time has been spent trying to get you people (especially the sports fans among ya) to feel a deeper, stronger connection to ESPN. I do this primarily, as many of you know, by developing interesting strategies for their variety of properties. These ideas serve as platforms for our creative work.

That’s what we call what you call “ads” here at W+K, the “work.” I wanted to use this post not only to make an excuse about being super busy with work but also to show you the most recent work I have been a part of bringing to life (in my own small way).

When most sports fans think of ESPN’s advertising, they think “those SportsCenter commercials.” And that’s a good thing because most of them ‘em. I do too (even if they don’t require a “planner” and brief). When we set out to announce the start of SportsCenter going live in the morning, however, some strategic thinking was essential. Planning’s role (my role) was as much about tonal approach as it was about message. The news itself was not wildly important news to sports fans nor would it have a huge impact on the show, so we had to be honest, transparent even, and make the campaign the news/entertainment. The tagline (as it often does) encapsulated our strategy “More work for us. More better for you.” You seen it (and my handwriting) here already.

In addition, I am particularly jazzed (yeah, I said it) about latest work we did right after the Olympics. Our clients smartly wanted to be proactive about making a statement that celebrated this global event (which of course ran on NBC, not ESPN). We framed the challenge to figure out a way to be true to our personality without being self-serving. We turned the work around within a week and the response to our ad in the Sunday New York Times has been great.

Also very recently, we launched our campaign for Monday Night Football on ESPN. The idea is simple, Monday Night Football helps you get through Monday. Was this a planning breakthrough? Hells no. But it’s the truth, and in my career as a planner, I’ve found some of the campaigns I’m most proud of working on have started with identifying a clear truth like Mondays suck or You need a vacation (Bahamavention). Back to the MNF campaign, I’m really happy with how it turned out…and only partly because MC Hammer is in one TV spot. (Whose beeper keep beepin’ and beepin’!?) Check out Creativity’s nice write-up.

Other than that, I’ve been working to get our office’s blog in full swing, updating my Tumblr, and of course wishing I was responsible for the brief that led to this work.

Tags: espn, mnf, olympics, wk

Training Starts Tuesday!

If anyone read that in the Gap Girls “Diet starts Monday” voice, you need to email me immediately and be my new BFFALAW (Best Friend For At Least A Week)! If you have no idea what I’m talking about watch the famous SNL skit here. (Unfortunately it cuts off before Farley laughs and says the aforementioned “Diet starts Monday” line.)

Back to the point: Today, after work, I officially kick-off my training for the NYC Marathon with the NYC Chapter of MS. I decided to Run MS for a few reasons, which I will talk more about in future posts. The first of which is quite honestly that I wanted to run the marathon and thought running for a charity/cause would be a win-win. I would get guaranteed entrance (after being rejected a few years back) and the organization would get a dedicated champion of its cause. (Jen was also an inspiration for this.) When I got to Wieden, I saw that one of our pro bono accounts was the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I was extremely interested in working on this account for two reasons. The first of which was to offset my not helping the world in advertising guilt. The second was a lot less selfish—my friend’s mother has had the disease and in recent years had to fight harder against it. Therefore, I wanted to help by both learning and doing. And I’m proud to say that NMMS has recently become a client of mine.

Please check out My Personal Donation Page. As you can see, I have not started to raise money yet. (The 100 spot was what I dropped initially to get the spot in the race.) And as you can also see, my goal is to raise $3,450. 3 G’s (not to be confused with the iPhone 3G) is the bare minimum and I don’t want to be someone who is thought of as doing the bare minimum when it comes to fundraising for a great cause or wearing flair. But the amount is not arbitrary; it correlates to the time I hope to finish the marathon in – 3 hours and 45 minutes. I ran my first and only marathon (Twin Cities) in October of 2006 in just under 3:48.

While this seems like a conservative goal, three minutes is a lot to cut in running even over the course of 26.2 miles and the temptations and running routes in NYC are greater and lesser, respectively!

So all that said, you’re going to be hearing more about my training and about MS. And I’m going to be asking you (hopefully not harassing) for some support in the form of cash money (PayPal or checks) until November 2, 2008. Starting, well, now if you feel the urge. Thanks for reading everyone. More to come.

Tags: charity, marathon, ms, nyc, running

Do Day: Become Legendary

Here’s our W+K NY’s most recent spot for Jordan brand. I would not be posting if it did not include some tight Hoyas footage of JTIII. Also, I’m trying to get over the fact that I’m missing tomorrow’s game at MSG because I’ll be out of town. Thanks to George for reminding me by passing on images of these Georgetown kicks.

Tags: gtown, jordan, nike

NASCAR For Dummies

Yesterday I watched my first NASCAR race ever. I personally know quite a few people whom are baffled by the interest in this sport. If you live in the U.S. you probably have an opinion, and you’ve also probably heard (if not said) the following:

How do people enjoy watching cars go around and around in a circle?

Well, given it’s part of my job to understand not just the rules of NASCAR but also the fans, I spent a significant part of my yesterday (over 5 hours all in – including pre-race and a bit of post) watching the Super Bowl of the sport, The Daytona 500. (Yes, it is unlike any sport I can think of in that it starts out with its biggest event.) I watched with a couple of work friends—one in particular (Michael) who is an avid fan of racing and driver Jeff Gordon and thus was able to answer all my stupid questions.

If you have any interest in learning a bit about NASCAR and what my viewing experience was like, check out my twitter. Go back a couple of pages to see the start (picking up Bud heavy). Overall, I had a great time—as noted by Mike, “the beer helps”—though I don’t think I’d have the stamina (read as: time) to watch all 200 laps in the future. Hopefully I’ll get to attend one of the other Sprint Cup races in person this year. I hear that helps you more fully appreciate NASCAR. Until the next race, I’ll be looking for some Target car #41 gear!

Tags: daytona500, nascar, planning