Bill
Cochran

Social video work for one of the country's most recognized battery brands. Reminding people that in a world full of idiots "outrageously undependable people", Interstate Batteries remains an "Outrageously Dependable" choice. Driving improvements of 35% in gross profit ROI, 13% in unaided brand awareness, and 60% in marketing contribution to sales — the most successful campaign in the brand's 70+ year history.

Inspired by 2 Corinthians 9:7 — "God loves a cheerful giver." Give with Joy celebrates the energy that comes from generosity. It was a joy to present, a joy to produce, and our friends at Shindig Music helped us create a catchy song to boot. Oh, and Post Malone was involved.

Bridgestone ran Super Bowl spots for a few years, and I was fortunate enough to sell two of them. There's a heck of a story behind Reply All — check out the ABC 20/20 segment.

Yes. This spot is a spec spot. A certain company that boasts adding "nothing" to their product turned it down. So, there. I have nothing to hide.

Sure, there was a brief. Sure, this was a campaign to help a brewery come out of Covid with a smile on their face. But, at the end of the day, if the name of your business is Braindead, we had to lean into it.

Vivus makes Qsymia — a weight loss drug that isn't a GLP-1, but delivers similar (if not better) efficacy with none of the common side effects. The catch: they're wildly outspent. So we built a social campaign designed to break through on personality alone.

Qsymia works by helping your brain fall out of love with food. So "The Love Affair Is Over" imagines how food might respond to being rejected. Conceived for the US — currently running in Poland (yes, 🇵🇱 Poland), where early breakthrough data is looking great.

Every spot was produced entirely with AI — most of it by me personally. When you're wildly outspent, you use every tool available to punch above your weight class. Turns out, learning to direct AI filmmaking is a pretty good skill to have. And "wildly outspent" is a pretty good brief.

A deep run across the NA beverage portfolio. Snapple had been around for years before anyone pointed out their fruit flavors actually taste like real fruit — we brought that story to life through digital and social. Also worked on Dr Pepper, 7Up, and Straight Up Tea.

Four brands. Four tabs. ↓ Browse them all below.

TXU Energy is the leading energy provider in the state of Texas. It's been a great ride helping their advertising evolve from purely rational to the kind of work that gets talked about in sports bars — and well, other bars. I like that kind of energy.

Stellantis looks at a gazillion spots and only airs a small handful. I worked on Jeep and Ram Trucks, and both of my spots were called to the starting line but neither made it to broadcast. That tiny detail doesn't change how much I love them. Also included an internal brand video, because who doesn't love a good X and Y axis chart?

Chuck E Cheese came to us saying they needed a total refresh. We handled everything from redesigning the character to developing his new "voice" — a fully rendered rock star with a big heart. That voice turned out to be the lead singer of Grammy-nominated band Bowling for Soup. A highlight for me was hanging out in lead singer Jaret Reddick's studio and co-writing all the songs we ended up using.

Guitar magazine even picked up on how authentic new rock star Chuck E was in an article about his new guitar.

One challenge we faced when launching an entirely new character was, you couldn't see him inside their stores. We created an AR app that allowed customers to take pictures with the "new" Chuck E at various locations throughout their stores.

Who is Chuck E Cheese?
It was a fun surprise to see the Chuck E backstory that I had written as part of a Jeopardy answer.

Work for the leading online tire retailer, helping consumers make confident decisions on one of their most important vehicle investments. From character-driven spots to a Dude Perfect collab to tire reviews that were, shall we say, dramatically "elevated." The work runs the full range of TireRack's brand voice.

Yep — published children's book author. My first book, The Forever Dog, deals with the death of a beloved pet. HarperCollins wanted me to be "the guy who writes about tough topics," so my next book tackled divorce. I wrote The Forever Dog after my golden retriever Mo died while she was still very young. I also met my wife at a book signing at Barnes & Noble. I have much more fun writing advertising than books about tough topics, but the letters from grateful parents are pretty tough to beat.

I combined my borderline freak-show obsession for track & field with my love of writing by launching a track & field T-shirt website. I sold shirts all over the world, but closed the shop because I was making far too much money. (Okay — I closed because Covid shut down the entire world of track and field.)

I helped develop The Whynauts — an original, award-winning, live-action educational television series for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. We shot eleven episodes based in STEM education for elementary school children, with code-switching Spanish language throughout. All these years, I finally felt ready to take my 8th grade science exams.

What happens when you've created award-winning Super Bowl commercials and your son plays on a travel hockey team? You make hype videos. A lot of them. Many of these are riddled with inside jokes. Every team probably has their version of Arnie, the Dallas Penguins sure do love ours. Also it's been an amazing excuse to work on AI filmmaking chops.

Yes, I know this may seem overboard for a youth hockey team. And yes, I will probably keep making them.

An initiative to stop pissing off our planet during Super Bowl halftime. Also known as the Super Flush, when millions of people use their facilities at once, overwhelming water processing plants and creating algal blooms. Our rivers don't have a Plan B, but we had a Plan P. Pee on a Plant. We even sold custom-made Pee Pots.

And what kind of copywriter would I be if I didn't dabble in voiceover. I've read for hundreds of spots. But here is my demo reel, for fun.