SalomonSmithBarney - Juan Roberts

This is one of the projects I was called in for, by new GlobalHue client, SalomonSmithBarney. The assignment was to develop one ad for high net worth African Americans.

We met almost weekly in the New York offices with a very intense client group of 5 -- all sharp, assertive and ambitious. These ladies and one gentleman guides the meetings and as we crafted the ad, it became a campaign of three ads that focused on the target but segmented them. This particular marketing audience was new to SSB (CitiGroup) and we spent considerable expanding the reach of the campaign into the newly recognized affluence of Black in America.

Each ad featured a single theme and subsequently a message that spoke their respective audience -- women, men, couples. I envisioned regal images of Black folks that exuded liquidity, power and solidarity with ones self. The colors were to be over saturated and soft focus to emphasis the elegance of Americans of African descent.

I booked the brilliant, California based, Susan Goines to shoot the campaign. She immediately formed her POV about what the quintessential images should look like and, with the client's approval, we set the course for achieving exactly that. After a few more weekly session in New York from Detroit, (5:30 am flights) my team was set to shoot.

Susan pulled it all together. We began casting top talent, searching for the top backdrop, exquisite wardrobe, fabu glam squad, camera lenses, etc. We shot all three ads in a classic New York city loft -- wide space, massive windows revealing amazing skyline vistas, exposed brick, exotic cuisine and Euro-mellow-smooth music to set the mood for the 10 hour day.

The ads were finished in Detroit and the client was very pleased. In fact, we were asked to develop three additional campaigns, including a general market (which was snatched from their primary agency - smile).

I love this stuff.

Chrysler Cirrus Ad - Juan Roberts

This image was the first time that a practically bald Black woman had ever been featured in an automotive ad. When I originally presented this to my client at DaimlerChrysler, there was an audible gasp heard in the room ... then chatter all around.

At that time during my GlobalHue years, the client group consisted of a multicultural female driven client team. Our assignment was always to develop marketing communications that reached African Americans with a certain panache. That way our afrocentric work would complement the general market ad messages.

I developed this ad with the clear purpose to subliminally suggest the continent of Africa. The Ad line was, "Think of this as one of the more forward ideas on the planet." To the socially conscious I was dropping hints all over the place -- Africa, Black woman as mother Earth, defining African American culture as being a part of the future of this nation's economy, etc.

I've done tons of automotive introductions (Intrepid, PT Cruiser, Cirrus, Neon, Durango, Liberty), this one was special. So, once we had the concept sold, which took about 2 weeks, production took over. I oversaw each step from the shooter to casting, make-up to wardrobe. After about 200 hundred women, this actress walked in with short cropped hair, her face was amazing and when I saw her profile, I was done. The shape of her head, lips, eyes, the composition of her brow and cheekbones, the gentle hook in back of her head ... all perfect. We even paid her a special fee to cut her hair this short and then got to work.

We shot in Hollywood, with the world famous Bobby Holland. He pulled out the stops and booked us at the Reid Miles Studio of the renowned Blue Note music label. It was a full day shoot, beginning with breakfast on set. Their was full glam squad of completely talented, high-performance women. We went through a myriad of wardrobe choices, but nothing hit me with the purity you see in the final ad. No earrings, no necklaces, no hint of dilution of her oneness with her being ... wow! This is a powerful shot [if I do say so myself]. There is very little retouching either. I only had to touch up the holes in her ear, because girlfriend walked in with at least 10 earrings in her right ear alone.

This was page two of the ad. I could have just done the big splashy thing and run the two pages side-by-side like most ads, but that would have taken some of the love from the first page. The strategy was to insert the two pages in magazines as two consecutive right-side pages. A little bit about the second page.

This beauty shot was achieved in the El Mirage dry lake bed of the Mojave desert by the Ace Creative Director, Damon Davis. He shot with Bobby, who brilliantly added Musco® Lightning to a open desert location that provided us with this amazing other-worldly kinda shot that is like none other. They shot just after the sun ducked beneath the horizon. Having only 30 minutes to capture this gorgeous shot before complete desert darkness was a virtual miracle.

