The Portfolio Website of Jim Kelly

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Reggie Award, National Consumer Brand Activation

Pro Award, Best Use of Shopper Marketing

Pro Award, Best Cross-Channel Engagement

Cheez-It and Pringles, perennial #2 players in their respective categories, entered the all-important football season without their rivals' big budgets, promotional TV support, beer marketing partners, or NFL/NCAA sponsorship. To win the season, they needed a big idea that could be executed on the cheap, with no partners to lean on.

Our research revealed the key: While football fans are HUGELY passionate about their sport, that passion is almost equally divided into two camps: fans of college football, and fans of pro football.  

Ironically, this was an insight our larger competitors couldn't touch. Their league sponsorships forced them into either the pro or college space exclusively. 

"Saturday vs. Sunday: Voice Your Choice" invited fans to declare their favorite football day. We tapped the perfect spokesman in Desmond Howard, Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP. Wearing a jersey divided down the middle between his college and pro colors, Desmond kick-started the fan debate by speaking literally out of both sides of his mouth, delivering equal doses of college and pro trash talk.

On packaging, displays and across social media, Desmond invited both fanbases to join the online college-vs-pros debate and enter a sweeps for $10,000 in football tickets to their favorite team on their favorite day for football. 

The campaign's goals were ambitious…and we exceeded them. We attracted a million-plus sweeps entries, a 44% jump from year before. Our effectiveness in social channels exploded, with over 14 million impressions and a 9,700% increase in Twitter sweepstakes entries. Pringles and Cheez-It combined for a 30% YOY increase in displays. And sales volume increased 5%, which not only exceeded our KPIs, but also outperformed our free-spending competitors.

When Kraft Heinz decided to take their newly blended family of brands out for a spin, they asked us to help them figure out how a scale program for this powerhouse portfolio should work.

They wanted a yearlong program, with three drive periods: spring on-the-go meals, summer grilling, and fall football homegating. They wanted it to showcase multibrand seasonal meal solutions and feature rotating sets of brands and recipes for each drive period.

The inspiration for our program came from an unlikely source: a Kraft Heinz press release about corporate responsibility. It turns out that Kraft Heinz's company ambition is quite a grand and noble one: to help end hunger worldwide. In service of this goal, they are a major supporter of global food charity Rise Against Hunger. 

Digging further, we found an insight into Millennial Mom shoppers that aligns very strongly with Kraft Heinz's grand ambition.

In many ways, Millennial Moms are simply moms: they share a strong desire to feed and nurture their families. But they've expanded their definition of family. Like no previous generation, Millennial Moms are committed to the health and well-being of people in their local communities, their regions, their country, and around the world.

“Feed Your Family, Feed The World” invited Millennial Mom shoppers to join their favorite Kraft Heinz brands in helping feed hungry people around the world, simply by feeding their own families great meals for spring, summer and fall.

We communicated this opportunity simply and delightfully through a series of “Larger Than Life” food visuals that show Kraft Heinz seasonal recipes made to appear dramatically oversized via a simple trick of perspective. 

We featured larger than life food in front of a series of family backgrounds related to each Drive Period: spring neighborhoods and parks, summer backyards, fall football games, etc. It told our shoppers and consumers that, simply by serving their families wonderful recipes featuring Kraft Heinz products, they were also serving a much larger good.

Reggie Award, Digital Promotion

Reggie Award, Gamification

Creativity Online Editor’s Pick

Pro Award, Best Use of Games, Contests, Sweepstakes

The Hub Prize

Gamification 101, Adweek

WARC 100
 

The client asked for a consumption-driving promotion. We developed a fun twist on “Rock Paper Scissors” played with Skittles, and invented Skittles Recognition Technology® (a novel combo of facial and color recognition) so we could host an online tournament.

The champion took home $50,000 and a totally awesome Skittles-dispensing Championship Belt. We took home a boatload of awards;-)

Reggie Award, Gamification

North American Effie Award

WARC 100

Upon launch, 5 Gum skyrocketed into a $500M global brand by promising experience-craving teens and young adults an intriguing change to their sensory state. Over time, however, the competition caught up to 5 Gum, making it just one of many gums with sleek packaging and modern flavors. Hence, 5 Gum was no longer fulfilling its promise to make chewers feel something different.

