Art Speaks
In promoting the reopening of the newly remodeled SFMOMA, our goal was to attract a younger Millennial audience that has an appreciation for art, but doesn’t view a stuffy, sterile museum environment as the place to go see it. This campaign was intended to portray the new SFMOMA as a more approachable, engaging, and thought-provoking experience, with an expansive collection that offered something for everyone.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Art Directors: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan
Synchronized Sardines
To promote one of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s most spectacular attractions—a baitfish phenomenon called a “bait ball”—we created one of the largest touchscreen experiences ever and brought it to Bay Area events. People could use their fingers to zig, zag, swerve, and spiral a huge school of sardines moving in perfect unison. Then they could select a specific shape and music track, and watch the sardines put on a synchronized swimming performance that would make Esther Williams jealous.
Credits:
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal
Writer: Scott Aal
Art Directors: Mel Chan, Suosdey Penn
Picture Yourself
Brands are built on emotional connections. LinkedIn has always received high marks for its utility, but at the time hadn’t yet clearly communicated its raison d'être. This initiative was the first wave of brand work to come out of our long-term strategic development partnership. The centerpiece of the effort was this documentary video that juxtaposed young kids’ career aspirations with working professionals who’ve succeeded in those same fields.
Credits:
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Art Director: Suosdey Penn
The upscale casual dining chain True Food Kitchen was founded by the famed Dr. Andrew Weil, whose theories on integrative medicine are highly respected among health and nutrition professionals.
True Food Kitchen had a loyal following based on a menu of delicious recipes with proven medicinal value. But its fear of equating food with medicine led to it selling its offering as “healthy eating”, and it got lost in a sea of sameness. Adding to the problem was America’s confusion around fad diets, and the constant, ever-changing headlines about what’s good for you and what’s not.
We designed a campaign around the tagline “Eat Optimistically” with an homage to TFK’s mantra “Eat More Color”, fully embracing the medicinal aspects of TFK’s menu, avoiding typical good-for-you jargon, and dialing up the taste-appeal in unexpected ways.
Credits:
Agencies: Chemistry Club/Division of Labor
Writers: Scott Aal, Josh Denberg
Art Director: Faruk Sagcan
A Beautiful Convergence
This campaign aimed to engage both UCSF’s internal and external audiences. Internally, our goal was to create a sense of community and unity among UCSF’s staff, who are spread across the institution’s many campuses. In addition to on-campus installations and shuttle wraps, we created digital and experiential pieces designed to educate employees on the organization’s mission and many achievements. Externally, our work reminded the public that UCSF is one of the world’s finest healthcare organizations.
Credits:
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal
Writers: Scott Aal, Allison Khoury
Art Diretors: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan, Emil Wilson
Palo Alto Networks is the world’s leader in cybersecurity. But its marketing has never lived up to the quality of its products. When I was hired as ECD in late 2021, I inherited a talented but dispirited creative department, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work, and discouraged by a lack of support for creativity and an understanding of its value. Over the past 18 months, the culture has improved dramatically, and slowly but surely, creativity is gaining a foothold.
Empowerment to the People
We were hired to help Mozilla Firefox redefine its brand and communication strategy as the browser category became fiercely competitive. At the time, most people didn’t realize that Firefox was the only browser created and managed by a non-profit organization for the cause of keeping the internet open, accessible, and free. We created a brand book, videos, and online and out-of-home executions to introduce this concept both within the company and to users worldwide.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Allison Khoury, Scott Aal, Karin Knutson
Art Director: Jason Smith
The Best Case for the Worst Case
Does B-to-B have to be dull and dry? With our campaign for EVault, we take the fairly mundane proposition of data backup and recovery and leverage every IT manager’s deepest fear: that some unpredictable force is lurking around the corner waiting to wreak havoc on their data. And, we’ve summed it up in print ads, online display, and videos with a simple line: The best case for the worst case.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal
Writer: Scott Aal
Art Director: Mel Chan
Deliciously Ethical
Since 2006 Veggie Grill has been offering customers a vegan-only menu of accessible, flavorful food. But—despite being owned by an equity firm that holds only environmentally conscious companies—it had never behaved as a purpose-driven brand with a commitment to the importance of its offering.
