With the exception of Jesse's Deli, the following projects were done with no budget,
less than 2 days from concept to execution...showing you don't need a huge budget
to earn media. 

BRAND EQUALITY

Many brands are vocal about their support for marriage equality now. But before it became law, few brands seemed brave enough to speak up. While many brands will exploit issues, some show real commitment.

We realized the hesitancy and fear deep in the boardrooms of corporate America, so we decided to help them express their views – whether they wanted to or not.

My partner Matt Dimmer and I created a fast site with a simple experimental idea:
We’d leverage the crisis management tactic of 'PR silence' to instead force the hand of corporations that target the LGBT community to publicly respond to where they stood in the Marriage Equality ‘debate.’
 

We instigated a debate on transparency and promoted the point of view that the public should have the right to know where the brands they support stand which would allow them to (re)align themselves with those brands that held the same beliefs as they do.

We believe...even if neutral, a large brand with considerable sway in the public sphere, affecting policy, should be transparent about their corporate views of a major civic, social or environmental issue. Sometimes, the stakes are too high.

CREATIVES LAUNCH TUMBLR TO SHOW WHICH BRANDS SUPPORT MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Seizing the moment, we stayed up for the next 24 hours straight, asking anonymous collaborators and fans to create images of brands we hoped were supportive of marriage equality.

We received numerous posts from brands asking not only to keep their posts up, but those who reached out to us let us know they were pro-equality, and even shared their own versions of the HRC logo mashup.
 

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN TALLY

"Give It Back to Us" was a website that kept a running tally of just how much taxpayer money had gone into government coffers since a congressional shutdown began. 

We took figures from the U.S. government revenue website and applied an algorithm that calculates how much tax money is collected with each passing moment. We encouraged anyone who finds the shutdown equally absurd to bring their eye-rolling powers to bear on Twitter with the hashtag #GIVEITBACKTOUS.

We produced it in under 24 hours – from the concept spark by Stuart Brown to the fast and furious coding and design by Mike Bodge.

#JessesPricedOut

Role: Social Media & PR

This project was created by my friends at DCX. I’m featuring it here only because it’s a great example of a pure social awareness initiative. I lent a hand with the PR.

Here’s the story…

“When we found out Jesse’s rent was being increased by 2.5 times we decided to help them out. We created “the Artisanal Landlord Price Hike Sale,” artisanally renamed every product in their store and adjusted the prices appropriately to 2.5 to mirror their rent increase. Since we hung those posters one midnight in June, Jesse’s got tons of press, tons of Instagram posts, tweets, facebook posts, blog posts and most importantly the support of the whole Boerum Hill community. Furthermore, we dabbled in some politics and helped the Small Business Jobs Survival Act garner enough support to get the majority of votes in NYC.”