We created 5 Gum TRUTH OR DARE as an on-pack game that could give our experience-seeking target a chance to take sensory challenges with every stick, and then share the results with friends. 5 Truth and 5 Dare Challenges were printed on each wrapper, offering thousands of unique challenges, all themed around the five senses.

Thanks to a 360º range of tactics, consumers were surrounded with intriguing invitations to play and share: on promotional TV spots, digital banners, social support, in-store displays, PR efforts, and and on promo packaging (+60MM packs) featuring Truth and Dare challenges on every stick.

When consumers opened packs, they found a sweepstakes offering 5 grand prize “Sensory Adventure” trips, plus 100,000 instant-win music prizes redeemed through our 5TruthOrDare.com website.

On the promo website, participants could enter the sweepstakes with on-pack codes, and engage in the game socially.

The Truth/Dare Generator let consumers create and share custom challenges to take or issue to friends. The Gallery showcased UGC aggregated via our hashtag #5TruthOrDare, which ultimately inspired more than 700,000 images, videos and social shares, all showing young adults taking a 5 Gum Truth or Dare challenge.

Alongside 17,000 national displays, Walmart hosted product demos, plus Checkout TV placements featuring the promo TV spot. At Target's “Back To College” exclusive event, shoppers played 5 Gum Truth Or Dare via a life-sized pack.

Ultimately, every tactic drove consumers to the hub of the program: the packs. All consumers had to do was grab a pack of 5 Gum and they were in the game.

Program results were outstanding. 5 Gum velocities jumped up for five consecutive periods, and posted +17% YOY sales. On the social side, #5TruthorDare trended globally twice,  and the site attracted over a million visitors and more than 300,000 gallery posts. And we inspired thousands of user to post video challenges on social media, racking up millions of views on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.

W3 Award, Mobile Sites & Apps, Best Visual Design/Aesthetic

W3 Award, Mobile Sites & Apps, Food and Beverage

The Keebler Party Planner LIVE App is a truly unique digital gift from Keebler to its Millennial Mom consumers and shoppers, helping them solve their three biggest holiday hosting challenges: time, money, and expertise.

It's the only app to combine almost every aspect of party-planning: great party recipe ideas (from drinks, to dinner and appetizers), invitations (powered by Evite.com), music (featuring Google Play Music playlists), shopping list creation with coupon integration, dozens of party themes, irresistible décor ideas, and more. The app even provided live consultations with expert party planners to help hosts put it all together. 

Webby Award

Pro Award

When it comes to Monopoly at McDonald's, consumers really want to focus on the money. But the client wanted us to focus on the food. We came up with a fun way to do both at the same time. 

The original assignment was for a year's worth of holiday recipe FSIs. But because this represented the brand's entire marketing budget, we saw an opportunity to make them serve double duty, delivering holiday recipes as part of a yearlong brand equity campaign.

Our insight into the target shoppers, Mainstream Gourmets, was delightfully simple: As holidays hosts, they aspire to serve something fancy. And for them, French equals fancy. 

The Grey Poupon “Franglish” campaign inspired Mainstream Gourmets to use it by the jar in upscale holiday recipes, all while reinforcing the playful snob appeal that's made Grey Poupon the unofficial condiment of Rolls Royce for decades.

The Lunchables client came to us with a classic product line challenge: how to inspire their shoppers and consumers to trade up from the base product to the premium offering. Kids were just as happy with regular Lunchables, which made moms happy to save the extra dollar that Lunchables with Drink cost.

The client wanted a premium that would literally put more fun inside their Lunchables with Drink boxes; something that would drive kid requests and help moms justify the higher price.

Lunchables brand promise is to help kids "bring it" to the lunch table, so they can be the star of the show. The core brand equity is "Mixed Up Fun," as symbolized by their playful spokesplatypus and jackelope, Jacky and Platy. 

To deliver on both, we proposed a partnership with Hasbro to deliver miniature versions of their classic boardgames, playfully mixed up to create familiar yet exclusive version of kids' favorite games.

