For almost a year now, we have been traveling back and forth to a small town in the Monongahela Valley called Braddock, Pennsylvania. Once a bustling steel steel town of 20,000 residents, home to Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill and the nation’s first Carnegie library, Braddock is now a shell of its former self.

Braddock found us because of its innovative young mayor, John Feterman. The 6′8″, tattooed Harvard graduate found his home in Braddock by chance and has since committed his life to the improvement of the broken town. His no bullshit, straight-shooting approach to rebuilding has inspired a new generation of pioneers to come Braddock. And his appearances in New York Times articles and talk shows have made him a national icon. For the 2010 Levi’s Work Wear campaign, we wanted to do real work, so we flew out to Braddock to meet Mayor Fetterman and see if he was interested in working with Wieden+Kennedy and Levi’s.

The result is a campaign that tells the stories of the workers of Braddock and its real residents who are making a difference in its revival. Only Braddock townspeople were used in the photography and films created for the campaign, and Levi’s invested over one million dollars in the renovation of the community center and the expansion of the urban farm.

This first commercial, directed by John Hillcoat, tells a universal story of work and the potential in America’s new frontier towns.

Director: John Hillcoat
Director of Photography: Harris Savides
Editor: Tommy Harden
Color: Pascal Dangin
Music+Sound Company: Stimmung
Composer: Richard Wagner
Song: Vorspie

While concepting the 2010 Levi’s Work Wear campaign, we began to learn the stories of the the people of Braddock, Pennsylvania and the work that they were doing to help reshape their broken community. We always knew that we wanted to tell these stories in a way that gave more depth than a TV ad or a magazine spread could, so we proposed to create a series of short films that would live online and a longer format film that would air on TV.

Directed by Aaron Rose (Beautiful Losers), a series of 10 short films entitled “We Are All Workers” were created to support the Work Wear campaign. The majority of those you see in these films were used in the advertising campaign–either in TV or print–and all are members of the town with a uniquely-optimistic point of view regarding Braddock’s future. Some have decided to stay and make Braddock the best they can, while others have been inspired by the potential they see in the small town and have come to shape it into something new.

The 60 minute documentary will air on IFC and Sundance Channel in September and all episodes will play on a VBS.TV.

When the steel mills closed in Braddock, PA, they left behind a dwindling population living in near apocalyptic circumstances. Now, a new generation of urban pioneers has come with a mission- to create a new frontier from the ashes of the once vibrant town.

The Mayor of Braddock, PA is a 6′8″, tattooed Ivy League graduate who has taken the challenges in this former steel town and made it his mission to overcome them. His commitment and tough brand of optimism may be the town’s best hope for bringing a new generation of pioneers to Braddock.

As a new wave of urban pioneers settle in Braddock, PA, the longtime residents lend perspective, character and enduring passion to the transforming landscape. While both generations share a desire for renewed prosperity and a commitment to their work, their outlooks on Braddock’s future differ dramatically.

Repurposed and reinvented, Braddock’s UnSmoke Artspace is now home to urban pioneers working towards remaking the local identity through art. Though they have differing visions for Braddock’s cultural renewal, the artists of UnSmoke share a common appreciation for the local spirit.

The workers of Bell’s Market have been proudly serving the local community for over 43 years through prosperous times and lean. Dedicated to the residents of Braddock, and committed to supporting the community that supports them back, Bell’s Market shows the power of local business to overcome urban decline.

With the support of Braddock’s community leaders, Robert was able to give up hustling on the streets and become a strong father to his two children. His story of transformation and hard work shows how a new generation of residents is working towards a better future for themselves and for Braddock.

As an urban farmer, Marshall envisions Braddock’s empty lots as opportunities to create a stronger, healthier community. Amidst the closed steel mills and abandoned homes, the Urban Farm brings affordable, organic produce that’s “as local as you can get” to the dinner tables of Braddock’s homes.

Longtime residents of Braddock demonstrate how small acts of caring and an investment in the future can redefine a community.

Doug and Jack may come from different walks of life, but both men are building their Braddock homes brick by brick. Taking pride in their work, and advantage of the opportunities on the new frontier, Doug and Jack share in the belief that anything is possible when you set your mind to it.

And so, we created the story of Grayson Ozias IV, a young man who feared a boring life and didn’t want to follow in determined footsteps. Legend has it that Grayson Ozias IV was a friend of Levi Strauss’ nephew Nathan and explored America in the 1890s. In 1896 he disappeared into the American wilderness, after hiding his fortune in the hope of spurring others to Go Forth and seek adventure. Levi’s archivists were able to uncover recordings Grayson made, detailing his travels and hinting at the final hiding place of his fortune of $100,000. So the story went.

We created a film to launch the hunt and an archive site where we meticulously detailed every recovered piece of evidence from Grayson’s travels. A series of wax cylinder recordings cryptically pointed toward physical locations where Grayson had hidden items to be retrieved. We told of his adventures from New York to New Orleans, up the Mississippi to Chicago and along pioneer trails to the West Coast, each real world location containing an antique artifact he left behind that would unlock the next online clue.

Wildpostings were placed in cities in the days before an object was to be retrieved.

We sent out cryptic packages to influential online communities from The Levi's Archive.

A countdown clocked ticked away the moments before the site went live.

Each wax cyclinder told of Grayson's experiences and hinted at where the next item would be hidden. Players then worked together to find the item.

We purposefully hid items in locations with webcams so that the online audience could witness their fellow players retrieving the items.

