Project Description

A hybrid advertising and entertainment company built on a 50/50 model and a 5th-partner policy — equal parts client work and owned IP, every employee with an economic stake in the agency’s success.

Brand Context

Omelet was founded in 2004 by Steven Amato, Ryan Fey, Shervin Samari, and Mark Vega — operators who had come up inside one of LA’s major holding companies and reached a shared conclusion: the 30-second spot wasn’t the answer anymore, and the big ship couldn’t turn fast enough to find out what was.

We didn’t want to be another Madison Avenue shop. We wanted to be recognized in Hollywood and Silicon Valley too. The signature move was the 50/50 model: half the agency’s effort was client services — strategy, creative, content, advertising — and the other half was original IP we developed and owned, often in concert with brand partners who wanted to invest in the creation and exploitation of content infused with the DNA of their brand. Paired with what we called the 5th-partner policy, every employee was treated like an owner — every person with economic stake in the agency’s success.

Early employees often described Omelet as “a collaboration of the most diverse, multi-talented and passionate entrepreneurs.” That wasn’t marketing copy. It was the operating principle. We came to be risk-takers — and to take risks as a collective, pushing each other forward.

I joined at 24, in 2006, and stayed through 2010. The agency I joined was a hybrid advertising and entertainment company specializing in branded content and IP creation alongside the advertising work. We were developing reality TV concepts for Budweiser, doing great work for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, on our way to winning the Amstel Light account, and working with Fox Mobile Entertainment to launch all FOX content on mobile, starting with The Simpsons.

The Challenge

How do you build an agency identity — and a body of client work — at a moment when the advertising industry was burning its own playbook and hadn’t yet written a new one?

Holding companies were bolting “digital” departments onto traditional shops. TV spots and newspapers were measurably slowing in effectiveness. Branded content was being theorized rather than practiced. The challenge wasn’t just doing good work for clients — it was inventing the categories of work that good clients would eventually want.

Strategic Insight

The industry’s instinct was to evolve with advertising. Ours was to move beyond it.

If TV spots were losing their grip and the entire industry was warning, then Omelet was the chance to do something bigger than brand planning — to create content, develop intellectual property, and operate with an entrepreneurial spirit. We weren’t here to excel at what we knew. We were here to excel at the unknown.

That conviction shaped a creative philosophy we ran every brief through: Idea Leads Medium. Challenge the category, competition, and consumer convention. Create ideas that develop a genuine emotional connection. Conquer the market with a media-neutral approach to execution. Then — and only then — decide what the work actually is.

Creative Execution

Out of that conviction came a new craft we eventually named marketing formats — unique creative solutions comprised of strategic, entertaining content built as a system: original programming, ancillary content, corresponding advertising, social, and games, all designed to address a specific business need. We built the strategic framework first, then determined the marketing format that could carry the vision.

A representative slice of the work I was part of from 2006 to 2010:

  • Eminem · The Relapse (Interscope). A category-defining campaign for the launch of Eminem’s Relapse. We aligned every experience point with the album’s themes — beginning with a single tweet of Em “checking in” to a fictional rehab facility, Popsomp Hills, that fans were led to believe was treating him. The site invited opt-ins, transitioned audiences to therelapse.com, and even ran a working corporate phone tree (313-486-5975) with scripted voicemail for departments and characters from the album. Earned media praised the authenticity of the work — “Rapper takes ‘Relapse’ Viral” — and the campaign drove 635K uniques, 861K visits, 80K downloads, 205K Twitter followers, 17K mobile opt-ins. (Ad Age)

  • Altoids · Mobile Web Series. We turned the conventions of advertising itself into entertainment — building a mobile web series for Altoids that lived where audiences actually were. (Ad Age)

  • Fox Mobile Entertainment · The Simpsons. Worked with Fox to launch FOX content on mobile, starting with The Simpsons — translating one of the most valuable IPs in television into a format-native mobile experience.

  • Budweiser. Developed reality-TV concepts and entertainment-led brand programs in the period the brand was actively redefining its cultural posture.

  • Amstel Light. Helped win and shape the agency’s work on the brand.

  • The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Strategy and creative for one of LA’s most iconic local-to-national brands.

  • The Academy Awards · Paulaner · Easton · USA Network · Microsoft · Electronic Arts · Activision. Strategy and creative across entertainment, sport, technology, and gaming — each engagement another test of whether the 50/50 conviction could hold up against client realities.

Results

  • Helped build Omelet from an early-stage independent into a definitive LA creative company recognized in advertising, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley.

  • Eminem’s Relapse campaign delivered breakout results — 635K uniques, 861K visits, 205K Twitter followers, 80K downloads, 17K mobile opt-ins — and earned the rare press distinction of being praised for the authenticity of its marketing.

  • Marketing formats as a craft — codified an approach to creative that integrated programming, content, advertising, social, and games into single coherent systems for clients.

  • A 50/50 model with a 5th-partner policy that proved an independent agency could be built, sustained, and culturally meaningful when every employee had real stake in the outcome.

Reflection

Omelet was where I learned that the most powerful position in any room is the one who reframes the question. We came in believing advertising should do something to culture, not just respond to it — and that conviction became the lens I’ve applied to every brand problem since: find the convention, flip it, and build the new thing — before anyone else gets comfortable with the old one.

We were revolutionaries — strong with conviction, devoted to a vision. The 50/50 model gave us permission to play in both marketing and entertainment. The 5th-partner policy made it personal. And the work that came out of it set a standard I’ve spent the rest of my career trying to live up to.

Head of Strategy · 2006–2010