PepsiCo Foods is on a journey to showcase the endless culinary possibilities of their food and give people the opportunity to experience a unique foodie twist with their chips. I was proud to participate in the creative strategy, naming and copy for the menu for the first-ever Doritos restaurant – Doritos After Dark – at Crypto Arena in Los Angeles.

Doritos After Dark offers fans a delicious menu of elevated late-night favorites that feature Doritos versatility and bold flavors.

My participation:

- Naming (Doritos After Dark) - Creative Strategy (Late Night-inspired bites to eat anytime a day) - Copy for each menu item.

OPENING RESULTS: 4B impressions - 136 outlet placements - +3000 purchases.

The neon-filled strip bursting with hotels, casinos, shows and shops is the image we all have in our minds when we think of Las Vegas. It’s all about celebrating big time.

For Super Bowl LVIII, we created our own fun version of Vegas strip, Frito-Lay style, bringing to life all the iconic places in Vegas and infusing them with our brands assets and personality.

The highlight of the Frito-Lay Chip Strip was the Frito-Lay Snackpot, where you could try your luck to win prizes like custom rings and decks of illustrated cards.

This immersive on-the-ground experience wouldn’t be complete without our cheesy version of a Vegas chapel, where visitors interacted with our Chester hologram in real-time.

This was a cross-functional team effort, and many talented people made this idea possible.

My participation:

• Creative Concept and name to Chip Strip.

• Ideation for iconic places within the Chip Strip.

• Creative strategy and all copies for activation.

We were tasked by the Cheetos Brand Team to create an activation for media outlets to celebrate and bring awareness to Cheetos 75th Anniversary in a very fashionable way.

We came together as a team to bring to life a Chester-worthy Cheetos party. “Make your Mark” was our guiding concept which also spoke to our brand positioning, where Cheetos celebrates everyone who pushes boundaries and pop the serious bubble.

Our strategy was to showcase our brand making a mark in Fashion, Art and Food.

I helped with concepting and bringing design strategy to life in different and engaging touchpoints. I did this alongside an incredible team: Alina Rodal, Nicolas Vallejos, David Code, Joey Ochoa, McKenzie Whitlow and Payton Gaskin.

For its second year, our Smartfood Valentine’s Day platform “All Love is Smart Love”, celebrates all expressions of love while honoring the LGBTQ+ community. Through this initiative we intend to give the stage to artists from the community and bring their perspective to life through our popcorn bags.

Together with GLAAD and Ash + Chess (@ashandchess), we created a bold, limited edition Valentine’s Day pack and media kit that radiates with love for the LGBTQ+ community.

Artistic duo Ash and Chess, a queer and trans couple, explain, “So often, and especially on Valentine’s Day, we focus on romantic love as the most important — but there are so many ways to love and express connection.”

I was lucky to work again with Claire Behan, the designer behind this kit. I created the design strategy and conceptual territories, all copy work and led the initiative from start to finish (alongside with Claire).

The LGBTQ+ community should be honored outside Pride Month. For Valentine’s Day we partnered with GLAAD and queer artist Ari Liloan to celebrate an authentic, inclusive and compelling love season challenging the traditional visual language of the day.

For this purpose, we created a custom Smartfood bag and an influencer kit.

The bag featured Liloan’s symbolic artwork depicting scenes that represent different types of love. The influencer kit featured a zine highlighting different identities within the LGBTQ+ community. We also provided a stationary set, inviting people to reach out to their loved ones.

All this under our main theme “All love is Smart Love” that celebrates love in all colors under the brand’s positioning on “smart choices”. Our custom bag provided a QR Code inviting people to make donations to GLAAD efforts on inclusivity and equality for the LGBTQ+ community.

The work was had unpaid PR exposure on the Dieline, creating buzz around the packaging and initiative: Smartfood Releases Limited Edition Bag That Includes The LGBTQ+ Community From Start To Finish

Designer and partner in crime: Claire Behan

Claire Behan Design

I was honored to participate as a conceptor and writer in this meaningful project. I feel proud of projects that impact people's lives beyond just the creative. With "Roots to Rise Market," Stacy's Pita Chips spotlights women entrepreneurs and their businesses.

From PepsiCo press release:

“Stacy’s Pita Chips continues its longstanding commitment of championing women-owned businesses with the announcement of its next Stacy's Rise Project Class, a grant and mentoring program for female entrepreneurs. And, new this year, Stacy’s Pita Chips is honoring the resilience of women entrepreneurs who have faced adversity and persevered through the release of Rise – a short film debuting this week at the Sundance Film Festival.”

“As part of the Sundance Film Festival, Stacy’s Pita Chips is hosting Stacy’s Roots to Rise Market. The market will showcase products from past and present Stacy’s Rise Project winners. In addition, visitors can view the film at daily screenings and sample a variety of snacks featuring Stacy’s Pita Chips products. Stacy’s Pita Chips will also host several panels featuring Stacy’s Rise Project winners, the creators of the Rise film, women in film and entertainment, and Stacy’s Pita Chips founder Stacy Madison”.

See the video, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFixKQQKQM

My participation:

• Concept idea of the Marketplace, plus name.

• Collaborator for copywriting across the activation touchpoints (walls in the venue).

