WNYC
Sonic Identity
& Campaigns

Agency: Eyeball
Role: Executive Creative Director

I was honored to lead a strategic brand optimization for WNYC, during which I created the station’s sonic identity and directed Scarlett Johansson as its new brand voice. We also made a hyperlocal campaign for Radiolab Live and brand campaigns with Stanley Tucci and Eugene Merman.

To optimize WNYC's on-air brand image, I led a comprehensive audio identity overhaul that included strategy, original music, a new audio logo, and a new brand voice.

WNYC wanted every moment of their broadcast to reflect and reinforce their position as a modern, relevant source of information and culture in New York City. I led extensive interviews with all departments heads and stakeholders, and armed with a complete understanding of WNYC’s needs and aspirations, crafted a new station tagline, “Just keep listening,” as an evolution of our “Never turn it off” campaign.

In addition to a unique, forward-thinking audio logo, WNYC needed an original music package worthy of the leading public radio station in America.

We incorporated diverse influences into an eclectic set of original music beds with different options for each day-part, producing an extensive audio package to elevate and evolve their brand, complete with IDs, strategic positioning, music playlists, and style guides addressing everything from script-writing to VO casting. And as a final step, I cast and directed Scarlett Johansson as a new youthful and approachable brand voice.

To promote Radiolab’s live stage show in Brooklyn, I led creation of an artful hyper-local poster campaign.

Thanks to its immense popularity as a top-ranking podcast, Radiolab’s fan base extends across the globe and is one of my personal favorites. Our print campaign needed to convey the curiosity inherent in the show, with topics spanning from space to neuroscience to more esoteric questions about the basic nature of humanity. 

Our solution was to give designers a bundle of show segments to inspire them and then turn them loose to create. We produced over 40 posters in 3 days, allowing the show producers and WNYC to choose their favorites. The response was overwhelming with two shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music selling out in 3 hours and Radiolab hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich giving me huge hugs on premiere night.

We created a number of other brand-level campaigns for WNYC, employing notable actors who love the station and support public radio, including Stanley Tucci, Piter Marek, and Eugene Merman.

In addition to audio-only radio spots, we took the opportunity to animate a few of them and leverage WNYC’s media partnerships to extend their reach into TV and digital.