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SAS, the software giant, not the Swedish airline, asked my client Jib to come up with a viral campaign based on what life would be like without SAS products. SAS makes terabyte-crunching software, the brains behind everything from synchronized traffic signals, to keeping beer fizzy, to optimizing power grids and cable television networks. Collectively it’s called analytics.

I wrote up the complete package (video, e-blast and microsite) and, when Jib couldn’t find an actor who fit the gig in the video, played the lead as well.

Prospects first receive this e-blast,

which connects them to a page like this (there were a few variations):

The cut that I favoured is the one at the top, but a need for brevity saw it shortened down to this.

The viral program launched in mid-Sept ‘08.

Our work got coverage on CTV: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip92494#clip92494

And how’s it doing? SAS Canada’s marketing chief says response has been solidly on the side of good, and people are surprised that it’s come from a company like SAS. A few don’t get it all — which, given the unusualness of it, is no huge surprise.

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I came up with the idea for Mutineers about five years ago, pitched it everywhere from Discovery to the BBC. No one got it or wanted it. Then, in Feb this year, Peace Point Entertainment Group, called me back. The world wants shows about real characters now, they said. So I wrote a little demo and we went out and shot it. They’ve had encouraging nibbles, and the pitching process continues.

I write all the ads on the sidewalk sign in front of Lily of the Valley, my wife’s salon on College St. In return, she cuts my hair, sometimes feeds me. The classic font is of my hand.

Verity is an upscale women’s social club/spa/restaurant/florist occupying seven buildings on Queen East. For this first ad campaign, I convinced them to leave the touchy-feely tonality to the other spas and aim for grown-up women with grown-up lives. Enrollments immediately shot up. They’ve since decided to use ‘Detox. Retox.’ as an unofficial tag on flag banners hanging off their complex.

OurStage.com is a Boston-based company that invites up-and-coming musicians and filmmakers to upload their work in competition with other artists’ works within various categories. Each month’s winner gets $5k, plus festival appearances, mentoring sessions and swag. These are a couple of the hundreds of print ads, web banners and e-blasts I’ve written for them over the last year and a half.

Another little campaign for OurStage.com. This one ran in Paste, I believe, and was directed at film school students.

Series of magazine ads for a Toronto Buddhist books and art store. All clients should be this brave.

The best of a series of ads pitched to Underwater World, Singapore.

They didn’t get the joke. I didn’t get the business.

I placed these in Marketing in ‘99 after I first returned to Canada. Shortly thereafter, I became a multimillionaire.

I guess it all speaks for itself.