The scope didn't fit. The shoot didn't cooperate. The wine never noticed.

The wine had spent years on a clean background. We shot it like a fashion campaign instead: a curated scene of a life you want in on, and a wine you buy to open with someone rather than to keep.

ROLE:

Group Creative Direction · Art Direction · Social and E-Commerce Content · Scope and Resource Planning · Production Leadership · Client Partnership

CLIENT:

Silver Oak

AGENCY:

BASIC/DEPT

SCOPE:

Photography, stop motion, email, social, e-commerce

THE CHALLENGE:

Silver Oak had always kept it clean visually. A new marketing director wanted to shake it up, attract a more youthful audience, and show people this was the bottle you bring when you want to impress someone who actually knows wine. That meant reading aspirational, timeless and on-trend at the same time, without losing the people who already took the brand seriously, on a budget that did not match the ambition of the work.

WHAT I DID:

Two launches on one launch's budget. The client wanted the new world across two launches and could afford one. I restructured how the account was scoped, stacking projects into a tandem, layered waterfall schedule with the producer, and both fit, including the holiday campaign they actually wanted. I set the creative direction around rich jewel tones and lived-in, youthful propping, with an art director on the account handling day-to-day execution. The camera took a voyeuristic point of view, so you see the scene and the life around the bottle and want in on it, which is what makes a quiet status symbol read as something to share rather than shelve. Kept it upright when it fell apart. Early on day two, with the client already in the hotel lobby, our photographer tested positive for Covid. Everyone wanted to keep going but the call was mine to make, so I made it. New photographer on set and up to speed by midday, four days of shot list compressed into three, and the full product list still covered by repurposing setups and swapping bottles against the client's own knowledge of which products would never appear together. As the only creative representing the agency on the ground I ran every role on set, including line producing.

IMPACT:

· Two launches delivered against the budget for one

· Grew the scope of work on the account

· Multiple campaigns delivered on time and on budget, against a scope the agency's standard model could not accommodate

· The content came out beyond expectations