PREFACE

I love sports. Playing, watching and building the brands I love to cheer for. As a fan, I see beyond the common tropes of sports marketing to deliver meaningful, impactful, fan-centric and unique activations that drive engagement and revenue. My early career included serving as ESPN's top-producing writer, producer, editor, animator, and director for over 5 years, working across NCAA (football, basketball, and baseball), NASCAR, F1/CART, The Kentucky Derby, and original programming. I got to work with top on-air celebrities such as Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Flower and Lee Corso. I learned a lot about production, but also about how sports are more than the game; it's life—the good, the bad, the struggle and the impossible victories. 

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With that experience and success I had across smaller sports partnerships, I inherited Ford's largest investments across the Southeast, including the Atlanta Falcons and NCAA partnerships with UGA, Auburn, and Alabama. While both of these assignments produced Ford's longest-running partnership platforms (Falcons x Ford Defend the Dome, Georgia (Alabama, Auburn) Saturdays—Built Ford Tough), the Falcons campaign features a great turnaround story and an incredibly diverse creative range that I'd love to share.

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CASE STUDY

2006 was roughfor America. Ford's shutdown seemed imminent, and the Falcons were dealing with their own PR nightmares. While sports had proven to be a strong vehicle for brand affinity across Ford's portfolio, the Falcons' partnership was questioned amid tightening budgets. Historically, little had been done with the partnership besides logo placement. I was assigned to change all that.

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Working with AMBSE (Falcons), we restructured the contract to create unique, powerful ways to break free from partnership clutter and promote both brands with a true sense of community and purpose. To succeed, we needed to be more than a team and a car manufacturer. We needed to be a rallying cry that unified a divided community. A tagline that gave fans equal part ownership to cheer and build on the campaign platform as if it were their own. We needed the platform to become a sense of city pride, inspiring fans to wear branded shirts as a badge of pride and add their own talents to make the campaign bigger than any media buy could afford. That platform became DEFEND THE DOME— a resilient affirmation that this was our home and, regardless of obstacles, we've come to not only play, but to win, on the fields of football and family.

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Defend the Dome changed the game by pushing both innovation, media-firsts and interactive storytelling. 

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I spearheaded Ford's first 3D development online video game, where fans could become All-Pro Defensive End John Abraham and virtually drive through Atlanta in their choice of a Ford Flex or F-150. We created the first impact-rated tackling bag for fan gameday experiences, demonstrating tackling force and vehicle safety. We also produced a first-ever branded player intro that played before every home game and a halftime concert featuring R&B Artist of the Year, Robin Thicke. Online, we literally broke through websites with a 

Hulkified version of Abraham that also became a website overlay and a highly celebrated fan giveaway as an 8" Action Figure, selling for over $40 on eBay the next day. And I produced an All-Pro TE Tony Gonzalez Fathead that drove record store traffic.
 

Defend the Dome was supported with a fully integrated campaign, including TVC, OOH, social media and the most successful program microsite in the brand's history.

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Defend the Dome was not only instrumental in reversing declining sales and brand affinity, but it also galvanized a community, giving them a rallying cry they cheered from the stands and performed on their own music videos (both country and hip-hop). 

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