To make them brand-friendly, we created starring roles for Jackie and Platy in each game. And by making them multiplayer games, we gave kids the chance to bring unique shareable fun to the lunch table.

The process for creating the games was so much fun, I still can't believe we got paid for it. We hosted an all-agency boardgame lunch, to rediscover the delights of Twister, Sorry, Trouble, etc. We created fun twists on the games that allowed for quick and easy lunch table gameplay, like Monopoly Token Toss-Up and Sorry (Not Sorry). We workshopped the new games with Hasbro's game designers, who helped us make them even more fun.

Working with a tight budget and even tighter space and production limitations, we delivered a series of 5 Mixed Up Games, each offering the sizzle of an incredibly popular entertainment partner, while still supporting the core equities of the Lunchables brand. 

After several unsatisfactory rounds with the lead agency, the client invited us pitch launch concepts for Pringles Loud, their first-ever tortilla chip with a big crunch and layers of bold, trendy flavors.

The catch? The concept couldn't look or feel like Pringles, because Pringles Loud was aimed at the "bold explorer" snacking segment, who look right past established brands. And they needed crazy quick turnaround, giving us only a few days between kick-off and presentation.

The winning concept, "Be A Loudmouth," featured a brassy call to action and a punky, rebellious look and feel that perfectly aligned the product to the tastes of the target. The client loved it so much so, they awarded us execution of the extensive shopper marketing program, which was incremental to our retainer.

Thanks in part to our creative concept and shopper marketing program, Pringles Loud went on to be Kellogg's most successful new snack product launch of the year. 

Pro Award, Best Use Of Gamification, Contests And Sweepstakes

This multibrand, multiyear MLS sponsorship activation aims to make Kellogg's snacks portfolio the preferred snacks of soccer-watching fans across America.

Our cheeky call to action, "Kick It With The Pros," inspired the sweepstakes, a chance to not just go to the MLS All-Star game, but also to hang with MLS superstars during All-Star Week.

It even extended into packaging, inspiring a Cheez-It playable soccer game, and a soccer-specific spin on the Pringle's logo that I still can't believe they let us do!

Due to the program's strong sales, display sell-in, sweepstakes entry, and  social media buzz in Year 1, the client decided to make "Kick It With The Pros" an evergreen promotion, with the Year 2 activation already in production.

Reggie Award, Gamification

Reggie Award, Age-Specific Promo

Television Special on CBS & Nickelodeon

Pro Award, Best Use of Games, Contests, Sweepstakes

When Capri Sun needed to regain their status as the “cool” drink at the lunch table, we created a program based on two simple kid insights:

1) Kids would love the chance to play with their big-time sports heroes.

2) As much as they respect those heroes, kids would still want to win.

Capri Sun Kids Versus Pros: Playground Throwdown gave kids the chance to not just play their sports heroes, but to actually beat them at their own game. Featuring WWF superstar John Cena, Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas, World Series MVP David Ortiz, and NBA MVP Stephen Curry, the star-studded program boosted Capri Sun sales and “cool” factor, ultimately becoming an hour-long TV special broadcast nationally on CBS and Nickelodeon!

Reggie Award, Age-Specific Promo

Pro Award, Best Use of Games, Contests and Sweepstakes

Pro Award, Best Age-Specific Promo

Kids V. Pros: MLS Soccer Showdown is a case study in accomplishing a lot with a little.  Challenged with topping the results of the successful Year 1 program, but with a dramatically smaller budget, we narrowed the focus to soccer: the #1 sport played by kids 6-12. We knew World Cup Fever would spike interest in the sport, and hence, our promo.

Leveraging a pre-existing partnership with MLS, we put MLS-All-Stars on 1.5 billion pouches, 150 million cartons, and hyped the promotion with national TV tags.

But the biggest star of the program was the idea behind the grand prize: the chance for kids to not only meet and play soccer with their heroes—but to actually beat them. This proposition was a big hit with kids and moms alike, proving all you need to drive sales and connect with consumers is a little budget and a big idea.

