If you haven’t checked it out, head over to the Saint James site and read the mini-adventure I wrote, The Wicked King. This little 8-page story takes our Ex Occultus heroes, Wakefield and Hollander, to Antarctica to hunt a mythological behemoth from Japanese legend, the ningen. After you’ve done that, come back here and read on to delve into the back story.

First things first, if you’re not familiar, Ex Occultus follows the exploits of adventurer and fortune-hunter Francis Wakefield, the gruff and grizzled Englishman with a tortuous past, and his protégé, a young man only known as Hollander, as they journey through the arcane in search of treasures and fortune, righting wrongs as they go.

What Are Ningen?
The inspiration for writing a story about the ningen came from the interwebs, off a post on BoingBoing. Are the images photoshopped? Sure. But there’s a myth, and there’s no better world to make myths come to life than Ex Occultus.

Ningen are essentially giant humanoid whales that live in the arctic regions.  They’re 20-30 meters long and typically albino. Now, other than the renown, why would the boys chase after these beasts in such a harsh area of the world? Chasing down cryptids is their MO, but the Antarctic is positively frigid.

Enter Admiral Charles Wilkes
In the late 1800s, not many people were going to the Antarctic. Some countries did send scientific exploratory expeditions, but there was a 40-50 year gap from the 1840s to the 1890s where no one was going there. And most of the Ex Occultusadventures take place in the 1870s and 1880s. So I had to get creative.

After reading up on the 1838 – 1842 United States Exploring Expedition, led by Admiral Charles Wilkes, I noticed that Wilkes was a real ball buster. So much so, that Herman Mellville is rumored to have based his Captain Ahab character on him.

Return to Antarctica
Inspiration struck. Admiral Charles Wilkes encountered a ningen, became obsessed with the beast and finding him again. The ningen was Wilkes’ “white whale,” before Mellville had even written about Moby Dick.

So, he leads his own expedition, not sanctioned by the government, on his own dime. All the expeditions at that time brought along a whole manner of scientists and naturalists – so it would make sense that Wilkes would bring two famed hunters of mythological beasts with him on a hunting expedition.

What happens when they all come together? You can find out what happens when Wilkes takes Wakefield and Hollander to the icy antarctic in search of a giant beast that isn’t supposed to exist.

Read “The Wicked King”

If you’ve talked to me at any point over the past year or so, you know that I’m attempting to get a comic book company off the ground with Rob and Jesse.

Well, I finally have something to show you. It’s an 8-page story I wrote and had illustrated by the incredibly talented Sean Hill. Even if you’re not in to comics, I suggest you check it out. There are no superheroes in tights or anything too nerdy.

Check it out here

“The Wicked King” is based on real historical figure from the 1800s and a real japanese mythological creature. Here’s the synopsis:

While accompanying an Antarctic expedition lead by the acerbic Admiral Wilkes, a man lusting for revenge against a mythical creature called the ningen, Wakefield and Hollander find themselves stranded on the ice, nearly done in by his obsession.

It takes place in the world of Ex Occultus, one of the ongoing titles over at Saint James. Here’s what the series is all about:

Ex Occultus is a globetrotting, serialized epic combining elements of Indiana Jones, H. P. Lovecraft and The X-Files as it follows the exploits of adventurer and fortune-hunter Francis Wakefield, the gruff and grizzled Englishman with a tortuous past, and his protégé, a young man only known as Hollander, as they journey through the arcane in search of treasures and fortune, righting wrongs as they go.

In any case, hope you enjoy!

Check out the latest Ex Occultus mini-adventure for free – I lettered this little gem of an 8-page story – so enjoy…or else!

Here’s what the story is all about. During some downtime between adventures, Wakefield stops into a local pub and swaps tall tales with four friends, recounting their glory days in the world of the occult.

Read it for free now!

Per usual, Saint James is rocking your mid-month Wednesday with a new free mini-adventure.

