Omelet — An Idea Company, Not an Ad Agency

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.

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. That conviction shaped a creative philosophy we ran every brief through: Idea Leads Medium.

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. Beginning with a single tweet of Em "checking in" to a fictional rehab facility, Popsomp Hills. Drove 635K uniques, 861K visits, 80K downloads, 205K Twitter followers, 17K mobile opt-ins.
• Altoids · Mobile Web Series. Turned the conventions of advertising itself into entertainment — building a mobile web series that lived where audiences actually were.
• Fox Mobile Entertainment · The Simpsons. Worked with Fox to launch FOX content on mobile, starting with The Simpsons.
• Budweiser. Developed reality-TV concepts and entertainment-led brand programs.
• 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.

• 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.
• Marketing formats as a craft — codified an approach integrating programming, content, advertising, social, and games into coherent systems.
• A 50/50 model with a 5th-partner policy that proved an independent agency could be built and sustained when every employee had real stake.