How do you sell art school to parents who are terrified of art school?

That's the real brief. Not "recruit students" students already want to come. The obstacle is the parent in the kitchen asking "but what will you do with that?" CCS needed to disarm that anxiety without being defensive about it.

The answer was to make the anxiety funny.

We looked at the visual language parents use to express fear about their kids' choices and found it already fully formed in the 1980s and 90s anti-drug PSA canon. The after-school special. The pamphlet on the refrigerator. The concerned neighbor. The ominous voiceover. Every parent who grew up in that era carries those references in their nervous system.

So we used them. Exactly. Shot for shot, tone for tone but instead of "your child might be using drugs," the warning signs were sketching in class, an unhealthy interest in sculpture, and staying up late to finish a painting.

The joke lands because the format is so familiar. And once the parent laughs, the defense comes down. That's when the real message gets in: your kid's passion for art isn't a crisis. It's a calling. And CCS is where it goes.

Why this piece belongs in an ECD book

This wasn't a big budget. It wasn't a Super Bowl. It was a small client with a real business problem and a team willing to find a genuinely unexpected solution. One Show Gold. D-Show Best in Show. BuzzFeed, Adweek, My Modern Met — earned media from outlets that don't cover car commercials.

I also taught senior portfolio at CCS for three years. So this wasn't just a client it was an institution I believed in enough to give my time to. The work reflects that. You can feel the difference between a campaign made for a client and a campaign made for something you actually care about.

I think that difference shows up in everything.

Honors and Awards One Show Gold · D-Show Best in Show · Radio Mercury Finalist

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