UGA advertising alumni shine with Super Bowl commercials
Jason Kreher (ABJ ’00), a Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication alumnus, had a hand in creating two of the most popular commercials during this year’s Super Bowl.
He served as creative director for both the Irish Spring cult-horror parody and the minimalist Coinbase DVD logo reference. The Coinbase ad was ranked No.1 by Ad Age and AdWeek and received a Super Clio for best ad in the Super Bowl.
Getting to know Jason
Jason enrolled at UGA in 1996 already interested in the journalism school. He gives a lot of credit to Karen Whitehill King’s media class in which he said he learned “literally everything I know today.”
After graduating in 2000, Jason traveled to Florence, Italy, before returning to the United States and landing a job as an assistant account executive on the intel account. In 2008, Jason joined the international advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy where he worked his way up to the creative director of its entertainment and editorial division.
During this time, he earned the 2017 Henry W. Grady Mid-Career Alumni Award. Though he finds the ‘Mid-Career’ part of the title “hilariously diminutive,” he still asserts that this was the most exciting award to receive—and he’s received a lot of awards, including two Grand Prix’s at the Ciclope International Festival of Craft and the AICP’s Campaign of the Year, to name a few.
After 14 years with Wieden + Kennedy, Jason found a new position as chief creative officer North America at Accenture Interactive. It was with this agency that Jason created and directed the Coinbase and Irish Spring ads for the Super Bowl.
Jason (right) with Karen Whitehall King and Grady alumnus Tatum Shaw (ABJ ’02).
About the ads
He says he is pleased with the ads’ receptions. He prides himself on creating provocative ads, so when Coinbase’s one-minute-long bouncing QR code received mixed reviews, he was thrilled it was getting lots of attention.
“The Coinbase response was incredibly fun to watch happen in real time,” he said. “I love that once the dust settled, the spot came in first in the AdWeek and Ad Age polls and dead last in the USA Today poll. We knew the commercial wasn’t for everyone, but that was never the point. The number of people who scanned and the number of people who stayed and signed up exceeded our clients’ wildest expectations.”
Despite being the more traditional of the two commercials—if you can call a sweaty man stumbling into a cleaning-obsessed cult traditional—Jason is happy with how the Irish Spring ad turned out, too.
“Irish Spring made a few top ten lists as well,” he said. “But the funniest part is that I snuck in my high school’s logo on the main character’s shirt. Apparently, Brookwood pride is very real, almost alarmingly so. My clients were like, ‘why is our social feed lighting up in Snellville Georgia all of a sudden?’ Nice work, Internet Broncos.”
All of Jason’s work—advertisements, short films, songs and more—are on his website.
Jason shooting a campaign in Prague.
If you want more Super Bowl ads by Georgia Bulldogs …
Grady alumnus Andy Pearson (ABJ ’06, AB ’06) also had a hand in a popular regional commercial for Liquid Death.
Andy served as the vice president of creative services for the ad which featured small children (and one pregnant woman) partying and drinking the non-alcoholic sparkling water to Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law.” The brand purposefully markets itself to look alcoholic to give those who don’t want to drink a healthier alternative without feeling pressured.
Andy also has his own website with his many advertising campaigns. He and his wife, Liza Behles, also have a joint website where they freelance remotely as a creative duo.
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