ed odyniec

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director

How do you keep a campaign fresh and retain your branding? Using Dennis Hasbert's voice identifies these spots as a message from Allstate. Having his voice coming from other characters' mouth uses the campaign in a new way and keeps it entertaining.

Designs for an app that would integrate with the controls of a myofascia massager. A professional grade massager designed for high-performance athletes, spas and salons. The app would allow users to control the massager, follow pre-set video sessions, track their session data, and create custom timed sessions.

Role/Responsibility: Art Director/Creative Director

These videos were created as "edutainment.” They teach about complicated financial topics in entertaining ways for social media testing.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director

The simple act of holding hands is the most basic form of human affection. But for LGBT people, holding hands in public can be frightening. Because it means outing oneself at every turn.

Allstate believes that everyone deserves to be in good hands - no matter who they love. So to show their support for the LGBT community, we developed this work to celebrate everyone’s right to be #OutHoldingHands.

The campaign started in 2013 with print, out-of-home and digital advertising in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Palm Springs and Chicago. To extend the campaign’s reach in 2014, we partnered with an emerging gay recording artist, Eli Lieb. He wrote an emotional original song for the campaign called “Safe In My Hands” that became the soundtrack for a viral short film of the same name.

The campaign won a Mosaic Award and the animated short film was a Creativity “Editor’s Pick.” “Safe in My Hands” also won American Advertising and AMP Awards for both the original song and the short film.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director/Illustrator

In a category crowded with beautiful shots of vacation homes, we changed the conversation from one about the value of real estate to the emotional value of reconnecting. We showed people how to turn getaways into get-togethers.

The campaign helped the client meet their sales goals and won an Addy Award.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director/Designer

One of my main responsibilities as a Creative Director on the Allstate account was to create materials for the robust agent co-op program. There are 10,000+ Allstate Agents across the country who all want to advertise to build their businesses. Because they have to spend their hard-earned money on creative, they expect it to be breakthrough and effective in the various media available to them in their local area.

Through the Allstate co-op program, agents could order billboards, digital display ads, print ads, direct mail, email, car wraps and more to promote their agencies — all within pre-approved branding guidelines and messaging. I translated national campaigns and created original work to drive traffic. A key step was coordinating with Allstate’s activation partner, Brand Muscle, to ensure quality control on the thousands of versions they produced every year.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director

To literally reach out to the LGBT target, we worked with Tool of North America to create a unique interactive experience. It allowed people to virtually hold hands in support of everyone showing affection out in public, no matter whom they love.

The website not only gave users a 3D experience, it connected thousands of people and reached more than 2 million miles across the globe.

Ultimately, it grew business for Allstate by connecting new LGBT customers and allies with local Allstate Agents.

The site won the “Best Community Site” Award in the CSS Design Awards and was a “Site of the Day.”

Role/Responsibility: Art Director

Heidelberg is a manufacturer of high end printing equipment. These ads conveyed the passion for printing and for Heidelberg equipment that already existed among people in the printing industry.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director

Dennis Haysbert has been the spokesperson for the Allstate brand for over 10+ years, His voice has become indelibly linked with the brand. So now even when he’s not seen, people immediately think of his calm, confident presence.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director/Designer/Illustrator

Mayhem’s nearly 2 million social media followers are highly engaged and always looking for new content. For holiday 2016, Mayhem dropped a full-length holiday album featuring mayhemic versions of classic tunes (all the ones in the public domain, at least).

At the same time, Allstate had a sponsorship of the “Jingle Ball,” iHeartMedia’s 12-city concert tour. Seeing the obvious synergy, I had the idea to promote the Mayhem social elements at the event with a #MerryMayhem karaoke booth and custom giveaways.

Jingle Ball concertgoers could sing their favorite carol in the karaoke booth. A songbook giveaway included the lyrics for all the songs. What kind of candy do you give out when Mayhem is involved? Crushed candy canes, of course. And custom scarves kept concertgoers warm.

Role/Responsibility: Art Director

“Bobo” was the most popular spot in a campaign that reintroduced the PetSmart brand by tapping into the “pet parent” mentality.

We wanted people to see the real value of making a special trip to PetSmart - because associates get to know both their customers and their pets.

And while it wasn’t originally intended to sell a particular toy, when this commercial aired, sales of the Loofa Dog toy (affectionately referred to as “Bobo” in the spot) spiked by 300%.

The commercial won a gold RACie Award from the National Retail Federation.

A craft brew pub in Ottawa IL that makes some fine beer. They are expanding into the Chicago market and plan to open three brew pubs in the Chicago area in 2019.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director/Director

This emotionally powerful video was created for Allstate Agents to remind them of the importance of discussing life insurance with their clients. It was created on a shoestring budget but shows the power of filmmaking.We had a small crew of six people (including the client). I was the director and I did the on camera interviews of the agents and customers. It was difficult to talk to people who have lost a loved one. But we all knew the importance of the film we were making. This one will make you cry.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director

We wanted to take the Mayhem campaign to the place where it made the most sense - where people drive.  And out-of-home was ideal. Due to contractual limitations, Mayhem’s image could not appear on out-of-home advertising, so we developed attention-getting ways to show mayhem happening in everyday life. The fallen billboard won a best-of-show Obie award. The stunt was so successful, it was reported by several people to the local police and to the media company that owned it. The Mayhem Six Corners micro radio station won radio awards for entertaining drivers while they waited in traffic at one of many six corner intersections in Chicago.

We developed all-type executions that pointed out the mayhem in the area they were at. These examples that ran in Chicago demonstrate how hyper local insights were translated into engaging out-of-home.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director

These posters were part of Allstate’s ongoing effort to show their support of the LGBT community. Based on the insight that whenever a same sex couple holds hands they may be putting themselves in danger. It’s a situation that other people don’t have to face. These posters were displayed in LGBT neighborhoods and businesses.

Role/Responsibility: Art Director

To bring new life to a brand that was quickly becoming irrelevant, we demonstrated how new Hallmark product offerings can connect people in unexpected ways.

The “Carolers” spot won a RACie Award and was featured as Ad of the Month by Ad Age.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Director

In 2016, Allstate introduced their “It’s Good to be IN Good Hands” national campaign. I was tasked with adapting this message for the LGBT target.

For this market, it’s actually better to be out than to be in. And while there were recent advances in marriage equality, we still needed to demonstrate to LGBT people that Allstate Agents in their communities welcome them with open arms.

Role/Responsibility: Creative Director/Art Director/Designer/Illustrator

One of the more fun projects that I ran for the Allstate group was the branded merchandise. These items were sold to Allstate employees and visitors to the Allstate campus at the company store. We created items that leveraged Allstate's history and that went beyond just a logo. It gave a way for employees to show their company pride in a cool way. We also created Mayhem items that brought the campaign to life in fun ways.