We reprised the text from page one to accentuate the vehicle. The outcome was magical. We had a strong first page that merged and defined the Chrysler brand with African Americans and then the second page sold the car as purely as it should -- in hero lighting. I used no further advertising text, just listed the vehicle features and brand nomenclature. It was a wrap.

BET Exalted - Juan Roberts

A colleague, D'Angela Steed contacted me to assist in getting the word out about a production she was passionate about. We quickly put together a promo piece utilizing exisiting images, a selection from our collection of cloud images and composed this information ad.

It was used as an online promo, print piece and media kit materials.

Chioma Event Promo - Juan Roberts

Chioma is one of the premiere talents of African descent in Canada. She is self-motivated and will be the Oprah of Canada soon. This piece was done quickly to replace a dismal piece done by the hotel to promote her upcoming lecture.

I met Chioma while in pre-production of the first TV commercials for the Jeep Liberty in Toronto. She is an assertive sistah and gets what she sets her mind to. At the time she was working with Office Depot with huge scholarship drive for students. I was coming out of a casting session and she was going in and noticed me with my team of multicultural producers, managers, location scouts, etc. She indicated right upfront that she had never seen a Black man have that type of entourage before in her city and wanted to know who I was and what I was doing and how could she be a part of it. Whew. We exchanged information and agreed to connect later, but before I returned to my hotel that night, I had a complete professional introduction delivered to my suite at Sutton Place.

Chioma had been working with the Royal Bank of Canada for years, lunching with Province officials and developing her own television show. She explained that she was doing one of her talks, but was dissatisfied with the flyer for the event. She needed, "my magic" (her words) to get the word out to the city. I was in Detroit in the middle of a hectic day, but she has a way of getting you to do things. I banged this out in a few minutes and sent it to her. Pow! They used it for everything from flyers to posters to on screen promos to signage on-site.

Chioma is currently the publisher of the only nationally distributed and supported publication focused on Black Canadian culture ... Amoi.

Chioma is a powerhouse thinker, doer and dreamer. I love it.

Affirmation Bookmarks

First Lady, Crisette Ellis, created a series of bookmarks that highlight affirmations which empower women. Each of the four bookmarks display an engaging image, with an actual rhinestone affixed to the item. The hole is filled with a rope tassel to add just the right amount of style.

Crisette is wife of my home pastor, Bishop Charles H. Ellis. While hanging out in their suite during a national convention in Irvine, CA, she mentioned that she wanted my opinion about an idea she was noodling. We began discussing her idea. I did some research about the category and discovered that there were very few products like what she envisioned.

I established the creative direction, consulted on the tone of the final product and even generated marketing strategies. Also produced were event signage, an exhibit and an assortment of marketing materials for on-site sales.

Soul Mates Branding - Juan Roberts

Andrea Wiley is a phenomenal wife and mother in addition to being a top Hollywood Executive Producer. In 2006, she released her indy project, SoulMate, dealing with the plight of African American women over 40 that may remain single. I was called to produce the branding for her project.

The image above is a header used for her profile. Her documentary was a strong statement on the state of Black womanhood in America, as it relates to relationships. As I spent more time with Andrea, her husband and their two boys in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, I discovered that she required more than a simple header to convey all that she represents to the urban faith community. I shot a couple hundred photos of Andrea, her home and family over two days. The head shot was a bonus from the extensive shoot.

The profile header you see is an amalgam of their joy together, their garden, the boys, Andrea writing and a few words that articulate her persona. It sat atop page one of a two page document that serves as her biography. We did 30+ items in the brand arsenal for the movie -- brochure, promos, JPEGs, quotations, etc.



The movie was HOT. It won all sorts of awards. More later.

Book Cover Design - Juan Roberts

This cover speaks to the story title, Artificial Pain. At first glance, I thought it was about the treatment of mental illness. What it turned out to be was the study of how women respond to the after effects of pain, which ignited debilitating residual pain, that is actually psychosomatic.

I chose a blue toned styling with sharp residual lines that impact the primary image without changing it. The idea is that the fine lines illustrate residual pain that does not change the outer individual, but wreaks havoc on the inner woman.

The model is Kellie Evans, one of the nation's top theatrical performers and gospel artists. She has worked with everyone and was selected to sing at the homegoing services of of Ms. Rosa Parks.

