I'm an award-winning, digital-native CD with 12 years in the industry. Welcome to my portfolio.

McDonald’s / Avatar Hidden Object Game

Done: January 2010 | Filed under: Application, Awards, Favorite, Game, McDonald's, Microsite

I may have been clutching the hidden object hammer at the time I concepted this (see the Friskies game), but I’ll be damned if the McD / Avatar digital experience wasn’t a perfect nail.

We needed to bring Cameron’s game-changing film to life in a way that promoted Big Mac and stayed true to McDonald’s mantra of Simple, Easy Enjoyment. My idea: A best-in-class game with levels that are unlocked by codes on Big Mac boxes.

We sold it right through to McDonalds USA and went on to sell and execute it for the global McD system.

The results were almost as impressive as Cameron’s box office stats:

  • 19% lift in Big Mac sales
  • over a million site visitors
  • 11 minutes average time spent on site

Kidding.

Note: I was only involved in concepting this project.

UPDATE: This project just won a Gold 2010 Reggie Award!

Here’s a screenshot of the site.

pugh_avatar-screen-600


Special K Victory Chain

Done: December 2009 | Filed under: Application, Special K, Video, Website

The Special K Victory Chain connects people’s Twitter-length fitness and diet “victories” into an unbroken chain of support.

Inspired by President Obama’s campaign site which literally connected donors to one another and got them talking, I co-concepted the Victory Chain with a Leo Burnett art director.

The Chain lives on both Facebook and SpecialK.com.

Here’s a screenshot of the app on Facebook.

pugh_spk-victory-chain-facebook-600


Friskies Hidden Object Game

Done: August 2009 | Filed under: Application, Favorite, Friskies, Game, Video

My role: Concepter, Salesman

The Friskies Hidden Object Game lets you dive deep into the magical worlds of Friskies in search of hidden brand icons.

This was Yahoo’s most successful branded game launch ever. Yahoo guaranteed the brand 500,000 plays within six months; the game reached over 700,000 people within three weeks.

My team concepted the game based on the insight that hidden object games skew highly with Friskies’ target consumers; 59% of hidden object gamers are women between ages of 25-54 (source: Media Metrics).

Here’s a walkthrough.


Friskies Blog

Done: February 2009 | Filed under: Application, Favorite, Friskies

My role: Concepter, Salesman, Creative Director, Writer

All things cat, all week long. Updated five times a week by multiple authors, the Friskies Blog accounts for 40% of traffic to Friskies.com. It’s been a great acquisition tool for Friskies, as thousands of readers have registered with the site in order to comment.

This ongoing project positions Arc as content creator and community moderator – brave new territory for the company.


Friskies Pix

Done: August 2008 | Filed under: Application, Favorite, Friskies | Tags: , ,

My role: Concepter, Writer

Friskies Pix enables people to create fantastical pictures of their cats within the magical world of Friskies and then download those pictures as wallpaper.

Pix has been a great acquisition tool for Friskies. In order you save your Pix, you have to join the Friskies Explorers.

Over 10,000 people have created Pix. But what I’m most proud of is that people have spoofed us online, such as this genius:

We even found a random tutorial: