Summer of 2023, Apple and Pepsi collaborated for the first time in 20 years, offering a free summer of Apple Music in every bottle of soda. The assignment first seemed straight forward, but the partnership ended up being one of the most political undertakings of my career. Finding mutual grounds between two of the biggest brands on the planet, plus getting creative sign-off from Bad Bunny, was anything but easy.
Directed by Dave Meyers.
In 1974, Dapper Dan invented Street Wear by making luxury fashion available for black America. However, European luxury brands sued him for copyright infringement, forcing him to shut down his business. Over 40 years later, Gucci, the very brand that had sued him, appropriated his designs and showcased them on the runway. This led to widespread outrage, with millions of people boycotting the Italian luxury brand. An apology from Gucci wasn't enough; people demanded meaningful action. That's where we came in. We helped Dapper Dan negotiate a groundbreaking deal with Gucci, allowing him to reclaim his rightful place at the pinnacle of the fashion world.
By 2021, millions of people in Germany remained unvaccinated, leading to record-high infection rates. To shift the national attitude towards vaccinations, we convinced major global brands to change their taglines temporarily in order to turn this claim into a call to action. Within a week, thousands of companies joined the effort, creating the largest vaccination campaign in history.
Over 1.000 brands have joined the movement in the first four days.
Bett1, Germany’s top-selling mattress company, achieved cult status by airing the same commercial for over a decade. When I took over the brand, the internet was abuzz with mockery about the ad. Rather than completely overhauling bett1, we chose to embrace this challenging legacy. We reshot the infamous commercial more than 15 times, using the negative social feedback as inspiration for each new version. This strategy ultimately transformed bett1 into one of the most beloved brands in the country.
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Jeep Wrangler, America's favorite off-roader, we wanted to honor its legendary roots. Our Super Bowl commercial captured the untold story of its "parents": Freedom and Adventure. We personified the two parties and depicted how they first met, fell in love, and gave birth to a true Icon - the Jeep Wrangler.
Just one year after the iconic shoe store empire declared bankruptcy, DSW faced the daunting task of reinventing itself. The challenge was to create four distinct 15-second commercials that effectively communicated the store's extensive variety of shoes. During this process, we developed and sold a new brand tagline: “DSW Pairs with Everything.” This tagline has become the brand’s new guiding principle and is set to define DSW for years to come.
Directed by Adam Hashemi.
The current economic climate is challenging: a looming recession, plunging cryptocurrencies, and rising interest rates. People deserve clarity on their finances. Welcome to The Bubble— the most transparent way to make your money disappear. No speculation, no false promises. In fall 2024, we will unveil the most stunning investment bubble ever. We’ll accept all major currencies, checks, credit cards, and cryptocurrencies. Follow this page for updates on the upcoming exhibition in Berlin.
We opened a supermarket where payment was made solely with Facebook data. Each product had a unique price: 5 likes for toast, 10 photos for fruit, and 5 messages for dumplings. At checkout, customers logged in with their Facebook credentials on our iPad. Our app retrieved the necessary data from their history and printed a receipt detailing the personal information used. Datenmarkt gained global media attention, from TV and newspapers to radio and online blogs, and even led to a TED Talk.
The last fluent speakers of the indigenous language Ayapaneco stopped communicating with each other decades ago after a disagreement drove them apart. As a result, Ayapaneco fell silent. We reunited Manuel and Isidro and opened a school to pass on their knowledge to the next generation. We also invited people online to adopt a word and help build the first social dictionary for Ayapaneco
For the launch of the new Mercedes-Benz GLA we invented a new way of narrating an online story – mosaic story telling. Animated Gifs, interactive elements, cinema graphs, video-elements, photos and audio files were gathered into a one of a kind user experience. Piece by piece users could go on a journey through the lost memories of our hero Ryan and find out what happened on his road trip. Furthermore we were responsible for the entire campaign of the new GLA, including TV Spots, Print Ads, banners, Facebook posts and many more.
Why does a nurse earn less than an investment banker? Are her actions less valuable? Is her work less respected? To portray the uneven distribution of salaries in today’s world we came up with an art experiment dedicated to the value of labor. Therefore we've compared salaries from more than 50 different job titles. How? By letting everyone do a unifying task. We gave our 50 participants one hour to paint a completely black art piece. All paintings looked similar but had one great difference: the price tag. We sold every painting for the hourly wage of the person - ranging from 4$ (cleaning lady) to 500$ (investment banker). We also filmed the one-hour-process of painting to see how every single one of them approached the task.
The experimental record label Bureau-B releases the first record made by boots and legs.
During a Bureau-B label night, we placed blank, silent vinyl records on the floor and invited the concert crowd to dance on them. After the event, the records were scratched and dirty. Two of our label artists transformed the noise from these scratches into unique tracks, which were then pressed onto a limited-edition collector’s EP. The entire design concept, including the cover art, posters, and flyers, was also created by the audience, making this release a true collaborative effort.
This art piece reflected the violent situation in Turkey during the riots at the Taksim Square in 2013. It is civil disobedience in a bottle. Riot Raki was picked up by news worldwide and was even part of the Guerrilla Zoo 2014 art exhibition in London.
In 2016, I joined UnitedMasters as their first employee and took on the role of Creative Director.
During my time there, I supported Steve Stoute's vision of transforming the music industry by offering independent artists an alternative to the exploitative label system. Since then, I've helped grow this vision into one of the largest independent artist platforms, now with over 2 million users.
The following slides will provide a brief overview of my tenure at UnitedMasters.
The film on the right was crafted as a launch spot to highlight how artists remain constrained by the traditional label system.
The journey began with defining the brand's identity. While I can't take credit for the name itself (Pharrell came up with it in a meeting) my partner and I were responsible for designing the logo and developing the entire visual language from the ground up. What's clever about the logo is that if you look closely, the 'U' of UnitedMasters is integrated within the negative space of the three stripes.
At the same time, my partner and I crafted the brand’s tagline, which remains the north star of the brand to this day. 'Own Your Future' serves as a call to action for independent artists to take control of their music, their legacy, and their careers.
I also worked on the first investors pitch deck to raise capital, which helped secure an impressive $70 million from Alphabet, 21st Century Fox, and Ben Horowitz.
UnitedMasters is not a traditional label but a tech-driven music platform based in Silicon Valley. In the early days, I collaborated closely with the engineering team in San Francisco to develop innovative product ideas aimed at empowering independent artists. With small budgets but big ambitions, we produced a range of creative solutions.
The video on this page is an example of one of these no-budget, in-house productions.
In 2019, a significant challenge arose when the NBA was sued by record labels for using their artists' music in arenas and highlight reels.
The league needed a solution, and that's where we stepped in. We brokered an unprecedented deal to resolve the situation.
Check out the video to see what we did.
A year later, we also teamed up with NBA2K, transforming one of the most anticipated game soundtracks into a global music competition.
Early on, I managed social media and established the brand's tone of voice across platforms. Today, UnitedMasters has over 700k followers.
During the pandemic, we developed concept for a Zoom event that eventually became the largest independent music conference in the us.
SelectCon provides independent artists with a stage to perform and industry figures with a platform to educate the next generation. SelectCon has become a very lucrative business model for the company and it's most powerful marketing asset.
From day one, I led the design for these events.
Chance the Rapper was the first artist to ever win a Grammy award without being signed to a label. Things have changed since then but independent artists are to this day still the minority.
In 2023 UnitedMasters had three artists nominated for a Grammy, so we decided to host an annual event to celebrate Independence at the Grammy's. Over 10.000 people particated.