SCOTT MURRAY CREATIVE

Xbox wanted to create a trailer that represented the emotional payoff of their world-beating first-person driver.

We enlisted the help of Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski and Northern California.

It was an honor to create three films for the NHL about the 125th anniversary of the most iconic trophy in all of sports: The Stanley Cup.

My favorite was the activation we created combining virtual reality with human emotion to deliver a brand story that couldn't be made up. (I loved the two broadcast films as well...call me old-fashioned.)

We were lucky enough to spend two full days with The Cup - one for filming the broadcast work and another for the activation and it was an experience I'll never forget.

“What Happens Here, Stays Here” was a career highlight to be a part of, and it will never be topped. (See: “New Coke.”) So we didn’t try. We did however, dig for an insight inspired by those five iconic words: you can’t be the person you want to be in Vegas if you have your kids in tow. What other destination would straight-up tell you to leave additional visitors behind? Only this one.

Let’s face it - you either like cruises or you don’t - and there are a lot of people who just don’t like cruises: too obnoxious, too many people, too much excess, not enough real-life-changing experiences.

Research told us that the #1 deterrent to non-cruisers was just the idea that cruise ships were just so…big. No chance for intimacy or exclusivity or privacy or discovery or brag-ability.

So we leaned into the opposite.

I mean even I wanted to go on Windstar after this - and believe me when I tell you that I am NOT a cruise person.

When we took on Puerto Rico as a client in 2019, the island was recovering from not one, but two hurricanes, Irma and Maria. There was financial uncertainty and lingering Zika fears. Add to that, low levels of awareness and familiarity with the island that sits among many famous Caribbean standouts like Jamaica, St. Martin, Barbados and the Caymans, just to name a few. The likeliness to visit was at the back of the pack. Which was then followed by a 6.4 earthquake and a global pandemic in early 2020.

It’s a lot for one campaign to overcome. So, we took inspiration from what the people of the island were doing: while they were constantly rebuilding, we rebuilt the brand from scratch.

We knew it was important to mirror the island’s unwavering resilience in the branding and we learned about the people of Puerto Rico in the process led to the most successful tourism campaign in the history of The Caribbean: “Live Boricua.”

Today, Puerto Rico is one of the top destinations in the Caribbean, up over 50% in demand from when we started, with more than $500 million in economic impact:

48% increase in familiarity above competitors.

29% increase in potential to visit above competitors.

1.8 billion in lodging revenue growth.

5 straight years of record-breaking visitation.

At the annual Dubai airshow - the single most important event of the year in commercial aviation - Boeing wanted to highlight their commitment and actions towards a more sustainable aerospace future and support of the aviation industry’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

They also wanted to turn the focus from some extremely unfortunate safety issues in their past and instead to focus on how they were working every day to impact the future.

We helped them do it.

Everyone says they want to see the homeless crisis solved. Almost no one actually steps up to do anything about it. The state of Utah was, in fact, stepping up with real solutions - but those tax-payer funded solutions needed public support. And to support something, you have to believe in it. So we set out to build belief in this cause by asking people not for money, or votes, or debate, but just one simple thing: empathy.

We called in some favors - specifically A-list director Sasha Levinson and A-list celebrity photographer Victoria Stevens - to help us present these incredible human beings in the way they deserved - with dignity. (And without almost any budget at all.)

The resulting work delivered 38,000,000 impressions in the first 45-days, along with 200,000 new website visitors and most importantly, $50 million in funding for the cause.

Intermountain Health states their mission as “to help people live the healthiest lives possible.”

We represented the caregivers at Intermountain Health as an essential part of the daily fabric of one’s life - a critical part - but not the only part - of your circle of support.

This humble approach - to say that you, as a billion-dollar company, are only one part of the solution - is very unique in the world of healthcare.

We proved out the very ownable visual idea of “Circles” with both a launch anthem film campaign and two separate long-form pieces called “Roundtables” where we brought in members of the community along with Intermountain caregivers to talk about critical topics like teen mental health, women’s health and diabetes, with several more on the way.

This campaign significantly increased awareness and consideration of Intermountain and has raised preference across Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Montana, especially with primary healthcare decision-makers.

Hoag is an Orange County health system that is rapidly gaining an international reputation for excellence and innovation across their seven specialized institutes. We worked with real patients to tell their incredible success stories in an elevated and sophisticated way that would match the high-expectations of ths high-earning audience through broadcast, out-of-home and long-form mini-documentaries, creating a campaign that was as beautiful as our new tagline. Shout-out to Dua Lipa and The Beatles for an amazing track on the broadcast spot…just sayin’. (See below to click through.)

Southeast Alaska Regional Health Collective (or SEARHC and yes we know the spelling looks weird…) started as a collective to serve Alaska Natives who were being overlooked when it came to receiving proper healthcare from the government. 50 years later they are the largest provider of healthcare in the state, and continuing to expand. They remain connected and dedicated to the land itself and the heritage of their people and we made a series of films - shot on location in Alaska which was an amazing experience - to launch a campaign that celebrates their story.

