American Express 2009 US Open Tennis, part II

While filming of the content for American Express for this year's US Open tennis event, I jumped at an opportunity during one of our shoots in Cincinnati with Sam Querrey and Gael Monfils. As we shot, Sam remarked that he could beat Gael in a ping pong match. Luckily at the tennis center, they had a ping pong table. It was ratty, with a plank of wood as the 'net.' The funny part came when I delivered the paddles to Gael and Sam. I found three paddles for them to choose from - two had the rubber pads ripped off, and only one had everything intact. I knew that someone was going to be short-changed. Even before I could show him the good one, Gael quickly gravitated to the 'deconstructed' paddle. Luckily, so did Sam.

Below is the edited clip (for client and broadcast purposes), followed by the raw five-minute clip that shows the game in its entirety, point for point.










SVP,ECD/Director: Daniel Chu
Agency: Momentum Worldwide, NYC

American Express 2009 US Open Tennis

I've been busy the last five months creative directing this year's US Open for American Express. As a tennis fan, it's a gratifying opportunity to have my hands on the largest attended, single-yearly event in the world. The audience for the work is truly global, and I'm proud to have created a body of work that fulfills my desire to create communications that go beyond the borders of an event space (or a print ad or a broadcast buy, etc.)

I paid very close attention to the branded content portion of this year's activation, spearheading the initiative from the very beginning. In all, I directed and produced two content buckets, featuring four players - 2 men and 2 women - that we selected to be our 'fresh faces' for this year. We identified them for their individual playing styles and for their personalities, and for their rankings - just outside of the top 5.

One content bucket, "Face to Face" features one player interviewing the other, something that's never been done before in tennis. The other content bucket, "Home away from home" shows each player doing what they love doing when they come to New York City.

Following are just some of the videos from the series











SVP,ECD/Director: Daniel Chu
Agency: Momentum Worldwide, NYC

American Express U.S. Open at Bethpage Black

SVP/ECD: Daniel Chu
Agency: Momentum Worldwide, NYC

Coca-Cola - 1996 Olympics

OBJECTIVE: Leverage Coca-Cola's partnership with the 1996 Summer Olympics.

STRATEGY: Create Olympic-themed vignettes that reinforce Coca-Cola's brand values.

Copywriter: Daniel Chu
Art Director: Eric King
CD: Susan Hoffman
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy

TapouT - Launch

OBJECTIVE: Reinforce TapouT's position as the premier MMA lifestyle brand.

STRATEGY Create TV spots that capture the supernatural quality of mixed martial artists.

EFFECT: Leveraged PMK client Ridley Scott and Associates to produce and edit. The spots aired on Spike TV and Versus, as well as on in-venue screens, reinforcing TapouT's presence before scheduled fights.

ECD/Writer/Art Director: Daniel Chu
Agency: PMK/HBH, LA

ESPN - Major League Soccer

OBJECTIVE: Generate buzz for Major League Soccer and promote the season on ESPN.

STRATEGY: Introduce key MLS players and their style of play to a new generation of soccer fans.

EFFECT: At the start of the season and throughout, Thornton and Etcheverry were respectively referred to by soccer fans and the MLS community as "The Spider" and "The Bomb."

SR. Copywriter: Daniel Chu
SR. Art Director: Gavin Milner
CD: Kirk Souder/Court Crandall
Agency: Ground Zero, LA.

NIKE+ - Launch

OBJECTIVE: Develop a digital experience that continues even after the initial product purchase cycle.

STRATEGY: Create a multi-faceted social network for runners where they can socialize, share, challenge, and contribute to the running community and to the world at large.

EFFECT: The best example of collaboration and teamwork, in terms of the amount of talented people involved in making a service like Nike+ work. 10 million miles were logged in the first six months of the site/service launch. 2007 Cannes Titanium Winner.

ACD: Daniel Chu
Exec. Producer: James Kuo
CCO: Nick Law/Bob Greenberg
Agency: RGA, New York

NIKE - Rockstar Workout

OBJECTIVE: Develop a multifaceted digital campaign for the second installment of Nike's Rockstar Workout series.

STRATEGY: Create a workout video shot in the style of a music video; and inspire an audience of enthusiasts to submit videos of themselves learning the moves and dancing the choreographed routine.

EFFECT: Garnered unpaid media impressions and user-generated videos from around the world.

ACD/Director/Writer/Art Director: Daniel Chu
Producer: Sandra Nam
CCO: Nick Law/Bob Greenberg
Agency: RGA, New York

NIKE - I Feel Pretty

OBJECTIVE: Extend Nike's "I feel pretty" campaign into a digital platform.

STRATEGY: Create original content that complements an established print and TV campaign, and embed a retail function within the brand content experience.

EFFECT: Four distinct videos focused on Nike's core fitness silos. In a breakthrough technologically, users could pause the videos to purchase or to find out more about featured products, then return to the video where they left off.