Each item recovered was an artifact of Grayson's travels. The first was Whitman's Leaves of Grass, his inspiration for leaving.

This compass was hidden in a haunted Durango, CO hotel room where we had two players spend the night.

Intricate codes were revealed from ciphers using leaves of grass as the Rosetta Stone.

The final check for $100,000 made out to Laura Hall.

Amazingly, one player even got a tattoo to document her participation in the adventure. Don't ask me where this is on her body.

This video does a good job telling the overall story of everything that we did for the game. With a tiny interactive budget, we were able to do a ton. Maybe the pest part of creating this experience was seeing how excited the players got. They were truly appreciative that we put so much depth into the story and the audience’s  participation grew and grew as we made our way across the country. It’s always nice to be able to give away $100,000 to a deserving young person starting out in the world. Plus Levi’s doubled the prize money and gave another $100K to Charity Water. Warm and fuzzy. Special thanks to the brilliant Jan Libby for her help in developing the experience.

Coraline is a movie unlike any before it, and the chance to create a campaign for the movie was equally rare. For the world’s first stop-motion animated feature filmed entirely in 3D, we were asked to create a campaign that bucked the traditions of cliche movie marketing.

At first blush, Coraline was movie for girls and their moms. But neglect its more interesting features–painstakingly beautiful animation, an eccentric genius director, a world-famous cult writer and deeply psychological undertones–and we would have kept a brilliant movie from reaching what proved to be a rabid audience. As huge movie fans ourselves, we love the traditions that surround movies–posters, trailers, websites, etc. But all too often promotions adhere to formulas and shy away from creativity.

With every element we created for the film, we tried to defy movie marketing convention. Luckily in Laika, we had a client that wanted to be surprised.

Influencer Boxes
The basis for our campaign was direct mail, the least sexy form of advertising ever. But we wanted everything we did to reflect the hand-made, personal nature of the film. Fifty one-of-a-kind boxes were built by hand in the Wieden+Kennedy Studio and sent to targeted bloggers. Each box included relics from the set and unique passwords to unlock short behind-the-scenes films at Coraline.com. The bloggers went crazy for the boxes: 1 2 3 4 5.

Coraline.com
At is core, this was an interactive campaign. We always believed that we could talk directly to groups online who may typically be ignored by traditional mass advertising for movies. The influencer boxes helped us spark the interest of niche groups of fans. Coraline.com was where they could get lost in the hand-made world.

Every element of the site was pieced together from the movie set. We animated stop motion sequences for many of the rooms and we tried to bring the same level of craft to our site as the Laika team did to the movie (an impossible goal). In the end over 3.25 million visitors had spent over 5:30 minutes exploring Coraline’s world online. Click any of the images to be taken to the various rooms of the site.

Things to Share
In several of the rooms, we created experiences where visitors could create something of their own. You could button your eyes in The Other Mother’s Workshop, Create a Flower in the Garden or have your name spelled in mice in Bobinsky’s circus. Everything created on the site was downloadable or exportable to social media.

Bobinsky’s Blog
Bobinsky was our favorite character. We used him as much as possible in the advertising, and we wanted to have a place where he could interact directly with the audience.

The “Other” Coraline Trailer
We felt that the official trailer was lacking a little of the authentically dark side of this movie, so we created this to balance it out. Edited by Tommy Harding.

Bobinsky Banner Ads
I never thought I’d say this, but the banner ads might have been my favorite things to create for the campaign. We got to Work with Ian McShane, the voice behind the Big Blue Russian, and the animators at Laika created unique stop-motion sequences for banner ads.

Coraline Films
Hidden within the influencer boxes were passwords that unlocked hidden videos. We hoped that the bloggers would share their passwords with their readers to unlock the videos for everyone. They didn’t disappoint.

One thing that we learned as we were concepting the campaign was the greater the understanding of the incredible process of Coraline’s creation, the more people like the film. For these short films, we told the stories of the unique individuals who created the film and showed their attention to detail and craft.

Coraline Keys
To reward the curious, we hid 100,000 keys in cities throughout America that unlocked a sneak preview of the website. Many of the keys were attached to the following wildpostings.

Coraline Dunks
Phil Knight was the founder of both Nike and Laika, so a Coraline / Nike collab seemed fitting. A limited number of the shoes were created and a shoe box was hidden on the Coraline site. Word of the contest spread quickly through sneaker sites. We placed a secret password in the end credits of the film and the first 1,000 people to correctly answer questions about the movie were sent a fresh pair. A few of the lucky winners picked up $2,500 for selling theirs on eBay.

Recognition:

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve fallen off the map a bit in my online efforts. We all get busy and I won’t make any lofty promises of returning from the dead. But this project was particularly reinvigorating of the creative juices. ReadyMade and Public School have some nice write-ups of the project. Enjoy.

Made By:

Jelly Helm
Aaron Rayburn
Jeremy Pelley
Matthew Foster
Fritz Mesenbrink
Chris Hutchinson
Damion Triplett
Jennie Hayes
Kate Bingaman-Burt
Marco Kaye
Mike Giepert
Justin Scrappers Morrison
Driscoll Reid
Jason Sturgill
David Neevel
Taylor Twist
Jimm Lasser
Julia Oh

I’ve been meaning to do something with these for a while, and I’d really like to blow them up big and have a show. I’ll keep you posted.

I played with making a few more, downloaded a bunch of apps that I really didn’t need and made some more childish words. It’s a great way to organize your apps.

Update: I just realized that you can do the same thing on an iPhone!