Wakefield and Hollander are summoned to aid a feudal lord in northern Japan and stop at a small village along the way to meet with their contact, Marcus. They soon discover that chaos has taken over the village, due to the wily antics of an amanojaku, a trickster demon, and must find a way to trap the creature before things take a turn for the worse.

Read it for free now!

In any case – you can still access all the old content via the links below.

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Project Objective
Get people engaged with the Oscar Mayer brand and drive sales of the new Deli Creations sandwich.

Strategy
Most people see Oscar Mayer as the bologna company – something that only kids would pack in their lunch.

Oscar Mayer wanted to show the sack lunch corporate crowd that they were the right lunch choice for them by getting them to try a new, convenient microwaveable sandwich.

Since many people don’t care to engage with a lunch meat company online, an effective way to get them clicking was to create a Facebook game and subversively promote wasting time on it at work…during your lunch break of course.

Execution
The premise behind the app is to create your own company, hire your friends and then earn money by playing mini-games. Just like a pyramid scheme, the company with the most money and the most employees underneath them, wins.

The tone of the entire app is dark, hopeless office humor that pokes fun at corporate America, all while having a little fun at the user’s expense. They are, after all, stuck in a typical boring 9 to 5 job.

Users can create their own company, or have one generated for them. Who wouldn’t want to be CEO of Art Vandelay Industries? The mini-games all involve office activities too, with the Paper Airplane Toss, Wasteketball and the SpeedySandwich builder.

CEOs can encourage employees to earn money for them by offering perks like an extra foot of cube space, an extra 5-minute break or a ride in the corporate jet.

If you spend too much time away from the app, hot news items get posted to your Facebook feed, encouraging you to come back. Messages like “Area dog sues, claiming he invented the “Doggie bag.” -$12,000″ or “Local lettuce farmers reveal the hidden mineral benefits of the leafy green vegetable. $+125 per employee.”

Deliverables
Content and Copy Matrix

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]]> http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/hotcompany-facebook-app/feed 1 http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/united-way-spec-campaign http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/united-way-spec-campaign#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:00:58 +0000 admin http://jeffpfaller.com/?p=81

Concept
It’s not the thought that matters. That simple notion drives the headlines, imagery and startling statistics in this spec campaign to raise donations for United Way of Southeast Michigan.

Rather than just think about all the horrible numbers everyone sees on the news, these ads challenge the viewer to do more – take action. Because when it comes to issues like these, it’s not the thought that counts.

Deliverables
Concepts and copy for print and web ads in collaboration with an Art Director

Back to Portfolio ]]> http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/united-way-spec-campaign/feed 1 http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/ford-corporate-banner-campaign http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/ford-corporate-banner-campaign#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:38:51 +0000 admin http://jeffpfaller.com/?p=63 4 distinct rich media banner concepts drove users to targeted content on the Ford Corporate site.

Project Objective
Drive traffic to mini-sites with relevant content for different audience segments.

Strategy
Ford Corporate featured many distinct lines of cars, from the blue-blood Ford brand to the safety minded Volvo to the upscale Lincoln. Instead of a generic message targeted to all, they wanted to hone in on each segment with a mini-site geared towards content that a distinct demographic would enjoy.

The demographics were moms, young gamers, car enthusiasts and green-minded car buyers.

Execution
To drive traffic to these mini-sites, Ford Corporate tasked our creative team to produce banners that would drive to these sites.