Proposal Cover - Juan Roberts

Retired football pro, Kenyatta Wright, sought out our parent company, Urban Christian Entertainment, to develop a complete branding situation for his non-profit organization.

The Wright 1 Foundation is purposed to serve his home town of Muskogee, OK with programing that uplifts and encourages youth and their parents. As is the statistic in many urban areas, mothers are the head of household, so I featured optimistic views of multi generational female faces.

We included a full cadre of marketing tools from print, electronic, internet and collateral materials to reach the Muskogee community. I look forward to getting started on this assignment.

40th Birthday Invitation - Juan Roberts

Beverly Dunn, of New York, was hosting her 40th birthday event and she called upon me to develop a premiere design that would WOW her invited guests.

The invite consisted of two panels. For panel one I shot an oversized diamond cut piece of glass positioned on elegantly fashioned dark plum Taffeta fabric. I used dramatic lighting to punctuate the colors reflected in the facets of the glass. It was a powerful piece. Panel two was the same image, but with a different graphic tone that highlighted the actual invite text.

The panels were printed on translucent parchment, rolled, placed into glossy black tubes and tied with a plum ribbon. Upon opening, the receiver gets a special little treat of glitter to dust the opening of the invitation.

As the event became closer, Ms. Dunn requested a poster that would hang in the opening of the reception area of her event. I was unable to attend, but she shared a few of the responses to the invite and the event -- a smashing success.

FaithMate Marketing - Juan Roberts

FaithMate.com began last year and evolved into the top dating site for the urban faith community. From May to December of 2007, got traction fast, emerged rapidly and the brand dominated the category before the year end.

The typical creative solution would be to focus only on 20 something females to get lots of guys. I guess that is a way to do it. My preference was to develop a complete branding arsenal of over 45 elements that depict the full scope of our culture. The images and messages spoke to young women to seniors, dark to lighter skinned women and compliment of hair facial features, etc.

This branding effort was a complete joy to work on. The campaign developed included brand logo through magazine & newspaper advertising, print materials, video and radio commercials.

As I left the project, I named a new ezine, Utterance, that ushered in a new content development direction for the site.

Tweet/VerizonWireless Convergence - Juan Roberts

This scene features Tweet holding the brand packaging. In the story, she has just received an anonymous package containing the [FREEUP] phone (aka The Matrix).


In 2002, I developed a VerizonWireless (VZW) campaign around a hot service product called [FREEUP]. The premise of the service was to provide younger cell phone users the ability to use a fully functional unit that also allowed their parents to control wireless bills. Our data revealed that young people 16 to 24 were the primary mobile users, so we focused on accessing a celebrity relationship for the brand.

I met with a record executive from Electra Records, Camille Hackney, together we cultivated a nice match-up of branding between VZW and their new artist, Tweet, via her "Southern Hummingbird" CD. The next single to be released was titled, "Call Me." The timing was perfect.

At the time, I was the EVP, Creative Director of GlobalHue, the largest multicultural agency in the world (IPG). I worked with the inimitable Sylvia Rhone, Chairperson and CEO of the Elektra Entertainment Group and her team to actuate all details of the project: review the director's treatment, all financials and even all legal for the project. Now the kicker is that I had one production budget and no money for licensing a celebrity artist. So, the deal we struck was for GlobalHue/VZW to piggyback a scheduled Elektra video shoot for Call Me, thus reducing VZW costs and provide Call Me millions in impressions in free air time when the commercial ran. All the licensing and bartering and negotiating that had to be done was intense, to say the least.

My vision was to merge the commercial interests of my client, VZW, with the fast moving production train of the record industry -- a music video. Ms. Rhone was her expected executive cool self: tough, informative, shrewd and a lot of fun to work with. The great music video director, Chris Robinson (ATL, Warner Bros.), was directing and he was professionally accommodating with me giving notes on his treatment. The Elektra legal team was rigorous and beat me up daily, but we got through it and eventually the deal was done and Camille held it all together.

