The writing and creative direction of andrew gall

When it comes to inclusivity, there is no bigger ally than Seattle. So to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Seattle Pride, we wanted to go big on behalf of our destination marketing client Visit Seattle. 

We invited LGBTQIA+ couples from all over the country to renew their vows aboard THE LOVE FOR ALL BOAT, an epic sunset cruise emceed by international drag superstar BenDeLaCreme. The vow renewal ceremony was led by Justice Mary Yu, Washington’s first openly gay Asian American and Latina justice.

This maiden voyage was way more than just a boat party—it led to the mayor officially declaring May 30th Love For All Day in the city—cementing Seattle’s commitment to celebrating love for all for years to come. Oh: and we set a vow renewal world record while we were at it, too. 

Alaska Communications’ new fiber network boasts the fastest, most powerful internet Alaskans can get. So all that frustration you’re experiencing from your slow, throttled connection can be done with.

We created a regular, every day last frontier family of bears to make the frustrations of bad internet impossible to ignore. And at the same time, offer a solution to the UNBEARABLE internet experience for Alaskans everywhere.

Leading up to open enrollment season, we surveyed employers in charge of choosing a health plan for their employees and uncovered this: many placed an increased emphasis on the sense of camaraderie and familial dynamics of their sometimes virtual, sometimes IRL, always supportive workplaces.

So, while insurance companies tend to tout their functional benefits like customer service, virtual care or network size, we used our research findings to take a more emotional, more relatable approach. The campaign was featured in Adweek, and MediaPost called the work “Emotional B2B advertising,” which is an exciting first for me.

To promote the city’s fall travel season, we brought a little precipitation to two rain-starved cities in the form of a fully sustainable Seattle Rain Booth.

The booth was set up in the sweaty centers of Venice Beach and Scottsdale, encouraging visitors to experience what Seattle’s real cozy season feels like.

The events captivated the media to the tune of 167MM earned impressions, plus features from Adweek, Reuters, Yahoo News, and The Weather Channel, naturally.

We worked with our OL Reign client and Rough & Tumble Pub—the first women’s sports pub in Washington state and only the second in the world—to help activate an epic Megan Rapinoe celebration. In the end, despite zero paid media, more than 5 million fans worldwide took notice of the colorful tribute to one of Seattle’s foremost sports icons, and Adweek did a big feature on the work.

1 in 5 Americans deal with a mental health condition every year. But because the stigma persists, many sufferers do so in silence. So we needed to shine a light on the fact that mental health issues are something that countless people deal with—no matter who you are or what you do.

This 2022 campaign picked up a Clio alongside much more gargantuan brands with much more gargantuan budgets—including Pepsi, Samsung, and Bud Light.

We were all set to film a commercial with world-class athlete power couple Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird to air during the 2020 Olympics. We all know what happened next. So we pivoted—and wound up with a wonderfully charming campaign that premiered during this year’s ESPYs (also hosted by Megan and Sue). The campaign got a lot of nice media attention, from Business Insider to a Creativity Editor’s Pick selection.

Making a city more accessible isn’t something that an ad idea is going to solve. It requires true long-term thinking, strategy, and the right partner to really make an impact. Thankfully, we found the right one for this Visit Seattle initiative centered around Refract—the world’s newest and most impressive glass art festival.

Thanks to this initiative, which began last fall, Seattle now has the largest collection of EnChroma glasses in the world.

To appeal to a younger generation of readers, we created shorthand versions of Papa's most famous works on the @ehfop Instagram account.

The results: A Creativity Pick of the Day/Weekly Top 5, Adweek Ad of the Day, a Luerzer's Archive feature, a One Show shortlist, thousands of new Instagram followers, and renewed interest in an author from a younger generation. 

Potty training is a dreadful experience. Which means moms tend to put it off as long as possible. 

So, what's the best way to get more moms to start potty training in Pull-Ups sooner? By actually making the experience of potty training fun. 

The stunt was featured in the New York Times and on MSNBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams (who didn't lie about it), among others.

Delving into the idiosyncrasies, skillsets, and player personalities to create humor-based Seattle Mariners commercials. 12-year-old me would be proud of my life choices. This is a selection of some of my favorite spots from the six years I worked on the campaign, which Adweek called “The Funniest Ads in Baseball.”

Instead of some type of self-congratulatory piece of advertising drivel, we decided to use our 25th anniversary as an agency to amplify other local independent businesses in and around downtown Seattle by providing over $50K in free agency time.

This challenger brand wanted to make a big splash in the crowded world of insurance marketing. Enter Jibber Jabber: the living embodiment of confusing and nonsensical insurance talk. They’re everywhere. And Symetra promises to be the antidote. The campaign caught the attention of Business Wire, The Drum, and many other media outlets.

The Wing Luke Museum had very little money to spend, but a major buzz to build for their new Bruce Lee exhibit. So we let some local influencers do the work for us. By breaking stuff. 

The campaign won a Silver National Addy in Social, with REI's #OptOutside taking Gold. Not bad company.

Huggies had a massive business problem. They were losing tons of business to Pampers right out of the new-motherhood gate, due to the fact that Pampers gives away free diapers to new moms as soon as they give birth in hospitals. So we decided to start talking to new moms even earlier: by creating a digital tool that could answer every question along their pregnancy journey—from the very moment a new mom-to-be finds out she’s pregnant. Featured in Communication Arts.

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Washington State University's myriad of rich accomplishments, we wanted to do something more memorable than create a :30 TV spot with a grizzled, highfalutin sounding voiceover paired with sweeping shots of campus. So we built a giant campus installation and museum guide-like tool on Instagram so students could learn more about all the great things WSU has achieved. The installation was featured in the CA typography annual.

This high-concept tome putting gorillas into everyday life situations was published by Adams Media in Boston, and is available everywhere (including Amazon, B&N, Target, and Urban Outfitters). Adweek featured it, and the "F.U., Penguin" author and Koko the sign language gorilla even wrote favorable blurbs about it. Order the book here.

The Hemingway Status Hijacker is a Facebook app that allows users to “hang out” with Hemingway for 24 hours—and in the process, tell his story in a modern, fun, surprising way. By allowing The Hemingway Status Hijacker to hijack your Facebook timeline, your usual boring and insignificant postings will be replaced by some of Papa’s countless unique adventures while you go along for the ride—affecting multiple pieces of your Facebook API: from status updates to events to Facebook Places check-ins. It sure beats posting photos of sandwiches.

The app got its share of attention from the media, including articles on sites like Fast Company and Adage.

How do you bring this relaxing, anti-tech brand to the hyperactive World Wide Web? We started by 86-ing the traditional navigation and rigid structure of a typical site and allowed users to discover things on their own by exploring a virtual beach the way it should be explored--on their terms. The site was featured in the Communication Arts Interactive Annual and was also an FWA Site of the Day.

We also kept the classic “vacation-in-a-bottle” campaign fresh with a number of new executions in the print, broadcast, and outdoor realms.

I created and wrote this choose-your-own-adventure book for grown-ups, featuring hundreds of pages of entertaining, occasionally nonsensical prompts and illustrations designed to help every reader design his or her own unique bucket list.

The book was published by Adams Media in Boston (recently acquired by titan Simon and Schuster), and has sold over 15,000 copies. 

It was an also an Editor's Pick on Creativity.

Order the book here.