Skittles fans were challenged to reach the top of The Rainbow for a chance to win a Skittles Pinball Machine and a trip to Hollywood to shoot a Skittles video with YouTube superstar Trale Lewous. The online experience, hosted by Trale, featured an elevator ride up The Rainbow, with frequent stops where participants had to solve riddles to continue the ride.

While it looked like pure brand engagement, Ride The Rainbow was actually a cleverly disguised buzz-builder and sampling program for new Skittles Riddles. 1,000 participants received piñatas in the mail filled with Skittles Riddles, with instructions to post videos busting the piñatas as creatively as possible to reveal the contents. The promotion was timed so these user-generated videos would start blowing up online just as Skittles Riddles hit store shelves.

The promotion was a huge buzz driver, attracting over 500,000 visitors in the first week alone, and making the front page of Huffington Post on Launch Day.

When we began working on the Skittles business, our clients were concerned that sales promotions could hurt their delightfully quirky brand.

But by the time they tapped to us execute an equity print campaign announcing their NFL sponsorship as part of the "Make Gameday Awesomer" homegating promotion, we knew they finally shared our belief: promotions can—and really always should—build both sales and brand equity.

To further blur the lines between above-the-line and below, we created equity print ads in support of Skittles summer promotion, and then used them as side panels for a blockbuster Walmart display, with a scuba diver cannonballing into a kiddy pool of Skittles as the delightfully disruptive cherry on top. 

Candy Sports is a branded mobile app game featuring all three Wrigley confections brands in partnership with Kinect Sports, the number one family video game of all time. It was the first Kinect Sports game designed exclusively for mobile.

The game was delivered as an on-pack “everybody gets” premium, available on all three major mobile platforms. Each game offered a candy-coated version of Kinect Sports animation, with our branding and candy built into the gameplay to drive awareness and cravings. 

We incentivized download by putting a prize mode into the game that gave players a chance to play Skittles Baseball, Starburst Football, or Life Savers Gummies Basketball for cool gamer prizes.

We made sure they were genuinely fun casual games, so that players would leave them on their phones and continue to play them once the promotional period was over.

How do you activate a movie partnership with very limited assets, and multiple brands to feature? In this case, we came up with a single equity shared by all the brands and the movie property: America's Best.

This nicely reflected Captain America's virtue onto Wrigley's Bottled Gum brands, which deliver the best taste, quality and good old American value in the category.

And it inspired our creative concept, a digital manhunt that recruited participants into Captain America’s Howling Commandos on a quest across every Hydra base in Europe to find the villain and claim the prize. It made the most of extremely limited assets from Marvel, with non-winning reveals unveiling just enough of the movie's scenes, characters and plot to entice participants to continue the quest.

Tasked with making Orbit Gum the must-have accessory of springtime, we created Orbit Spring Flings, a social deal-inspired promo in which the Orbit Girl would randomly “fling” out smashing sets of seasonal prizes via social media channels on a first-come, first-serve basis.

That made the redemption codes on spring-themed Orbit packs something no Orbit fan would leave home without. Fabulous!

This spring cleaning-inspired idea is as uniquely fabulous as The Orbit Girl herself: She’s emptying out her garage, putting all manner of interesting items up for bid: a white tiger, a personal gum butler, Snoop Dogg’s croquet set, etc.

Since being interesting is the ultimate currency for The Orbit Girl and her fans, she’s not accepting cash bids. Only dares, stunts and intriguing offers will do. The most interesting bid, as determined by social media vote, claims the gear.

When McDonald's UK-based global design agency struggled with McDonald's voice on packaging, the client asked me to lead the American copywriting team. The goal? On-brand messaging that would strike up conversations with customers about the menu items they loved. 

My team created the "American" voice for packaging copy, while the design agency created the "European" voice. Regions around the world were then allowed to choose. I was pleased to watch America win in a landslide, and see our team's work translated all across the globe. U-S-A! U-S-A!

This is my fave from a scrappy little series of spots we did for the Illinois Lottery. It captures one of the nice things about shooting in Chicago:  getting to watch a great improv performer like T.J. Jagadowski shred your script.

Addy Award

The client wanted to position Everest as a "colder than cold" mint gum. That's a premise you can have fun with.