ACD: Daniel Chu
Exec. Producer: Jennifer Allen
CCO: Nick Law/Bob Greenberg
Agency: RGA, New York

JOE BOXER - Apparel Launch

OBJECTIVE: Announce Joe Boxer - best known for their iconic underwear - as an apparel line, featuring tees, hoodies, jeans, and shoes.

STRATEGY: Create a music video that aligns the youth and spirit of the Joe Boxer brand with an untapped audience.

EFFECT: Created an original score by Timbaland, featuring lyrics that focused on product features. Packaged the campaign as a branded content opportunity.

SR. Copywriter: Daniel Chu
SR. Art Director: Joseph Mazzaferro
CD: Patrick O'Neill
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York

GREY GOOSE - Re-Launch

OBJECTIVE: Reinforce Grey Goose's claim as "The World's Best Tasting Vodka."

STRATEGY: Leverage nightlife gatekeepers - bartenders, sommeliers, bouncers - to express the badge value of Grey Goose.

EFFECT: Liberated Grey Goose from the traditional trappings of third-party endorsers, and positioned the brand as a premium style brand amongst tastemakers.

CD/Copywriter: Daniel Chu
CD/Art Director: Fritz Westenberger
Agency: Sugartown Creative, New York

NIKE - Canada

OBJECTIVE: Announce the arrival of U.C. Berkeley's Shareef Abdur-Raheem to the Vancouver Grizzlies.

STRATEGY: In typical Nike fashion, we created a controversial ad that showcased Shareef's style and philosophy on his game.

EFFECT: Ad was featured in the Grizzlies' team program. Positive response from fans pushed the ad from the pages and the ad was turned into a large-scale banner that covered the side of a building in downtown Vancouver.

Copywriter: Daniel Chu
Art Director: Jeff Williams
CD: Stacy Wall
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, Portland,

ABSOLUT

OBJECTIVE: Refresh the iconic 20-year campaign with more relevant references and associations.

STRATEGY: Reinstate Absolut's pop culture prominence by referring to more relevant trends and topics in a premium voice.

CD/Copywriter: Daniel Chu
CD/Art Director: Joseph Mazzaferro
CD: Patrick O'Neill
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York

NIKE - Apparel Launch

OBJECTIVE: Announce Nike's 2002 launch of their high-performance apparel line.

STRATEGY: Emphasize product attributes by building a campaign that focuses on movement.

EFFECT: Created and executed before Apple's iPod silhouette initiative, this campaign established Nike apparel to its core audience of athletes as the premium sports apparel brand.

Copywriter: Daniel Chu
Art Director: Daniel Chu, Marcus Kierzstan
CD: Todd Waterbury
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, New York

AIRWALK - Snowboard

COPY: Tex is large. Everything he does is large. Tex Davenport lives large, and will most likely die large. He's survived fist fights, car accidents, and animal attacks. He's fallen off cliffs and outrun avalanches. He puts four patties of meat on his hamburgers. Tex is motivated by one idea: "It ain't worth doing if it's been done before." And to follow that, you must be large. That's why Tex is large. Tex rides large Airwalk snowboards. He has large legs and wears large Airwalk pants. He dons large AIrwalk jackets, Airwalk boots and gloves. So when he sticks eye-popping late front flips off heart stopping cliffs, small things like Fear and Hesitation glide off his weatherproofed shoulders like good dry powder. That's large. And after Tex lands in a large pocket of cushioned snow, you can see his large bomb crater and witness the large smile on his large, stoic face all the way from your small living room, where it is much safer for you to be.





COPY: Erick Leines trades things like any other teenager. But what he trades are not baseball cards or comic books. He relied solely on his own wits and instincts traveling the globe before he was even allowed to vote. And while most people his age were ditching geometry or doing recreational drugs, Erik was on a faraway, ferocious, and savagely cold butte negotiating his way off of it. Erik Leines is a soldier trapped inside a boy's body. He uses an Airwalk Select 155 snowboard to pacify mountains three thousand times his size. Erik eats right and sleeps well. He exercises to reinforce the muscles and the organs, the stamina and the will, so his young body can catch up with the soldier. He is trading in his ordinary life for an extraordinary one. That may sound like sacrifice. But to sacrifice means to end something for an idea or a belief. And in Erik Leines' life, things are just beginning.





