Yesterday afternoon I saw a tweet from ESPN RISE asked if anyone had questions for Donald Faison of Dr. Turk on Scrubs fame. I posed: Best hairstyle in sports? Look at Lawrence’s head. It’s da bomb! Cause I’m keepin’ it real. Cause I’m keepin’ it real. (reference Clueless script)

Well, today he responded to me (right after dirtydave998):

(Note: Many of the slides contain hyperlinks to videos. Also, I have no idea why that clip art heart shape would upload properly. But I’m done trying since it’s not relevant to the pres. Plus, it’s only getting further away from Valentine’s Day.)

UPDATE: Many people have told me they need the VO with this or even the notes, and unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to upload it with them. But in the absence of each, I must clear up just one misconception – I’m not feeling that State Farm spot creatively or strategically. Of course I understand that it was just to get the NFL sponsorship across; however, I used this slide to make the point that advertising is not the end game – that it must serve the brand, connect to your memories of the brand, etc. In hindsight, that was probably not the best example or title of that slide for those reading it. Thank you, Clay, for bringing it to my attention considering I got the idea to use when he and an ex-colleague bashed it on the same day.)

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.

The man is Steve Braband. He is the face, body, voice, feet and everything else but the mind (not entirely at least) of our new campaign for ESPN’s SportsCenter. A quick history: ESPN came to us wanting to know how to communicate the news that SportsCenter is going live from 9AM-3PM weekdays. We worked with them to create a brief and most importantly figure out the right personality, attitude and tone to bring to this simple message. Our creative team’s idea wowed everyone. It was literally a personality…Steve.

They wanted to find and follow an ESPN employee just about 24/7 for two weeks leading up to SportsCenter going live and broadcast this employee live on ESPN during commercial breaks. It (IMHO) is less commercials or ads than it is content. This is quite possibly the work I’m most proud of being a part of (in crafting strategy more than copyhandwriting, believe it or not!) Here’s one of my favorites so far from Day 2 of following Steve. Gotta love the running clock he has to keep with him at all times. Sports version of Flava Flav!

So where does my talent come in? Come on – don’t tell me you missed it! Go back and peep that card at the end of the video. “More work for us. More better for you.” Yeah, more work for me, writing that and everything on the site, Steveislive.com, (going live tomorrow – sneak peek for my readers) and banners driving to it. And that tagline, “Live” and “9AM-3PM” is shown at the close of each spot we do!

Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m about to get a hyperbaric chamber to keep this hand in tact. Next up, making my sunglasses famous like the Aussie Spicoli’s.