christian sternal
creative director | copywriter
Small projects, new work, weird projects, singles, pro bono, outliers, or campaign-less gems. Don’t feel bad for this work because it lives way out here in the phantom zone. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Or don’t. Your move.
Small projects, new work, weird projects, singles, pro bono, outliers, or campaign-less gems. Don’t feel bad for this work because it lives way out here in the phantom zone. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Or don’t. Your move.
Over 100 years of competitive tradition, sportsmanship that’s a cut above, and next-level determination at a university that’s nested on top of “Hawk Hill,” looming over Philadelphia. We knew where we needed to start—and then landed in an exceptionally good place. Leaving Hawk athletics, coaches, players, and recruiting with a tight campaign and marketing kit that was ready to fly.
Look for more materials to drop and a page to get developed in my main portfolio. Maybe. We’ll see.
PRESIDENT greg ash | ECD/DIRECTOR konstantinos psimaris | CD/CW jared miller | FL/CW christian sternal | DESIGNER sydney burgess | EXEC DIR STRATEGY lindsay white
Winning a significant chunk of Spectrum Brands’ Hardware and Home Improvement (HHI) division account was sweet. But it wasn’t like landing a typical brand account—it was more like taking on three fully grown, distinctly different brands (Kwikset, Pfister, and Baldwin Hardware) all at once. It was never about Spectrum. It was about making sure these brands stayed in their own lanes. Three brands under one umbrella—I worked on two.
CCO john zegowitz | CD/CW christian sternal | ACD/CW ryan simonson | SR AD david kania | SR AD vu dang | JR AD amy higgins | PRODUCTION DESIGNER timothy auerbach | EDITOR / VFX albert lam | VP CONTENT/EP catherine gudvangen | SVP BRAND SOLUTIONS tommy campagne | VP MARKETING kirsten wright | CCO zach lyons | PRESIDENT/CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER jeff roach | CEO/FOUNDER james schiefer [DIGITAL] COO & DIGITAL STUDIO HEAD braden bailey
A million years ago, I did some work through AD2LA (AD2 SoCal) that ended up winning some special National ADDY public service awards that no one’s ever heard of before. Cool. A few months later, someone who was involved with that project tapped me to create a poster to help get the word out that the Los Angeles Creative Club was hosting The One Show Awards Exhibit at Chiat\Day. Cool.
CW christian sternal | AD david cho
The clients understood their audience, considered their options, and concluded that the most strategic move was to just let me off my leash.
ECD tammo walter | CD david levy | ACD/CW christian sternal
Hilton needed a new marketing kit to relaunch the Homewood Suites brand after they acquired it. And it needed to be franchisee-friendly—so most of the work needed to be pretty tame, but I did manage to have some fun with the radio.
CD deirdre mcquaide | CW christian sternal
We were in between campaigns with Prestone. They decided that they needed something to air while we continued to fine-tune a (funny and all-around awesome) campaign for them, so I wrote a few super simple digital spots designed to sucker-punch the competition in the interim.
Shortly afterwards, our funny and all-around awesome campaign had a nasty accident. Ended up drowning in a bathtub full of politics and overthinking. RIP.
CCO john zegowitz | CD/CW christian sternal | SR. AD vu dang | PRODUCTION DESIGNER/JR AD timothy auerbach | EDITOR / VFX albert lam | VP CONTENT / EP catherine gudvangen | SVP BRAND SOLUTIONS tommy campagne | I’m missing some people …
ADDYs, OC
Silver
“Get A Room”
Trade Publication Fractional Page, Four-Color
2001
The first award I ever won in advertising, I won with this ridiculous “Meetings and Conventions” one-off piece. Like many ads for this client back then, it was created in a fit of frustration. We were told we had to use ONLY visuals from a certain incredibly janky set of photos they’d snapped years before. As we went through them, rolling our eyes and groaning about how immeasurably bad they were, we landed on this one. I literally said out loud, “Holy sh*t…look at these idiots just sitting on some steps somewhere…get a room!” Boom.
ECD scott montgomery | CD eric spiegler, dee mcquaide | AD pat tom | CW christian sternal | ACCOUNT DIRECTOR debbie zimmerman | PRODUCTION MANAGER tracy mccarthy
I love this project because it was so purely ridiculous.
The client asked us to create a Carl’s x My Best Friend’s Girl movie cross-promotion. “The movie trailer is the brief,” they said. (Plot: Girl breaks up with nice Guy #1 to date other guys, so Guy #1 asks Guy #2 to date Girl and treat her like crap so she’ll come running back to him. Yawn.) So, naturally, we decided to focus on the part in the movie where Guy #1 gets his eyebrow shaved off by accident, instead.
We built a microsite that let you use an interactive shaver to remove one of your eyebrows from a photo you uploaded. You know, so you could send it to someone you love. Problem was, back then, we had no idea whether the dev team could actually figure out how to pull this off—but we had faith. Sweatin’ bullets for a while, but we got there.
CD mick dimaria | CD justin hooper | CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER dustin callif | CW christian sternal | CW jordan schatz | AD joseph gray | EP patrick mcfarlane | PRODUCTION COORDINATOR kathryn berthume | INTERACTIVE PRODUCER becky chaves
Bacchus is the Roman name for Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It’s also the name of a South Korean energy drink brand that has nothing to do with wine, that wanted to create some sponsorship posters for the LA Korean International Film Festival.
CW christian sternal | AD david cho
