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Finding simplicity within complexity, providing clarity with creativity.

About

 

 

Portfolio

  • Motrin

    Motrin

    Ads

    Here, there, everywhere.
    Ubiquity was the point.

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  • Common Sense Nantucket

    Common Sense Nantucket

    Op ed

    In a local paper, before a big town meeting. Helped get out the vote—and get the right result.

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  • Relenza

    Relenza

    Commercials

    The flu: you hate it, and want to make it go away. Just like Newman.

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  • The Classicist

    The Classicist

    Blog

    A love of architecture can take you lots of interesting places.

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  • The Yale Club

    The Yale Club

    Ads

    Fun with course descriptions
    (“Studies in Grand Strategy” is a famous seminar at Yale).

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  • Reader’s Digest

    Reader’s Digest

    Ad

    Not glamorous, but great practice: writing lots of small-space ads for local newspapers.

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  • Guidant

    Guidant

    Ads

    Explaining medical devices by featuring personality quirks.

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  • Common Sense Nantucket

    Common Sense Nantucket

    Posters

    Putting things into perspective, quite literally.

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  • Family Life

    Family Life

    Articles

    Fun to be a contributor to Family Life Magazine.

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  • Motrin

    Motrin

    Commercials

    Kudos to clients who actually wanted a “ Nike of Pain” campaign.

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  • Tylenol

    Tylenol

    Brochure

    To promote a product for stress, an informative pamphlet tipped into magazines.

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  • Kix Cereal

    Kix Cereal

    Ads

    Sometimes it isn’t what a product is, it’s what it isn’t.

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  • Gold Medal Flour

    Gold Medal Flour

    Cookbook

    An unsolicited—and hugely successful—idea for building brand loyalty.

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  • Kix

    Kix

    Commercials

    Great little actors? Not really. Just get them to act naturally.

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  • Tylenol

    Tylenol

    Commercials

    A top ten Super Bowl spot with no special effects, just a simple human story.

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  • Relenza

    Relenza

    Ad

    Newman strikes again.

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  • Misys

    Misys

    Video

    The human dimension of creating software for healthcare and financial services markets.

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  • AdWeek

    AdWeek

    Articles

    Just can’t stop thinking about architecture.

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Clients

It’s been good to continue working with clients from the agency days, and to establish new client relationships as well.

 


Bio

 

Inspirations

Stan Becker

A great judge of creative, and the best boss I ever had. Could command the attention of any room, of any size. I’ll never forget, in a meeting where things weren’t going as planned, he disarmed the client by simply asking: “Bill, why aren’t you smiling?”

Stan’s story here

 

Bill Bernbach

Never knew him, but admired this mythic ad man—having nothing to do with martinis or the stuff of TV shows. For him, like for Stan, it was all about the work, and about being different, because, as he said, “ if you’re like everybody else, where are you? Nowhere.”

More classic Bernbach

 

Dale Carnegie

A book about “winning friends and influencing people” always sounded cheesy to me, until I picked it up and couldn’t put it down. “Try honestly to see things from the other person’s perspective…Nobody was ever argued into buying anything…Smile.”

And there’s more

 

Nora Ephron

Especially the essays in Esquire and The New Yorker. I heard her speak several times at the 92nd Street Y. One memorable night, she told her “What’s the Point?” story, which I’ve repeated to every client and class I’ve ever had. It’s a lesson you’ll never forget.

“What’s the Point?”

 

Tibor Gergley

Illustrator of 70 Little Golden Books, including The Taxi That Hurried, which convinced an impressionable 5-year-old in Reading, Massachusetts that he had to live in New York City. And he did (20 years later).

Video by step-grandaughter

 

Erica Gruen

We were colleagues at DFS/Saatchi, then she made the transition from media department to president of the Food Network. Now a consultant, she creates content across all platforms, like The Biggest Loser. “I was digital when digital wasn’t cool,” tweets she.

More about Erica

The M5

The most scenic bus route in New York City, from the George Washington Bridge to the Staten Island Ferry, along Riverside and Central Parks, down Fifth Avenue, uptown past the World Trade Center site.  A great way to get to where you’re going. Hint, hint.

NYC Transit Map

Jane Maas

We first knew each other from teaching a course for marketers at the Association of National Advertisers. Then I watched as she came up with a brilliant idea for a book (Mad Women), made it happen, then embarked on  a 40-city book tour at age 80.

Here’s one review

 

Robert Poynton

In Everything’s an Offer he offers lessons from the world of Improvisational Theater. Six of the key words: “Let go. Notice more. Use everything.” And I love what he says about “being really, really present: a rare combination of serenity and adrenalin.”

Nice clean site

 

Eliel Saarinen

As an 8th and 9th grade English teacher, I lived / worked / slept / ate / hiked / played tennis at Cranbrook, the school he designed in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. How amazing it was to experience this world he created with Charles and Ray Eames and others.

Check it out

 

Henry David Thoreau

I grew up 11 miles from Walden Pond, but had never visited (or read the book) until I was in my 40’s. A good age to have someone urge you to advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavor to live the life you have imagined.

Dive right in

 

Steven Zucker

A good friend of one of my best friends, this 2011 hire at Khan Academy is co-creator (with Beth Harris) of Smarthistory, the leading open educational resource for art history, offering nearly 500 free videos that feature audio conversations with experts.

Pick an artist

 

Contact

Contact info
175 Riverside Dr. New York, NY 10024
Telephone: 917 583 0968
Fax: 212 874 4354

Email: rholt@m5nyc.com

Skype: rholtm5