In a holiday season not so long ago, I joined the ranks of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Ham (the chimpanzee). The first of their kind to explore the unknown, do the previously unthinkable and see the world from a wholly new perspective.
I, and a small team of metanauts made the first holiday music video in the Metaverse!
It's the same thing. We're the same.
We caused a stir in the press.
As ACD-AD on this project, I was responsible for designing the title art, social content layouts and providing direction to our animators and filmographer/director (They are also in the Metaverse).
Aside from being a 'first' at something, it was rewarding to be a part of a team who built this beast from the ground up without the help of a production company or any sort of third party creators. Our writer, Darrien Case, wrote, sang/performed and co-produced the track and the rest of the team were the cast and crew.
We made our benevolent overlords at VML very proud.
We made everyone's spirits bright on SoundCloud and Spotify.
And we asked the hard hitting questions everyone deserves the answers to.
Game nights are lovely. Mostly. You have a dedicated time to get together with the buddies, there's food, dranks, jesting and light jabbing...etc. And there's also 'the one' who had one too many kids and now takes it out on a bottle of red and doesn't like to share and/or the expectation to bring 'nice cheese'. What...?
Quest 2's 'Quest Night' set out to keep the rights right and the wrongs the hell away from everyone.
It is game night in the Metaverse. And it can happen whenever you like, with or without whoever you like/dislike. And you only ever have to bring enough accoutrements for yourself.
The campaign consisted of individual Quest Nights with their own themes that promoted the different gaming verticals Meta offers on the Quest platform. Like Dungeon Crawlers, Group Play Casino Games and 1v1.
As ACD-AD on this project, I came up with this concept, created the look for the campaign, provided feedback and direction to our animators for title animation, animated a few myself and designed social content layouts.
To get the good word out, we enlisted the services of the VR gaming community's finest minds, most vengeful strategists and fiercest (as far as gamers go) competitors.
All the right someones to show everyone how Quest Night is done right.
We also created content which had the purpose of helping meta buddies rally the squad for Quest Night, maximizing the gayety, making things easy peasy lemon squeezy and hyyyyyyping up the gaming community.
When you have a tax filing service and product as versatile at serving people's tax filing needs as Jon Hamm is at acting, you don't not cast Jon Hamm and push him to the bleeding edge of his abilities whilst juggling and evangelizing important and informative H&R Block attributes.
My role on this project was co-writing scripts with my copywriting partner, providing art direction to the director and DP, assisting in the casting process, designing GORGEOUS art cards and designing/animating campaign social content and digital ads.
Ken Burns and Errol Morris got a little spooked when we asked them to document Jon Hamm's 'method' behind his mad talent(s), but that didn't stop us from getting the job DONE. If you didn't know, now ya know...
Can't stop those limbs from wobblin' and bobblin' when the fat refund check rolls in. So we didn't even try.
When you feel in control of your tax filing and the return is much of the moneys, you can't help but getting a little $-faced.
We had a lot of fun making and playing with these Snap filters.
Kristen Schall parodying 50 Shades of Grey to 'gently' guide people away from the pain caused by mobile carriers NOT called T-Mobile was probably the most fun I've had to date writing a Super Bowl script an actor felt could be improved by 'riffing on set'. :-) That, making IMPDs (improvised mobile pain devices) out of a pain-palette of phone accessories, the praise we got from the press and the laughter it garnered at the Super Bowl party I went to that year made it all worth it. It was the best of times.
Gotta love getting handed beautiful video game trailer assets and being allowed to cut'em up and rearrange them into artful mobile carrier ads. You don't 'gotta'...but I did. These ads were promoting T-Mobile's partnership with the game "Overwatch" and Blizzcon, an e-gaming tournament put on by gaming producers, Blizzard.
A rather large undertaking. Are the words I tend to use when describing the magenta mammoth of a brand refresh for T-Mobile I was tasked with spearheading. As brand refreshes do tend to go, it took many months of presenting and refining. Thinking and rethinking. Sleeping and...not. Eventually we arrived at what you'll see below. It only started there. Past that, we were tasked with applying that new look to everything T-Mobile put out into the world. At the mile a minute media plan they had grown accustom to. We did. I'll say that much.
