THIAGO
CRUZ
Hello! My name is Thiago, and I’m a creative leader currently based in NYC.
I love my job. It allowed me to tell the story of a transgender nun, co-create and launch a new Coke globaly with a major artist, turn a business-killing consumer behavior into a business driver, create a wearable device that helps people chill, make a global fashion collection that empowers people against online hate, help the colorblind see color for the first time, among many other things. It also allowed me to spend the last decade working for major creative agencies in five different cities, in four different countries, in three different continents. All this while collaborating, leading, and learning from people that are way smarter and more talented than me.
Below you’ll find a small sample of the kind of stuff I like to do: work that aims at positioning brands somewhere in the intersection between culture and commerce. If you’d like to know more, feel free to reach out, or visit my LinkedIn profile.
Enjoy Before Returning
Client: Diesel
Product: Global Platform - Fall/Winter 19
Role: Concept / Creative Direction / Art Direction
Wardrobing - the act of buying an item with the intention of returning it after wearing it- is a huge consumer phenomenon. People buy stuff, keep the price tag tucked in, look instagramable for a day and then move on to the next thing, and it’s quickly becoming the fashion industry’s latest nightmare. Diesel’s take on it is, if you’re going to do it anyway, why not fully enjoy it in the process?
Check out some of the content we produced to promote this idea below. The track in the film was made using parts of Diesel’s return policy as lyrics.
And we also pasted Diesel’s real return policy, in full, directly onto our print campaign and static digital/social assets.
Taste The Transformation
Client: Coca-Cola
Product: Coke Creations
Role: Concept / Creative Direction
Generation Z thrives in constant change and evolution, reimagining and reshaping everything from culture to themselves. So we partnered with one of this generation’s icons, the multi-faceted and genre-defying Rosalía, to create its newest flavour that celebrates transformation and the many versions of ourselves. Everything was developed in direct partnership with the artist, from the concept to craft, from a flavor that transforms in your mouth to a new hit single. A co-creation to show the world the transformative power of music.
Case study:
This is the music video that announced the partnership:
For Successful Living
Client: Diesel
Product: Global Platform 2020
Role: Concept / Creative Direction / Art Direction
We started 2020 with a big shift back to Diesel’s heritage in denim and storytelling. It was time to give some love to the line that guided almost 30 years of Diesel communication: For Successful Living.
This short story, Francesca, dropped during Pride Month 2020, featuring the model and activist Harlow Monroe.
And the one below was launched during Superbowl LIV weekend.
Doubt Delivered
Client: WhatsApp
Product: US Launch - Privacy campaign
Role: Concept / Creative Direction
How would you feel if all your mail was delivered unsealed? In WhatsApp’s first campaign in the US market, we decided to challenge the audience’s mindset about messaging privacy and raise awareness about end-to-end encryption.
Haute Couture
Client: Diesel
Product: Global Platform - Fall/Winter 18
Role: Creative Direction
Just like any other brand out there, Diesel gets a lot of hate online. And just like any other brand out there, we could hide it, or simply ignore it. Instead, we decided to not only embrace it, but turn it into our entire F/W collection. Because the more hate you wear, the less you care.
Full case study here:
Check out below some of the content we created to promote it, as well as some images of the collection itself:
The Inactivity Tracker
Client: Kmart
Product: Joe Boxer Pajamas
Role: Concept / Creative Direction / Art Direction
We created the world’s first Inactivity Tracker, for Joe Boxer Pajamas. Like the FitBit, the Inactivity Tracker is a wearable device that connects to an app. Unlike the FitBit, it rewards users for doing nothing, allowing them to reach levels like "Couch Commander", "Cryogenic" and "You Rock!" The Inactivity Tracker was launched with an event at a Kmart store in NYC and it was also available for purchase online.
To promote it, we launched an hour-long film with some pretty epic inactivity.
Be a Follower
Client: Diesel
Product: Global Platform - Spring/Summer 2019
Role: Concept / Creative Direction
Our Instagram feeds make us think that an influencer’s life is a dream life. But is it? The Be a Follower campaign is about taking back what rightfully belongs to all the followers out there: The effortless art of successful living.
We also created a lot of stills and other social content, in collaboration with Toilet Paper. Here’s a small selection:
And, because it’s 2019, we decided to walk the walk. Diesel’s instagram followers now have the power to become virtual shops, and reap the benefits that were once exclusive to influencers:
Free Range Humans
Client: AB Inbev / Corona
Product: Global Branded Entertainment Platform
Role: Creative Direction / Art Direction
Corona found out that most people spend 90% of their time indoors. So at a time when the whole planet is forced to rethink how we live, we set out to tell inspiring stories of people who decided to flip that number and pursue a life outside the cage. The first season of Free Range Humans premiered globally with eight episodes about eight different people from all corners of the planet, marking the launch of our new branded content platform Corona Studios. Check out the trailer below:
Below is a small sample of some of the episodes. Feel free to watch all eight of them on Corona’s YouTube channel.
