Seeing the fundamental changes happening in consumer engagement, I built a team in 2010 that could leverage emerging technologies to create unique experiences. This team was integrated into the overall studio and worked on traditional as well as non-traditional work. Much of this self-initiated work went on to become branded experiences for Chobani, Adidas, and Microsoft among others.
A behind the scenes look at hacking, smashing, and mashing our way through ideas about "games" for our annual studio wide hackathon.
One of the teams first challenges was to invent something to engage the crowds at the Capitol Hill Block Party right outside our studio. Al asked, "What if we made a player piano Tweetable?" and a Stanley was born.
Chobani took notice and made Stanley the M.C. for their sponsorship of the annual Sing for Hope festival in NYC.
Contributions: ECD, Creative Strategy, Stagehand
Team: David Mikula/CD, Demetre Arges/CD, Al Mendili/Interactive CD, Ben Chaykin/CT, Cara McKinley/Developer, Raul Villalobos/Creative, Koji Minami/Creative, Dave Brown/Producer, Paul Williamson/Producer
The Seattle Seahawks fans are known as the "12s". They are a loud and very passionate and extremely pumped about Superbowl XLVIII against the Broncos. But the majority weren't going to get to go to the game. Our thought was to create "third screen" social experience much like a Jumbotron connects fans in the stadium. Welcome to Tinytron
Contributions: Creative Direction, Concepts, Art Directon
Team: Al Mendili/Interactive CD, Corey Paganucci/Developer, Raul Villabolos/Creative, Jessica Katona/Creative, Justin Reed/Creative, Paul Williamson/Producer
As a part of our new studio party, we hacked a vending machine to deliver party favors—if you could come up with the missing piece of common duos.
Contributions: ECD, Strategy
Team: Al Mendili/Interactive CD, Ben Chaykin/CT, Jessica Katona/Creative, Chelsea Wirtz/Creative, Eric Freistadt/Creative
Originally created for our company holiday party, we refined our re-imagined photo booth for the Adidas Originals experience at Lalapolooza.
Contributions: ECD
Team: David Mikula/CD, Demetre Arges/CD, Al Mendili/CT, Ben Chaykin/CT, Raul Villalobos/Creative