We changed that.
Over the course of six weeks, we reimagined their brand identity, built a new website, and created marketing across multiple touchpoints designed to encourage trial for potential new customers, inspire pride among current customers, and position Veggie Grill as a leader in the plant-based movement.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal
Writer: Scott Aal
Art Director/Designer: Elina Frumerman
Reach Out. Reach Up.
Over the course of six years, I worked on a number of LinkedIn projects—both internal and external—through my agency. We were tasked with developing a brand voice, messaging architecture, and a series of campaigns and creative executions—video, online, social and experiential—designed to communicate LinkedIn’s purpose with the kind of humanity that had been missing from LinkedIn’s past efforts.
Credits
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Scott Aal, Grant Richards, Allison Khoury
Art Directors: Grant Richards, Suosdey Penn, Jason Smith
Come Aboard, Swim Along
What do you get when you combine an Airstream trailer, six HD TVs, and a vampire squid? The World’s First Land Submarine. This experiential effort for the Monterey Bay Aquarium brought people 9,000 feet below the ocean’s surface and introduced them to over 25 animals. The family-friendly experience was designed to be as cool as it was quirky.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal, Vince Engel
Writers: Allison Khoury, Scott Aal
Art Directors: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan
Bank on Yourself
First Republic Bank was known as much for its loyal, wealthy clientele as it was for its outstanding customer service. But with a good portion of their clientele in their later years, FRB needed new customers. The challenge was not only that millennials weren’t too fond of banks, but that they strive for a wealth of experiences, versus riches for others to admire. More than anything, they wanted their achievements to be seen as result of their ambition and hard work. And they wanted a bank that understood that, and would support them as they worked to create their destinies. Our “Bank on Yourself” campaign spoke to just that.
Personal Banking, Personified.
Our follow-up campaign was based on another insight about millennials: while technology had made everything quicker and more efficient, this demographic was starting to miss service with a “human touch.” First Republic bank was all about personal, high-touch service, so all we had to do was convince a group who was not at all fond of banks that not all banks—or bankers—are created equal.
Credit
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Director: Scott Aal
Writer: Scott Aal
Designers: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan
Manifestos: Writers Gotta Write
Writers gotta think, too, and that’s the beauty of crafting a brand manifesto. It’s all about distilling down the product benefits, the marketplace, the demographic, the strategic positioning, and a smart, engaging idea into a motivating story that gets the entire company cheering and the campaign off the ground. And until the glorious return of long copy ads (not holding my breath), writing a manifesto will continue to be one of my happiest assignments.
Credits
Agencies: Engine Company 1, Chemistry Club
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Jason Smith, Scott Aal
Art Directors: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan
The Story’s on 7
San Francisco is a different media market. It’s smarter. It’s more skeptical. Promoting local news requires a campaign that reflects the community’s sensibilities. News industry formulas just don’t fly. For ABC7, we created a simple, inexpensive campaign that promotes their reporting in an unexpected way.
Credits
Agency: Grant, Scott & Hurley
Creative Directors: Scott Aal, Grant Richards
Writers: Peter Bell, Scott Aal
Art Director: Joel Bowers
Stuff Happens. See It.
Piper is part of the revolution in home security: sophisticated monitoring systems that are also reasonably priced and easy to manage. Manufactured by Icontrol—a company with deep security software expertise, but no brand recognition—it was imperative that we highlight the differentiating features that make Piper a better choice, and do it in a way that made the brand likeable. Our goal wasn’t only to grow consumer interest, but to gain shelf space in big-box retailers. This series of videos and digital efforts provided some offbeat, memorable demonstrations of Piper’s technology. It wasn’t long before Piper was being sold through Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, and Walmart.
Credits
Agency: Chemistry Club
Creative Directors: Grant Richards, Scott Aal
Writers: James Brown, Grant Richards, Scott Aal
Art Directors: Suosdey Penn, Mel Chan