COPY: Randy Gaetano paints pictures. He carries a sketchbook with him. On Mountains. On Dates. On eighteen hour flights to snowboard in Northern Japan. He never knows when or where inspiration will grab him. So he must be ready. And he knows nothing paralyzes faster than staring into a blank white page that yearns for some stroke of genius. Walking away from its challenge is not easy. It is much like gazing into an infinite white canvas of snow and feeling the anticipation humming through the bones and tugging at the soul. It is both hopeless and hopeful at the same time. "Kill the white beast." Kill the white beast. So Randy Gaetano does. With indiscriminate slices from his Airwalk snowboard. Nevermind the fact that he practices a sort of organized chaos, nurturing his instincts more than his logic; exulting the moment rather than what lies ahead. When you see him graciously weaving his way down a jagged mountain face like a smooth and determined river of courage, poised in full Airwalk regalia of jacket, pant, boot and glove, wonder and awe will overcome the heart and endless possibilities will dance in the mind. And like all the great past masters, there will be those who will look at Randy and his masterpieces and say what he does is easy. But summon the guts to get up and try it. "Smack." Like a cold hand to the face. This thing is not easy. Randy Gaetano just makes it look that way.

OBJECTIVE: Announce Airwalk's line of snowboard gear.

STRATEGY: The action sports category languished in the tradition of gore, teenage recklessness, and uninhibited machismo to reach its X-Games audience. I created an approach to reveal the personality behind the athlete. Long copy ads broke every tradition in the category.

EFFECT: Universally praised by industry tastemakers and influencers, from sponsored athletes to editors at Snowboard and Thrasher magazines. This campaign has been cited as solely responsible for establishing the strategic and creative foundation for the action-sports category.

Senior Writer: Daniel Chu
CD/Art Director: Chad Farmer
Agency: Lambesis, San Diego

A&E - Biography

OBJECTIVE: Relaunch and regain awareness for A&E's Biography series.

STRATEGY: Pair enlightening quotes from the personalities with the iconic photography of Annie Liebowitz.

EFFECT: Positioned Biography as a premium destination on television.

Copywriter/Art Director: Daniel Chu
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York

COURVOISIER - Re-Launch

OBJECTIVE: Increase preference for Courvoisier amongst tastemakers.

STRATEGY: Transform Courvoisier into a fashion brand.

EFFECT: The single-most referenced campaign in the spirits category, backed by qualitative and quantitative results positioning the campaign as the most-well liked, most-memorable. most-effective campaign across any category - even outside the spirits domain. In the course of one year, Courvoisier rose from being the sixth best selling brand in the cognac category to being the second best selling cognac in the category.

CD/Copywriter/Art Director: Daniel Chu
CD/Art Director: Scott Carlson
Agency: dRush, New York

KENNETH COLE - Fragrance Launch

PRINT



TV






OBJECTIVE: Launch Kenneth Cole's first line of fragrances.

STRATEGY: Distill Kenneth Cole's distinct brand personality and translate it for the fragrance category.

EFFECT: Two more fragrance introductions followed immediately afterwards, taking advantage of the newfound, elevated brand voice that appealed to a new generation of consumers.

CD/Writer/Art Director: Daniel Chu
CD/Art Director: Joseph Mazzaferro
CD: Kenneth Cole
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York

SAMSONITE - Soft Pack Launch

OBJECTIVE: Introduce Samsonite's first line of soft packs, targeted towards college students.

STRATEGY: Leverage Samsonite's legendary testing facilities to reinforce the durability and mobility of the soft pack line.

EFFECT: Sell through of the soft pack line exceeded all expectations and established the line as anecessary accessory for students on the go.

CD/Writer/Art Director: Daniel Chu
CD: Patrick O'Neill
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York

TARGET

PRINT








OBJECTIVE: Continue to reinforce Target's Design for Less strategy.

STRATEGY: Create a traffic stopping campaign that draws attention to Target's value proposition in a new, refreshing, and unexpected approach.

EFFECT: A memorable campaign that reinforced Target's message in an approach that balanced premiumness with affordability.

Concept Director: Daniel Chu
CD: Dave Peterson
Agency: Peterson Milla Hooks, Minneapolis, MN

TARGET

PRINT







TV





Concept Director: Daniel Chu
CD: Dave Peterson
Agency: Peterson Milla Hooks, Minneapolis, MN

VH-1 VOGUE FASHION AWARDS

OBJECTIVE: Create a skit to air during the telecast of the 1999 VH-1/Vogue Fashion Awards.

STRATEGY: Create a character played by event host Andy Dick, with an elite cast of supporting characters, that poked fun at the most glaring stereotype of the fashion world.

EFFECT: This was one of three skits that aired. It was the most talked about, and the most memorable of the show.

Copywriter: Daniel Chu
Director: Young Kim

URBAN HOUSING COMPLEX

OBJECTIVE: In 2004, I designed a capsule line of men's tailored suits.

STRATEGY: Create a line of men's suits fit for a new generation of sartorialists.

EFFECT: Pieces featured in a story in I-D Magazine.

Designer: Daniel Chu

Jussara Lee F/W 2005

The Inspiration




The Realization






OBJECTIVE: Create a lookbook for a boutique womenswear brand that reinforced brand values of tradition, craft, and substance - infused with irresistible edge.

Creative Director: Daniel Chu
Photographer: Christian Weber