We were correct in feeling like Drew Brees would be an ideal brand ambassador for Xbox in its first year as a new NFL partner. I’d worked with him before on DirecTV campaigns and he fit the demographic. The agency shot this spot in a quiet and leafy neighborhood in Pasadena, CA on a hot and muggy late summer day. Drew Brees gave his usual great performance, offering to riff alt lines and making it fun.
We all loved the concept of tail-gaming when we glommed onto it one afternoon in Redmond during a creative brainstorm. The creative executions made it better and the nationwide events were robust.
Talk about your intimidating public figures. This production set in the Hollywood Hills of LA was filled to the brim with the intensity of defensive stalwarts Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis. It was all business.
This spot received the “honestly” premise handoff from the Microsoft brand campaign and took it to the house for one of the first big features and benefits executions yet for Surface, with Russell Wilson.
The star-power we assembled for this DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket is mind-boggling. Jeff Garlin sings while Barry Sanders, Dick Butkus and Peyton Manning dance with joy about having “The Sunday Ticket” and all the great NFL game-action that goes with it each Sunday. Lunch talk was amazing.
We shot this in the “Dome” in Indy. Peyton arranged for the entire offensive line to join us for the shoot.
Coach Cowher and the famous jawline dialed up the intensity for this NFL ST spot called Pep Talk.
“Dan” installs DirecTV and makes happy customers of Kearse, Manning and Williams of the NFL.
Shot at West LA College this spot became legendary in the industry for its out-takes which presaged Peyton Manning as a comic force and future media icon. He knew his lines AND the actor’s lines equally well after just a handful of initial takes. One-take Peyton was born here a few of us were lucky to see it.
We filmed this spot near a lake in Chattanooga, TN where Peyton Manning was summering during an NFL off-season. The premise was that patriarch Archie Manning and his wife Olivia were secretly smitten with the lefty QB Matt Leinart and watched all his games. Kudos to Leinart for taking a redeye.
Shot on location at the Pro Bowl in Honolulu, HI this ad features breathtaking cinematography and impressive acting chops from NFL QB Kordell Stewart. I still have the football and shirt in my home.
Incredible technology in the editing studio and fun use of the green screen enabled us to put NFL QB Brett Favre in miniature into the mind of a new DirecTV customer. Marshall Faulk does same for a man trying to figure out best DirecTV celebration. Also, we put QB’s Peyton Manning and Kordell Stewart onto the shoulder’s of a new DirecTV customer and into his inner mind to weight pass or run options.
We probably should have known that Howie’s son had a future on the field but we liked him on mic.
Manning Family QBs could pass and pitch equally well as we learned as early as 1998 and shown here.
Shot on location in Kauai in preparation for the NFL QB Challenge, these spots play so authentically.
Everything changed in 2005 when we introduced RedZone Channel in the premium SuperFan tier.
There were maybe five or six people in the green room in NYC when the Giants pulled off a draft day deal to steal Eli Manning away from the Chargers; three were named Manning and then there was me. It might have been my favorite moment in my entire career once the deal was done and Archie, Peyton and Eli could finally relax. The end result was this first-of-its-kind comic exchange between P and E.
This montage captures many but not all of the 15-20 or so projects Peyton Manning did with me during my years with him from 1998-2008. He enjoyed one in which he made the actor go long down the field in anticipation of a pass that never came. Warming up his arm for that shoot was a once in a lifetime.
Howie Long had a knack for making everything clean and simple. It’s just football after all but he is best.
DirecTV Sports This Week on location from NFL Draft Central in NYC and in every NFL city.
NFL Events built the stage and the platform and we turned the cameras on long before NFL Network.
The biggest PPV box office result in our history. De La Hoya and Mayweather delivered the goods.
Well ahead of its time in terms of understanding that movies at home might just be the trend of 2020.
Digital content was the preferred format the second it became available to make DVDs obsolete.
We went to North Carolina to get time with the sport of racing’s biggest name in U.S. for some TV time.
The early days of the WWW when DIRECTV SPORTS held a leadership role with timely sports content.
We used the full array of options to make new customer acquisition easy and fun for customers.
The spot was titled PeeTV and it is apparent why after a first view of the ad. It was such a profound insight that the agency had for this spot; still true today that mobile tv is so liberating for us all.
Legendary CBS Sports announcer Jim Nantz worked with us on a frigid winter production day in NYC to film this commercial for FLO TV which targeted a male demographic. Nantz is one of the all-time best.
We shot this :30 spot with Landon Donovan as part of an integrated national advertising campaign including Retail POS, television, digital, social and PR. The setting was the LA Galaxy training center in Carson, CA. This campaign sparked a huge spike in new customer acquisition for the FLO TV device at Target in anticipation of the World Cup on ESPN Mobile. Landon’s juggling was perfect in each take.
Qualcomm came to Super Bowl XLIV to generate national awareness for its fledgling service Flo TV, which sent live and time-shifted programming to mobile devices from twenty-something networks, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, MTV and Comedy Central. This spot barely got cleared by CBS in time for its pre-booked destination in the Super Bowl broadcast and it was well-received by the public.
It is second-nature now but when we launched FLO TV as the U.S.’ first live mobile television service we needed to define the use case for new customers; live news and sports did best. I always drew a crowd at the airport when I had a live sports broadcast on ESPN and nobody else around me had that option.