Football season seemed to be the only time Corona liked to be funny and/or take a walk away from their usual 'do nothing on the beach' vibes. Nicer to do in practice than make ads about. Is how I feel. Below are a few funnies with former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current NFL Nostradamus, Tony Romo.
During COVID we had the pleasure of launching Corona Hard Seltzer with the help of director (and wife of international indie club pop artist Goldfrapp!!!), Lisa Gunning in Costa Rica. Well. SHE was in Costa Rica. In January. And we were in Chicago. At home. And totally not drinking hard seltzers at 5am in the dark while she shot beautiful humans on beautiful beaches in beautiful weather. (I kid.)
There's no panoply quite like Vegas. It can be a little overwhelming for first timers. For so many reasons. One of which is that their planning stops at 'We're going!". So as fun as it would be to watch the perpetual parade of wide eyed noobs aimlessly wander the Strip for decades to come, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority tasked us with cleverly driving traffic to their new site LasVegas.com. Specifically to create an itinerary and book their travel all on the same site. Our answer? Some poor schmuck named Las who continuously gets mistaken and hit up for tickets and deals offered on the very helpful LasVegas.com website.
Crazy things happen when you have the same name as a popular Las Vegas vacation booking website. Like people lining up around the block for a chance to crack open a 2-story piñata of your head for a free trip to Vegas.
"Control what you can control." is one of thecore tenets of every self help group (probably). But what about your name?
More specifically, what about your unfortunate utterly unfortunate name? Recognizing the need for support in healthily coping with such a name,
Las (Vegasdotcom) started UNO.
The Unfortunate Name Organization.
A support group for any and every person born into name-based absurdity.
To invite people into the circle, Las Vegas offered its social followers the opportunity to nominate someone they knew with an unfortunate name to join the circle. For their bravery, they were offered $100 vouchers to use on LasVegas.com for their trip to Vegas.
At the end of the holiday season, nearly every adult feels like they need another vacation. So we, in partnership with the Las Vegas Conventions and Visitors Authority generously created an additional season for said adults. Enter, Vegas Season. The palm trees are decked, the party's at the pool, the only gift you'll have to worry about is the one to yourself and the kids are at home locked in the closet...or with a babysitter. Your call. Your holiday. Vegas doesn't judge.
Brace yourself, Sears. It's the Vegas Season Holiday Catalogue.
Print inviting NHL hockey fans to celebrate, or forget the outcome of the Stanley Cup Finals.
Airport billboards and
backlit ads to invite
and welcome travelers
to Las Vegas for
Vegas Season.
Vegas Season presence
on LasVegas.com
enabling people to see
what's doing on during
the season, what deals
are available and a
regularly updated social
feed fed by a constant
stream of safe-for-work
#VegasSeason content.
The Midnight Idol rides
again for Vegas Season
and all its pomp and
circumstance.
Who this?
This. Is the work of Eric Rice.
Occasionally funny on purpose. Mostly funny on accident. Serious when he needs to be. And honest when asked to be. Eric prefers kindness over niceness, greatness over good-enoughness and passion over passivity. He spent the first half of his career at odds with opposing opinions, critical feedback and time management and the latter half correcting course by seeking behavioral therapy, improving his interpersonal skills and prioritizing his mental health.
Eric prescribes to the principle of "Strong back. Soft front." Which he borrowed from Buddha. Not Brené Brown. Essentially, this means having the will to stand up for the people and ideas you believe in with patience, empathy and compassion. This principle applies to his personal and professional life.
Eric is a self-professed European car nerd, a lifelong Liverpool FC supporter, an environmentalist, a dog father, lover of the outdoors, runner, kayaker, world traveler, home mixologist and chef, thrift and antique shop patron and an ok ceramist.
Eric doesn't typically write in the third person, but this is a special occasion, isn't it?
