Welcome to Turman Approved. I’m your host and curator Daniel Turman. I have worked as a copywriter, associate creative director, creative conceptor, and brand- and social-media strategist. Scroll down for the full stories, or hit the portfolio link for a quick look at some of the campaigns and projects that I’ve been involved in.
Founded by all-star NBA point guards Baron Davis and Steve Nash, Apoko was formed in late 2009. The mission? To give professional athletes the tools and strategies to make the most of their personal brand in the digital arena.
I helped develop and articulate the language of the Apoko brand promise in a deck that was used to procure funding for the venture and recruit additional athletes into the fold. This document also was rendered as a five-minute, self-playing movie that could be shown on devices as small as a smart phone, making it possible to pitch to new potential clients almost anywhere. Like, say, on the team plane.
Moreover, the strategic thinking is being employed on an ongoing basis in Twitter feeds, viral videos and more. Make the jump to see one example of the fine work these gentlemen have been producing.
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For the better part of two years, I was heavily involved in the creative development and supervision of an assortment of projects related to a character named Morris. Named after a childhood friend of mine who was (and still is) preternaturally good with money, the campaign centered around the various endeavors of this “wise upperclassman,” as he was known internally. His mission was twofold: to promote financial literacy among high-school and college students and to suggest appropriate student-banking solutions.
Awards for the campaign include Internet Advertising Competition recognition for Best Bank website; an FWA site of the day honorarium for “The Morris Code” in May 2009; a Web Marketing Association WebAward, for Outstanding Website, 2010 ARF David Ogilvy Award Golds in Research Innovation and the Financial Services categories, and numerous Midas Awards.
All his exploits can still be viewed here.
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PS. See the award-submission reel for “The Morris Code” by making the jump.
PPS. The Morris Code is nominated for a Webby. Vote for it here! Continue reading
In conjunction with the redesign of Organic.com, each office was asked to shoot a video that accurately captured the essence of that office and its creative process. Tasked with concepting and shooting it, I conceived of a process that would be akin to “free jazz”; six people would be given Flip cameras to record their off-duty inspirations, their commute, pieces of the workday, our meetings about this project, and ultimately the decision-making that resulted in the end sequence.
In the end, the video saw wider service, being used as a brand video for the entire company and accompanied a number of high-profile presentations. Make the jump to watch it in full.
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Sony’s revolutionary video game, Little Big Planet (LBP), was destined to make a splash. With a key feature of the game being the ability of users to create levels and modify characters and environments, it was paramount that the game also have a parallel presence on the web. The mantra of the game: “play, create, and share” needed to be reflected in the pre-launch communications.
Working on the site months before launch, the goal was to generate preorders for the title, but also to create a buzz around this new orientation to task for gamers. With the potential for everyone to become a defacto game developer, it was important to reframe the pre-launch discussions of the game around this new focus. The solution, Little Big Workshop.
I worked on the conceptual phases of the project, working with a small team at Organic to create a launch vehicle that would embody the spirit of the game, yet be capable of becoming LBP’s social-media hub after launch.
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Some friends and I write a culture and basketball blog known as Fear the Beard. In the summer of 2008, my FTB cohorts and I set out to try and create a viral video to encourage the Golden State Warriors to re-sign point guard Baron Davis to a long-term contract.
The concept was for Baron to generate goodwill and demonstrate his desire to stay in the Bay Area by committing random acts of kindness around downtown San Francisco. He was game for it and the results were “YouTube gold” as it was termed by Yahoo! Sports, where the video spent time as a headline. Prominent syndication there and elsewhere garnered the video more than 25,000 views in two days and merited mention in local sports media.
In the end, it didn’t work out quite the way we expected, but this video and some of our other related work did make its way into the pitch that eventually landed Baron a contract with the Los Angeles Clippers. It goes without saying that this was a lot of fun. The full write up can be found over at Fear the Beard, along with the full list of credits. Or make the jump to watch the video here.
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This promotion for Mitsubishi Motors repurposed an idea that was originally floated as a launch activity for the Lancer. Needing to sell unsold inventory, Mitsubishi came to BBDO and Organic wanting to revive interest in the fourth-generation Eclipse in advance of its mid-cycle sheetmetal updates. So, putting two-time US Touring Car Championship-winning driver Dave Brown in the dual role of spokesman and precision driver, we set out to show a few Eclipse owners where the outer limits of performance were for the car and revive excitement in the nameplate.
My jobs, besides recruiting Dave as the driver, involved assisting on set, particularly in terms of getting the right product language from the subjects during interview sequences. Additionally, I served as co-ACD on the final product, which lived entirely online. Video banner ads and social-networking mechanisms fed a dedicated promotional area on Mitsubishicars.com. There, a large video window showcased the fun. All of which did indeed move some units. Additional screen captures and one of the track videos after the jump.
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In March 2008, Sony Computer Entertainment America launched a blog in support of both the SOCOM game franchise and the then-upcoming installment, SOCOM Confrontation. The blog was the result of several months of social-media strategizing. For a community as vocal and fanatical as the denizens of this game, the blog would ultimately succeed or fail based on authenticity of voice and engagement with the community. Moreover, with so many gamers paying attention for different reasons, category slugs and posting timelines would have to be thought through thoroughly in order to give the fans of the brand exactly the type of information they were looking for when they wanted it. Most of all, it had to speak directly to concerns about the game play and create real dialogue between gamers and game developers.
With some posts ultimately sparking conversations hundreds of comments deep, the SOCOM blog did its job and then some. Thousands of people spent many hours engaged with the SOCOM brand and helping to shape the future of the franchise, while also building buzz about Confrontation.
Commenting has since been disabled and some of the pieces reconfigured, but the blog is still live here.
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Every so often at Organic, we got to perform some pro-bono work for a deserving client. I was fortunate enough to be involved in one effort of particular significance. Roots of Peace was just such an organization. Using private donations and high-level connections to support operations on multiple continents, their mission is twofold.
Roots of Peace works to unearth dangerous landmines in war-torn countries and empowers the local communities scarred by these inhumane weapons. Working to build sustainable crops on land once too dangerous to traverse is how we transform the scars of conflict into the roots of peace.
Building a website that could be accessed and modified by a variety of people, was paramount. As was making it a viable engine for generating donations. We ended up modifying a blogging platform for a deceptively simple CMS. But this platform proved to be the ideal vehicle for remote video uploading, blogging updates from the field, and making timely reports on various successes. Starting from scratch, with a group who had never blogged before, we developed a robust platform and a strategic approach that has given Roots of Peace a website that dovetails perfectly with their ambitions.
I co-creative directed the project as well as developed the blogging-focused strategy that would form the basis for the user-interface and information architecture.
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The 2007 launch of the Mitsubishi Lancer was one of the most important product launches in the brand’s recent history. Over the course of nearly five months, we carefully constructed content to build pre-reveal buzz, showcase the Detroit Auto Show reveal, as well as the vehicle launch advertising proper.
The screen capture above shows the largest component of the digital work, the launch microsite. Each of the handwritten categories were links to both video and “deep-dig” product content. An extensive history section also showcased the Lancer’s motorsports pedigree in international rallying.
The launch was viewed as a critical success for the brand and Lancer sales have been critical to the success of the brand since.
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PS. What follows is video of me talking about the project on the old Organic.com homepage, as well as the reveal videos we shot at the Detroit Auto Show. No, I did not script the host rhyming, “Take a glance here at the new Lancer.” But I did provide talking points and Q&A positions for both of them.
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