I arrived in Los Angeles for the shoot from my home base in Detroit. The location was a high-styled downtown LA warehouse loft. Prep was underway: crew, glam squad, security, etc. VZW was present + Camille was on point + the management of the artist was there -- the Platinum artist, Missy Elliot herself + the renowned Mona Scott (Violator) in the flesh ... and their entourage. The energy level on the set was off the chain. Chris was adroit in his awareness of which scenes he felt would best serve the 30 second story I had to tell for VZW. He prepped me with what he intended and then did his thing. The song, Call Me, already covered Tweet's use of a cell phone to stay in touch with her man, so the theme was solid. I simply needed some key scenes to feature [FREEUP], the latest Motorola phone we were using at the time and our proverbial 2 finger VerizonWireless 'V.'

The day was looooong (I arrived at 10 am and I wrapped around 3 am) and full of decisions. Chris was a master at shooting for the video and the commercial simultaneously. Brilliant work. His team was tight and turned on a dime at his glance. We had the typical issues with prototype packaging failing and having to completely rebuild the box at one point. Chris kept production moving forward. He and Tweet were very cool about it all and the shoot never missed a beat.

I worked with Chris through post production in Venice, CA to complete the spot about a week later. We adjusted the cut, the music, color saturation, brand graphic integration, etc. It was the first celebrity effort by VZW in the urban market. The [FREEUP] campaign included print placed in all major media and in-store activity.

Elektra was pleased with the added benefit for their artist and the hit single, Call Me, being supported by millions in air time and VZW was very happy with the extended reach of the brand into the core youth market -- a solid strategic marketing win-win. Working with Camille, Ms. Rhone, Chris and Tweet, the subtleties of this brand endorsement and celebrity attachment proved to be a complete success.

Juan
Roberts
and
Camille
Hackney
far right

About Juan Roberts
After his life in advertising, Juan formed Creative Lunacy, a cross-platform marketing consultancy created to serve a select clientele with global quality design, branding and strategic thinking. The boutique firm provides work that serves small companies to corporations + non-profit and community based organizations. Juan says,"I get up in the morning purposed to motivate our client's products, services or events ... over all competitors. I love this stuff."

Homepage Design - Juan Roberts

I surf the web all day and many times I see websites that are flat and unappealing upon first glance, but once I get into the site, the content is good. All the site really needs is a smoother introduction.

This is an example of giving an online newsletter a refreshment of their brand. I did multiple versions, some of which featured her and her husband, but that seemed kinda corny. I developed this simple static lead-in page using rich gold tones with divergent gradations. The net-take-away is an inviting tone and evokes the warmth and comfort that family should represent in our lives.

Book Cover - Juan Roberts

This is a book cover for an independent writer. "Constance" is the fictional story of a girl becoming a woman in the foster care system and then orphaned again when her foster parents are killed in a car accident. Their untimely demise reveals circumstances that they never shared with her about their connection to Constance's birth parents. Amazing.

Publicist Brand ID - Juan Roberts

This is a brand ID developed for Trevia Williams. I met Mrs. Williams on the set of a movie I directed last year for Fred Hammond, "Christmas ... Who Needs It." We shot in Dallas during the month of September.

She was the agent and mother of one of the co-stars in the movie, her son Justin Williams. The shoot was an intense three weeks and countless hours rehearsing and shooting from noon to early morning hours. Being on set that much for a film project provides a lot of time to discuss lives, politics, faith and a host of other topics. I got to know various members of the cast and crew well.

I tend to gravitate towards people with vision and hers was big. Trevia described how she wanted to elevate the publicity aspect of the entertainment industry. So, once the movie wrapped, I created this logo for her company. Accompanying the logo was a brief capabilities brochure.

I had no idea what a Diadem was, but once my researcher opened my eyes, wow. This was a breeze of an assignment.

L.A. Watts Newspaper Ad - Juan Roberts

A quick promo piece designed for a friend at her historic Los Angeles newspaper and voice of the community. I used a frame grab from a documentary I shot in 2003,"Radical." The young lady in the picture has such a solidly joyful smile that it fit the sensibility of the piece -- celebrate, expression and vigor.

A couple of the brand concepts intended for the anniversary were optimism and professionalism, so I integrated a clean typographical styling that was direct and to the point, allowing the imagery to work harder. Even if one glances at the ad, they get who the message is about/from and that it has something to do with 30. Given the brand awareness of the anniversary of the newspaper, most of their audience already knew what time it was, so this piece simply trumpeted a call to action.

Ms. Melanie Polk, the publisher, was very pleased. It worked.