C O C A I N E B E A R

Look ma, I'm on tv talking about Cocaine Bear! A local news station (LEX 18) recently stopped by the Kentucky Fun Mall and ran a story on 'Cocaine Bear.' Check the video out below. From there, the story got picked up by Atlas Obscura, Neatorama, Oddity Central and BroBible. Our (Kentucky for Kentucky) beloved Cocaine Bear has become quite the Internet sensation and a top Kentucky tourist destination. If you're not familiar with Pablo EskoBear, read the story here. 

DIGIDAY AGENCY INNOVATION CAMP

I recently had the great pleasure of attending Digiday’s Agency Innovation Camp in Vail, Colorado as a mentor and a speaker. 

“Digiday’s Agency Innovation Camp is a unique — by invitation only — multi-day event, created for the brightest minds from today’s leading digital advertising agencies. These are the millennials creating change and innovation — the digital natives who are rethinking and reshaping brand communication through technology and a continuously evolving media landscape.

Over the course of three days, these rising digital media stars focus on modern-day media buying, planning and tech innovation in think tank sessions and workshops. An emphasis on collaboration and leadership is woven throughout the camp, as participants are divided into teams to ultimately compete in a Brand Hackathon.”

I had a blast! I absorbed so much positive millenial energy, I feel like I’m ten years younger. Maybe I feel older. I don’t know. There were around 80 young digital natives attending the camp from agencies all over. They were split up into eight teams that competed in a series of challenges. The most important challenge being a big ‘Brand Hackathon’. All of the teams we’re given a brief, a budget and were tasked with coming up with a pitch to be presented in front of a panel of four judges. My team (the Blue Team) put the epic Digiday smack down and WON it all. They took home the trophy for the big ‘Brand Hackathon’ and they took the trophy for being the overall ‘Camp Champions’. Hell yeah, it was an epic victory! 

While at the Digiday Agency Innovation Camp, I gave a 15 minute talk on "How to Sell your Ideas Internally”. It was fun. A brief description of that talk along with a video clip and my presentation slides can be found below. 

“The struggle to sell your ideas is real! For most young professionals, the battle begins right there in their own agency. Way before their idea hits the client, they’ve got to get it through the gauntlet of trained idea killers: the art directors, creative directors, account planners, chief innovation officers, chief strategy officers, chief insight officers, chief technology officers, chief sitting bull, the officer officers, the mailman and the chief chief of agency chiefs. Unfortunately for most, many ideas never make it out of the notebook. It’s not their fault, they’re just not properly trained to fight for their ideas. We’ll discuss how to give those ‘idea killers’ a swift kick to the nuts.”

CREATIVE MORNINGS

Myself and Griffin VanMeter (Kentucky for Kentucky) will be speaking at Creative Mornings in Louisville this Friday June 12th from 8:30am-10:00am. We'll be speaking on the topic of Revolution. The event will take place outside at Resurfaced. We'll give away some gear and we'll also have a little Kentucky for Kentucky pop-up-shop set up at the event. We can't wait. The event is free BUT you have to register and seating is limited. Registration opens on Monday June 8th at 9:00am. Register here. 

HEAVY METAL BRANDS

"Heavy Metal makes everything better" - that's what my friend in 8th grade once told me right before he bit the head off a baby bat.  To this day, I still think he's right (even though he got rabies).  Heavy Metal does make everything better.  We decided to apply that crazy 8th grader's wisdom to a fun project at Cornett.  Would Heavy Metal make a corporate brand's branding better?  We asked members of the Cornett design team to pick a few different brands and make their branding metal.  Just as we suspected, it worked.  

Credits: Clay Gibson (Tylenol, Benadryl, Kleenex), Matt Newton (American Girl Doll, Fancy Feast, Disney), Matt Bitley (Anthropologie, Lululemon), Randy Steward (Mary Kay, Tampax), Chris Adams (Google), Ivy Oddis (Midol), Lauren Woods (Pinterest) Layout by Kris Ange

Heavy Metal Brands Press

“Heavy metal-inspired typography reinvents iconic logos” - Creative Bloq

“Famous Brand Logos Redesigned With Typography Inspired By Heavy Metal Music” - Design Taxi

“ROCK OUT WITH YOUR FONT OUT: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BRANDS GET A HEAVY METAL MAKEOVER” - Fast Company

“Corporate Logos Get A Heavy Metal Facelift”-Metal Injection

“Popular Corporate Brands Re-imagined as Metal Logos” - Metal Sucks

“Heavy Metal Brands” - Brand New

“11 corporate logos re-imagined as heavy metal bands” - AUX

LEX TALKS

We're doing a LEX TALKS at the Livery in Lexington, KY on Wednesday, April 29th. It's free but you'll need to register if you wanna go. Register here. We'll make sure it gets weird and awkward. 

"Watch the Most Strangely Hilarious Addy Awards Best of Show Acceptance Speech Ever"

Our Kentucky for Kentucky ‘Gold Plated Kentucky Fried Chicken Bone Necklaces’ recently took home the big ‘Best Of Show’ award at the AAF Lexington ADDY Awards. Hell yeah! Unfortunately we could be there to accept the award. We did create (with the help of Ian Friley) this little acceptance speech video that was shown at the event. Apparently the speech was a hit. It was also featured on ADWEEK. Check it out below. 

“Watch the Most Strangely Hilarious Addy Awards Best of Show Acceptance Speech Ever KFC necklaces were just the beginning” - ADWEEK 

#SHARETHELEX PART TWO

We just launched a new #ShareTheLex video for VisitLEX. Once again we had a blast working on this. My buddy George crushed it as Daniel Boone and my buddy Ian (Kong Productions) killed it on the video. You can ready more about it on Skift and on the Cornett blog. Check it.