ViiVis an HIV prep drug that with a single shot can protect you from infection for two months. Research showed that a high percentage of at-risk consumers were not truthful with their partners. So we asked them to start by being truthful with themselves.

There’s no arguing - the Las Vegas brand is one of the most iconic in the world, so when the opportunity to help lead its reinvention was presented, it was one of the great challenges of my career to be a part of it.

“What Happens Here Stays Here” needs no introduction, but in this day & age - where diversity and inclusion and empowerment are not just celebrated but demanded - the notion of “adult freedom” needed to be evolved.

Las Vegas gets far too little credit for the empowering and inclusive experiences it has to offer that go far beyond the party and gaming scene. With these films, that would no longer be the case.

This campaign included a full publishing strategy beyond the films themselves - with everything from Snap teasers to YouTube bumpers to cinemagraphs to broadcast spots and destination articles and - it should be mentioned - 18,000 organic posts and 24 million impressions in the first week of their release, including 10 million organic views on YouTube within 24-hours of their release during the nationally televised Tony Awards.

I won't lie - it's been a career highlight, an honor and a privilege to work on this iconic brand campaign. Truly one of the best and most ownable insights there is. I just wish I was the one who came up with it - but there’s still time - I’ll find my world-beating idea sooner or later.

Avnet is a Fortune 100 company with a very complicated story to tell, because they don’t actually MAKE anything. But they do work with almost 80 of the top technology companies in the word to help bring their products to market. So we simplified the story - they help make the products that help change the world.

We started with a global brand launch to tell their story of "guiding today’s ideas into tomorrow’s technology,” but for me the more interesting challenge was the series of “mini-docs” we created to help tell the story of what they really do.

We created a series of 3 minute "mini-docs" called "This is Further." The films illustrate the impact Avnet has on the world through documenting their critical role in bringing world-changing technology to market.

We rounded out the launch with a social campaign and rich media that drove consumers to the stories, as well as combining 31 global websites into one unified brand presence.

It was an honor to work with Guinness and The Leary Firefighter Foundation to create this work driving awareness and donations for first-responders everywhere.

Love them or hate them, PETA is one of the bravest brands around. Their brief for this work was "do something honest, smart, gutsy, and that might get us sued."

Challenge accepted, along with a slew of awards and millions upon millions of dollars worth of media coverage. The spot "Sex Talk" alone ran in it's entirety on no less than 5 national cable news shows, as part of interview segments with Peta spokespeople that averaged 3-4 minutes per segment. Hey - it even pissed off Bill O' Reilly - that's a win in my book...

I don't always agree with everything they do, but here I thought the work was really on-point and could not avoid being a conversation-starter, no matter which side of the issue you came down on.

We launched a Global brand for this incredible fintech start-up at Devcon 2018 in Prague: 4 films, OOH, building projections, full-page ads in the WSJ/NY Times, Financial Times, a Prague-takeover, a live hologram who MC’d our launch keynote event, with 1500 people in attendance. The entire campaign was based around a young girl inspired by the founder’s own daughter who asked him “what are you doing to change the world?”

We were asked to rename, rebrand and relaunch one of Mexico's largest luxury resort brands for the US audience.

In addition to a launch film, we decided to commission four original mexican-inspired "background patterns" representing each of the four travel experiences available: luxury, adventure, family, and culture. Enhancing our photography to a dreamlike quality, the brand now has an iconic and ownable look in every medium.

With the WD brand now out in the world, it was time for their first global product launch: a personal cloud device. 

Instead of taking on competing products, we decided to take on the cloud itself - creating a striking visual metaphor, an emotional payoff and a new category all at once.

Sales surpassed projections by 42%, allowing WD to virtually own the category.

Almost everyone who visits - and we talked to a lot of people - this amazing property says something along these lines - "you can't describe the view - you just have to experience it." Or "I can't put it into words, it's just a feeling it gives me I can't get anywhere else." Or "when I try to tell people about it, I don't do it justice."

And so we just let the visuals do the talking as well.

Not everyone loves CPG - but I love making work that moves product. And this campaign moved a whole lot of cat food.  

We created multiple "personalities" for different types of cats, which then allowed consumers to engage with the brand, identify their own cat's personality type and share it with the world.

Well, the world of cat weirdos, anyway. It was the most succesful campaign in the brand's history - yes more successful than the Meow Mix jingle. (You're welcome.)

It was such a privilege to help reinvent the longest-running PSA campaign of all time. Working with AdCouncil was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career. And oh yeah, no big deal, I got to direct the great and gracious Sam Elliott as the voice of Smokey Bear.

Youth are the #1 victims of Hodgkins disease, but funding for research is largely non-existent because it’s not seen by Big Pharma to be as profitable as other “better-known” cancers. We set out to change that.