Jerry Spears

Ruggable: functional family

creative lead/writer/post-mgr.

Organic humor that speaks to the audience.

As a post-production manager, I was given the opportunity to stretch my writer’s muscle at Ruggable with this functional family campaign. The goal was to find a new way to speak to one of our oldest audiences, and this was my concept.

The idea was to take a new wave parenting technique that young parents are aware of, and some may have even tried, and lovingly poke fun at it through the eyes of a beleaguered father who doesn’t want his house destroyed. This approach allowed us to create a hook (a joke) at the start of each spot.

It's one of my favorite campaigns I’ve done with Ruggable because it’s open and honest about parenthood, it's funny, and it resonated very well with the target audience across all platforms and led to great CTR and CTA ratios because of the truth behind it and how well it ties to the Ruggable value props.

This ad was proof that the internal Ruggable production team can create effective humorous ads, and that discovery has led to a major shift in the tone of their video ads.

Ruggable: Iris Apfel

co-creative lead/co-writer/on-set advisor/post-mgr.

Iris Apfel is a fashion icon who is known for her pithy statements about fashion and life. The name of her book is Accidental Icon because she exploded into stardom at the age of 90 after a lifetime of meaningful contributions to home decor and fashion.

Her authenticity and sass are what really spoke to me when I listened to her speak about her passions and life. Throughout my decade and a half of video production and direction, I've learned that some 'non-actors' are very charming while speaking off the cuff, but as soon as you give them a script they become stilted. We couldn't afford to lose the heart of what makes Iris great - her.

Instead of a script, we created a series of questions that we gave her ahead of time. We had some suggested answers to let her know what we were hoping to get from each segment and a handful of oneliners for her to read, but ultimately the bulk script was in her lap. We bet on authenticity. Iris delivered.

We created characters that functioned as avatars for different audiences and imbued them with interpretations of Iris' style. The result was honest advertising with charming joy.

Ruggable: Jonathan Adler

co-creative lead/co-writer/post-mgr.

After the first Jonathan Adler designs through Ruggable, we had to find a way to recapture the magic with our Jonathan Adler Extention campaign.

JA is a maximalist designer, he is irreverent and funny, and his audience knows and loves him, but what we learned was that most people that purchased JA rugs were Ruggable fans that found JA through us. Armed with this information, we wanted to challenge our audience (which is traditionally more style-conservative) to live boldly while capturing Jonathan's out-of-the-box approach.

I'm particularly proud of the 'In a Box' ad because this was an ad that received a luke warm reception from the internal team, but we pushed for it and in the long run, it has proven to be one of the more successful ads from this campaign.

Ruggable: Bath Mat

co-creative lead/co-director/co-writer/post-mgr.

Everyone wants to find the formula for the most effective ad, and you can find some best practices, but ultimately you still need to captivate the audience.

Based on Google’s best practices, these ads utilize the formulas of an effective video but are still done with a catchy originality and boldness that grabs viewers at the start.

You'll also find an infomercial that also follows this formula, even though it might seem dramatically different. This ad was created based on '90s infomercial test ads we made earlier this year, which did really well with Gen Z on Tike Tok in addition.

Ruggable: Faux Hide

creative lead/co-writer/director/post-mgr.

We wanted to ​appeal to the ​high-end ​fashion crowd but stay on brand for Ruggable.​ ​ ​We wanted to show off a new texture, but give it a feeling. We wanted to educate, but not bore. This was our campaign for Faux Hide.​

Washington State Patrol

creative lead/writer/director/editor

Washington State Patrol had a problem.
Less than 1% of their applicants met the minimum qualifications to become a trooper. They had been running the same type of messaging for over a decade. Our goal was to get the WSP a full cadet class, of quality applicants, during a time when police officers were more vilified than ever. We demilitarized their message and focused on a more millennial core value messaging. The result was that the WSP received more qualified applicants than ever. Because of that, they were able to make selections for the academy based on diversity, ultimately allowing the police force to reflect the communities they were in.

7 Things to do this weekend

creative lead/co-writer/director/editor

This concept was something that came up in a meeting I had with a member of the sales team. I walked out of that meeting with a clear understanding of what I wanted this to look like.

There was nervous energy from the team about pushing the envelope with the comedy. I'm talking about pushing the envelope for local daytime TV, not in any real sense. My case was this: Half funny isn't actually funny. If a joke doesn't make you laugh then it's not worth telling. If we think this is funny other people will too.

We were right. It was very well received. This segment involves people from more than half the state. I work with comedy writers in Seattle, city officials from all over western WA, ad agencies, event organizers, and every department at KIRO 7 TV. The native content aspect makes this a powerful tool for events and the tourism industry in western Washington.

Along with writing, casting is the most important aspect of comedy. Seattle had a rich improv scene that I was able to pull from, and there were a number of talented actors in that area, but ultimately we settled on Devin Badoo. He is now LA-based. Hire him.