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.

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.

Let’s say a researcher gives you a candle, a box of tacks, and a book of matches. Your mission: affix the candle to a corkboard in such a way so that, when lit, wax doesn’t drip onto the floor.

Nothing funny about that, right?

But a funny joke might just help you solve this creative challenge. And laughter in general may help you write better copy.

Not convinced? Read on.

Read my article on Copyblogger.

In this #1 scoring ad for all Purina brands in 2009, we hooked people with a video cat and a glimpse of the trippy world of Friskies.

Interaction rate: 10.75%
Time in banner: 11 seconds

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.

This online ad accompanied our Confessions site launch, enabling people to browse Confessions and add their own, all within banner.

My Role: Conceptor, ACD

Insight: Younger cat owners are afraid to publicly express their love for fear of being perceived as “crazy cat ladies.”

Our Solution: Confessions of Devotion, a safe place to declare your feline adoration among likeminded cat lovers.

Know what happens when you aggregate a whole lot of crazy like this? It ain’t so crazy anymore.

My role: Concepter

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:

Andrew Zimmern ran two of my Vagabonding videos on Travel Channel’s What’s Your Trip?

A thrill, to be sure, but what I’m happiest about is Zimmern pronouncing my name correctly!