And just like any show, a lot of content was created to tease and promote each episode, as well as extra content for those that wanted to do a deeper dive into the free range life. My favorite pieces from the promotional materials were the episode posters below, featuring architecture inspired by each subject’s home country:
The Ultimate Collaboration
Client: Diesel
Product: Bread&&Butter Activation
Role: Creative Direction / Art Direction
Ah, fashion collaborations! When cool brands want to partner up with cooler brands, who only want to partner up with even cooler brands. When Diesel went to Bread&&Butter in Berlin - one of the world’s most important street-style festivals in the world - we decided to create the ultimate collab. We partnered up with a true icon of Berlin’s street culture. The guy who attracts the biggest crowds in town.
Below a few images of the capsule collection designed with Diesel’s style department.
Phone-life Balance
Client: Motorola
Product: Global Brand Platform
Role: Concept / Creative Direction
Forty years ago, Motorola invented the cell phone. Cut to 2017, and mobile has changed the way we eat, bank, shop, learn, consult our doctors, and connect to loved ones. Yet while the smartphone can enrich our lives and bring us closer to those who are far away, it sometimes separates us from those who are right in front of us. In fact, according to Morgan Stanley, more than 91% of us have a phone within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. So we launched the Phone-life Balance campaign, asking people around the world to examine their smartphone behavior.
Watch the case study:
Below are some of the individual pieces that were part of this global effort.
To begin, we raised awareness around the issue by filming real people on real vacations mindlessly scrolling their trips away:
Then, we released a social experiment that examines our mobile behavior in the real world:
We also scanned people’s brainwaves and turned the data into artistic visualisations, so everyone could see the difference between virtual experiences and real ones.
Online, we asked everyone to take the phone-life balance quiz: www.phone-lifebalance.com
Don’t Sweat It, Just Send It
Client: WhatsApp
Product: View Once
Role: Creative Direction
When a new Terms of Service update jeopardized WhatsApp’s credibility in private messaging, we zeroed in on our most skeptical audience, Gen Z. But instead of explaining how private messaging worked in technical terms, we launched a new feature that contextualized how it fit it within the unpolished nuances that make them who they are: View Once. Authenticity is at the heart of this feature, and this film aims to capture how these people would have spontaneous View Once exchanges in their life.
Chicken Corsage
Client: KFC
Product: #HowDoYouKFC
Role: Concept / Art Direction
KFC wanted to reach a younger audience. But the truth is, young people couldn’t care less about KFC. The brand simply wasn’t even on their radars anymore. So as part of the big #HowDoYouKFC campaign, which spanned everything from package and store design, to TV, to social, we also created this film:
I know what you’re thinking... “So?”... The thing is, as soon as the video was posted, we also made real Chicken Corsages available for purchase online. Next thing we knew, people were talking about KFC again.
Check out the whole story here:
Daydreaming in the Life Artois
Client: AB Inbev
Product: Stella Artois
Role: Creative Direction
Stella Artois decided to skip their traditional superbowl campaign in early 2020, opting instead to focus on making a big splash later that summer. It was meant to be a big celebratory moment for the brand, but then... well, 2020 happened. Still, the campaign had to be the US launch of the Life Artois - even though everything about that life suddenly felt out of reach, to say the least. Enter Daydreams. With all summer plans canceled and everyone stuck at home, we wanted to take our audience on a journey to the Life Artois, if only in their minds.
We started by creating a weekly audio series on the first weeks of quarantine, penned by established authors and narrated by Andy Cohen, to transport listeners to the summer we all longed for. Episodes were launched on friday evenings, to help the audience transition from their working-from-home lives to the weekend in the Life Artois. After each episode, Andy hosted that week’s author for a live chat on the brand’s IG channel. The full series is available on Spotify, but these are a couple of my favorite episodes:
The campaign culminated with the launch of a branded music video. We created a cover of the classic summer tune Daydream, in partnership with M. Ward (of She&Him fame), to show that with the right mindset, we’re never too far from the Life Artois.
The (Re)Collection
Client: Diesel
Product: Coke x Diesel
Role: Creative Direction
Diesel, known for provoking its audience with irony, and Coca-Cola, known for celebrating inclusivity, teamed up to create The (Re)Collection: a uniquely crafted capsule collection, made out of recycled PET from plastic bottles. We launched the collection during Paris Fashion Week, where most fashion brands tend to present their collections in the most-exclusive pop-up stores. However, we of course did the opposite. We invited our audience to get it where it came from, transforming an exclusive experience into the most inclusive of all. And from there, made it available at any recycling logo in the world. Yes, even on Pepsi bottles.
Color For The Colorblind
Client: Valspar
Product: Valspar Paint
Role: Creative Direction / Art Direction
Valspar is one the world’s largest paint companies. But we found out that more than 300 million people in the world are colorblind. So we started asking ourselves, what if there was a way we could make colorblind people experience color for the first time? At first, it seemed impossible. Until we partnered with EnChroma.
Case Study:
Documentary:
Contact
thi.cruz@gmail.com
+1 646 233 7001
www.linkedin.com/thiago-cruz
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