Content Marketing in action in honor of May 4th, courtesy of @360i on behalf of our client #Guinness - aka advertising via other means, designed to feed feeds & be shared.

36 years old - May the 4th Be With You

As a die hard Star Wars fan, this was a dream project to work on, produced by Ammirati Puris Lintas back in ‘99 to launch Lego Mindstorms Droid Developer Kit (DDK). Going into production we assumed we’d create the disco scene via stop-motion, hence our choice of Aardman Animation as partner to make the ad. After digging in with the products, building and playing with the computerized droids at Aardman’s studios in Bristol (this was a very good job), the team realized we didn’t need to go frame by frame, so we ended up rigging & shooting it all practically.

Your Imagination Rules.

All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names -
Until he ripped their arms out of their sockets

GPOYW

On the set with Ammirati, shooting global TV spots with Lego & Darth Maul, back in the day

The force is dead to me.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away

35 years today

“The Star Wars”, circa 1975, an original sticker from the collection of producer Gary Kurtz that I picked up on ebay.

This is the first logo for what came to be known as “A New Hope” - before they renamed it Episode 4, before it was cast, before they reconciled who carried a lightsaber vs blaster (this character is a blend of Han and Luke, apparently), before they dropped the “The”

A long time ago…

Everything is cooler in Lego

I had the unique opportunity to work with Lucasfilm for two client partnerships in the galaxy far, far away - Pepsi, and later LEGO.  As amazing as both of these deals were, the two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

In 1997 PepsiCo signed on to sponsor the SW Special Edition & Episode 1, The Phantom Menace for what was publicized as a billion dollars across the soda/chip/restaurant empire.  Despite plastering Jedi, Sith and every manner of spaceship across soda cans, buckets of chicken, fritos bags and pizza boxtops, there was always a subordination & very clear separation between the Star Wars characters and our world.  See how close we were able to get in mixing Star Wars & Pepsi for Super Bowl via BBDO here: http://bit.ly/ytYS35

The LEGO/Star Wars partnership struck in 1999 was literally 180 degree opposite, as Lucas himself was a LEGO fan and loved the thought of his universe re-imagined in brick, so we were able to weave the two worlds together in both product (see above) and communications, seamlessly.  See my post here for that TV commercial I did in my Ammirati days, which features Darth Maul & Boba Fett looking to score some LEGO http://bit.ly/AB0ifd

Of course, the fact that Lucas got a piece of every box of licensed LEGO sold made this a very lucrative pairing (imagine that, George), and Star Wars has proven the most durable and successful partnership ever for the Danish toy giant.  That revenue share may have something to do with that galaxy-wide latitude in mixing the two worlds, as well.

Funny how as much as Lucas defended JarJar at the time this film first debuted, the reviled character appears nowhere in this one sheet (let alone “yipeee” Jake Lloyd) in favor of the saga’s Jedi vs Sith theme.

Even still, this chapter was inexcusably bad in 2D in ‘99, it may well be less bad in 3D in ‘12, but no thanks George. 

Pavlov’s dog has stopped drooling at the LFL bell.

(via starwarsbehindthescenes)

Darth Maul’s hand painted prop contact lenses created for a LEGO Star Wars TV ad (via Lucasfilm vendor Cantor & Silver Ltd) from my Ammirati days.

“At last we will have our revenge.”