pioneering ideas

Chipotle's mission statement is three words: Food With Integrity. Locally grown, hormone-free and sustainably raised. In other words, everything traditional fast food is not. Chipotle needed a media strategy that exemplified this philosophy. Given that their mantra is, "No Junk," we created a campaign that defied the category. Junk culture had met its match.

The Betty Crocker consumer craves simplicity and guidance in her busy life, especially when it comes to meal planning for her family. And her mobile device is a critical tool for her on-the-go lifestyle. So we developed the Betty Crocker mobile app providing direct access to a library of 4000+ recipes as well as other useful features including grocery lists. It consistently ranks in the top Lifestyle Apps within the iTunes Store.

Mayo Clinic has long been recognized as a world-class medical organization. But they had perception problems. That they were only for the rich and critically ill. We leveraged mass communications with an artful expression of Mayo's collaborative working approach that drove to an online community. A place where those considering Mayo could connect with people, just like them, who had already been patients.

Land O'Lakes butter is made from sweet cream, produced by real farm families. Gen-X moms want to know exactly where the food they feed their children comes from. To feed this powerful insight, we travelled to Pennsylvania to meet some of these families. The result was a series of personal stories, sharing how much care and pride goes into every delicious stick of butter.

When it comes to yard care, nobody creates simple, why-didn't-anyone-think-of-that innovations better than Toro. With "Personal Pace," Toro innovated a new walk-behind system that magically propels their mowers at precisely the speed the user wants to walk. In "Treadmill" Toro once again lays claim to patented technology: The Toro Timecutter walk behind: the world's first 30" wide moving deck.

Popeyes Louisiana Chicken tasked us with creating a social experience to promote their new Rip'n Chick'n menu item. Suspiciously absent of 'ing's and suspiciously bountiful of apostrophes, we wondered if we couldn't rip apart the entire Internet in Popeyes Rip'n Chick'n's likeness. The result? Rip'n I-N-Gs. An online social plug-in that rips all of the I-N-Gs out of any website you visit.

We needed a bold and spicy social media campaign to support Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen's promotion for "Spicy" or "Mild" Bonafide® Chicken. Our idea: develop a social app that delivers a customized "spiciness rating" of users' Twitter and Facebook posts. An experience that gave their loyalists a spicy (or mild) way to proclaim their personal spiciness while increasing conversations and top of mind awareness for the brand.

Banking rewards programs were once ubiquitous. But the crash made most banks reign theirs in, if not outright cancel them. KeyBank was different. As a bank that believed in the power of relationships to "unlock possibilities," they went all in on rewards with the ever growing KeyBank Relationship Rewards program. Our work centered around celebrating the power of working together for a better result.

The Mayo Clinic asked us to help them launch a new retail experience at the Mall of America. It was designed to engage its audience in an interactive, tech-intense, approachable way. They wanted a promotional campaign that was as experiential as their new space. Our solution was to create an interactive, never-been-done, buzz generating experience.

The year was 2009. If you were a mass retailer, it was not the best of times. If you were Famous Footwear, it could be called the worst of times. Not only were sales slumping in the midst of a severe recession, the brand was experiencing a sharp drop in consumer appeal, as well. We turned around With an emotional appeal to women to Make Today Famous.

With new competitors, deep pocketed stalwarts and untested newcomers, Wellmark had to put a stake in the ground or risk having people miss their true value in the marketplace. At the core, they hold a deep belief in integrity. Differentiating. And true. We found a human, emotional voice to express that belief. Promises Matter.

Repositioning a brand in decline is no easy task. For decades, Nature Valley Granola Bars were marketed to moms as a nutritious snack for kids. Our assignment was to reposition the brand to a new audience. Our research uncovered a core group of Nature Valley users who were fanatical about the brand's naturally healthy qualities. Tapping into that insight, we created a movement called Where's Your Nature Valley?

The Greater Twin Cities United Way wanted to communicate their unique ability to bring individuals together to surround our most pressing needs. But during a highly combative election year, the greatest challenge was to break memorably through. Rather than talking the talk, we simply demonstrated what real collaboration looks like, showing "The Power of WE '.

Halloween is great for making things, especially when it comes to treats for the kids. Pillsbury asked us to develop a content idea for Halloween, and whilst skeletons, bugs and meat hooks aren't normally what you'd expect to see the Doughboy playing with, we created a spooky extravaganza to celebrate the fine art of making Halloween fun.

How do you create a holiday story that captures the seasonal spirit and let's you share it with friends and family? You let the Pillsbury Doughboy lead the way. We created an integrated holiday campaign for Pillsbury that harnessed the musical talents of Andrew Simple, and let people add their own family images online to send holiday video cards.

Best Western is The World's Biggest Hotel Family® with more than 4,000 hotels. With their web site as their primary source of reservation revenue, it is mission critical to their business. So we needed to design a user experience that allowed for the mission-focused user to quickly find the best location and present the brand in a contemporary way.

Since we first designed BettyCrocker.com more than a baker's dozen years ago, it has grown to become a thriving community and consistently ranks as one of the top 10 food sites. In order to feed this active community of baking and cooking enthusiasts, we created a full-time content publishing team to deliver fresh and personalized experiences.

Chipotle's 2:20 animated short, featuring Willie Nelson singing Coldplay's "The Scientist" had a significant impact verified by a sweep of creative awards. Our job: develop a connections plan worthy of the high bar set by our co-collaborators. We developed an adaptive social distribution strategy guided by four principles about successful viral campaigns.

When you have nothing in your product but three simple ingredients, you really have nothing to hide. Telling the Land O'Lakes spreadable butter story was almost as easy as making toast to spread it on. We created a commercial to show how sweet cream, canola oil and salt, was the only answer when you asked the question "what's in your spread"?

Best Western is The World's Biggest Hotel Family® with more than 4,000 hotels. With their web site as their primary source of reservation revenue, it is mission critical to their business. So we needed to design a user experience that allowed for the mission-focused user to quickly find the best location and present the brand in a contemporary way.

Ever wonder what happens in a snow globe once the snow settles? Here's your answer: A Toro snow thrower clears down to the "pavement". Witness the sheer power of a Toro as it pummels the glass of the globe with a snow plume that'll throw 40 feet. This commercial was created for Toro to switch out machines in a product section, so the spot could be updated as models become available (or as this spot has already proven, sold out.)