Doritos brought back their Twisted Lime bold flavor exclusively for Halloween as a limited edition pack. This was exceptional teamwork to keep our brand positioning yet bring to life a conceptual idea that could be fun for the season.

What better than a Secret Society devoted to Triangles? Tasty triangles that is! With this Illuminati look and feel, plus the green accents laddering up to our bold lime flavor, we created a lot of buzz and excitement.

Short-format copy for packaging that ladders to the design concept. Most of the samples are for limited-time flavors.

We collaborated with FedEx Office print services and their Small Business Grant winners, to create digital videos that show how these small business owners evolved and grew with the help of high-quality marketing materials. We went to each city where the businesses are located in a 10-day shoot to bring their story to life.

The team working on Frito-Lay Tostitos concept for “Cinco de Mayo celebration” called me in as a creative collaborator for the GAME portion of the campaign: 5 Ways to Cinco.

They needed an idea that could speak in a relevant and authentic way to both U.S. Hispanic and General Market audiences. It had had to check many other boxes too: be a game - work on digital and in retail scenarios - use celebrity Danny Trejo (who we had already signed up with the campaign) - give people an excuse to get together and do something fun. Ultimately, they wanted an experience!

I came up with the idea of taking Mexican traditional “Lotería Game” (think of a Mexican bingo-like card game), and have it customized for Tostitos “5 Ways to Cinco” and Trejo.

It was a great accomplishment to be able to bring an idea to the team that client’s loved and audiences could have fun with, but above all rooted in an authentic cultural background.

Los Angeles based non-profit record label, Future Youth Records, empowers young, talented musicians (from all over the world) to be heard and known through their songwriting contests. FYT features music that advocates for social change.

They approached us asking for a revamp of their social posts to communicate the winners of their 2020 contest “Think Peace”. We went beyond just giving them a post, to providing them with a concept, visual identity and toolkit they could use with diverse contests.

Through the concept “Peace is our Voice” we featured the winners and highlighted their powerful lyrics with a sleek, clean design. We also made their social message clearer and visually powerful so other artists (and public in general) could relate and be engaged.

FedEx Office had a retail challenge they needed to solve creatively. They asked us to bring their physical “Sample Wall” (where they showcase their printed products) to life in smaller stores that don’t have enough space to feature the actual products.

We translated their “Sample Wall” into engaging CGI videos, under a beauty shot idea.

The videos highlighted the qualities of each FedEx Office printed product in a realistic, yet digital way, giving them that sense of texture and detail they needed to capture people’s attention.

As creatives we always show our most interesting work in our book, and the day-to-day craft gets somehow forgotten.

I want to dedicate this space to all that Social Media writing work that takes a good portion of my day and that I absolutely LOVE to do, because is the way the brands we represent connect talk to real people. Not advertisers to advertisers.

This is just a sample of what legitimately means “everyday work”. And we should be proud to show it.

Plus, this also shows how small budgets can still look beautiful and how scrappy can be a good thing, if the message is coming across successfully!

Recognition:

Cannes Lions Shortlist 2016

Ojo de Iberoamérica - SILVER Radio 2016

USH Idea Awards - BRONZE Radio 2016

COPY: Leirum Rivas
AD:  Andrea Barreto
ACD: Victor Vetancourt
CCO: Ciro Sarmiento
Producer: Jorge Urdiain

In 2013, I decided to take a break and do something that could challenge me to be a better creative and a much assertive copywriter, especially in English. I took some courses on the Continuing Education Program in New York's School of Visual Arts. It was an eye-opening and very rewarding experience. Many ideas, creative explorations and mock-ups came out of it. Here is a small selection of the work I did in that period.

Work I did for Leo Burnett in Caracas, Venezuela

Ronald McDonald House Charities

2014 Calendar - 12 Looks on Magic

What is the Ronald McDonald House?

Many families travel far from home and spend several weeks or months to get treatment for their seriously ill or injured children – a long time to be away or to divide a family. And, for children facing a serious medical crisis, nothing seems scarier than not having mom and dad close by for love and support. A Ronald McDonald House is that “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost.

Brief

To create a unique calendar that would inspire people to donate and feel closer to this beautiful cause.

The idea

We wanted to create something truly inspiring that would not only work as a regular calendar but rather as a heart warming experience. We invited twelve local artists and designers to join us and visit the children living in Casa Ronald McDonald Venezuela. Each artist spent an afternoon getting to know a child: their favorite games, colors, dreams and hopes. Later they were asked to make their own illustrated portrait of their new buddy.  Their unique vision of the inner world of that child.

A double inspiration that shows the value of hope

Awards:

GOLD Premios Anda 2014 (Local)

CORN FLAKES CASE STUDY - The cereal that came in stories

For Kellogg’s Corn Flakes we turned each box of cereal into a book, creating different stories and unique characters.

As a theme all stories showed incredibly intelligent kids with super unique powers such as “the kid who counted and collected aromas” or “the girl who lost the letter A”.

We invited storytellers to libraries and bookstores to recreate these imaginative stories. Kids had a great time listening to these tales and learning how to create their own books.

Awards: Shortlist en el Festival del Caribe 2013