- Young Gamers
Concept 1: This banner’s treatment of a drag-racing game as an all-out, no-holds-barred prizefight with only one winner.
See the banner

Concept 2: The mission – drag a giant donut into a giant cup of coffee. This improbable mission demanded a “mission impossible” treatment.
See the banner

- Car Enthusiasts
Concept: An innovative new car that relied on solar, diesel and hybrid electric energy had a distinctive look and design features that seemed to occur in threes. Thus, “Behold the Power of 3″ was born.
See Banner 1
See Banner 2

- Moms
Concept: A storybook approach to the trials and tribulations of driving with kids allowed us to use whimsy and fancy to sell safety benefits that parents would be interested in.
See Banner 1
See Banner 2

- Green Drivers
Concept: This simple concept illustrated how Ford Motor Company was making the “green” choice to create a more environmentally friendly tomorrow.
See the Banner

Deliverables
Concepts and copy for 8 banners in collaboration with an Art Director

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]]> http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/ford-corporate-banner-campaign/feed 1 http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-com-content http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-com-content#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:02:32 +0000 admin http://jeffpfaller.com/?p=58 A simple content re-architecture brought 100+ existing keyword rich articles that were invisible to search engines to within 2 clicks of the homepage.

Go to Allstate.com

Project Objective
Raise the organic SEO ranking of the Allstate.com auto insurance section.

Strategy
Knowing that search engines value fresh, well-linked content, Allstate sought to bump up their SEO ranking by rewriting the existing 20 articles in the auto section.

I went beyond the scope of the project and recommended they restructure the navigation to optimize content accessibility and add a blog-style content library that would house over a hundred articles that were already written, but buried in xml files.

Execution
When I first received the assignment, a content audit was done of all the auto insurance related content that existed. It was tagged, categorized and inventoried to understand the universe that we could work in.

Then, the navigation was re-worked to support an inverted “L”, with high priority content in the upper left of the top and side nav, and low priority content to the right and down. Drive to quote was high priority, then content about Allstate’s products and last content that was about topics related to Allstate’s products. Sub navigation was exposed to help users find relevant content and help the search spiders find content.

The last part of the exercise was to rewrite the 20 existing articles in the auto section and work with UX and design to create a solution for the new blog-style pages that would house the previously inaccessible articles.

Results
At the time this page was written, Allstate’s auto insurance home page was 3rd on Google for the term “auto insurance.” Time will tell if the long-tail content results in an increase in organic traffic and quote conversion.

Deliverables
Content Audit
Site Map
Copy deck for 20 articles about Allstate policies, coverage and features.
Lead content collaborator with clients, UX, design and technology

Back to Portfolio ]]> http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-com-content/feed 1 http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-personal-quote http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-personal-quote#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:13:48 +0000 admin http://jeffpfaller.com/?p=53 Before our team redesigned the quote & buy tool, Allstate sold under 250 policies online each quarter. Now they sell hundreds a day in just 30 states.

Go to Allstate Personal Quote

Project Objective
Establish Allstate as a competitive online seller of auto insurance in a crowded marketplace.

Strategy
The Geicos, Progressives and Esurances of the world already had a strong foothold when it came to selling auto insurance online, and Allstate wanted to grab their fair share of the pie.

Their initial learning showed that people valued price, but even more than that they valued reliability and convenience. By streamlining the front- and back-end of their antiquated quoting app, they hoped to not only become competitive, but leap frog their rivals in online conversion.

Execution
This project started by taking a hard look at the questions Allstate was asking users to answer. After eliminating anything that didn’t directly affect the price, we moved questions that required users to leave the computer (VIN, drivers license #) into the post-quote purchase process.

Then we worked to optimize interactions at every step of the process, all while giving users the contextual help they needed to quickly get to a quote.

On the quote screen, a delicate balance of information, interaction and design was struck. After multiple rounds of usability testing, we landed on a design that gave users three prices, the ability to customize and easy to understand contextual definitions.

Results
Given the size and complexity of this project, Allstate is rolling this tool out state by state. They began to see real results immediately, going from 8 policies sold online countrywide to hundreds sold a day in just a portion of the country.

The success of the tool has kick-started other revenue generating projects and paved the way for the quote template to be leveraged across their other products.

Deliverables
Content matrix for 50 states
Lead content collaborator with clients, UX, design and technology

Back to Portfolio ]]> http://jeffpfaller.com/2009/10/allstate-personal-quote/feed 1