At Whole Foods Market we created a multimedia platform highlighting inspirational people and stories that embody the Whole Foods Market ethos and Core Values. “Dark Rye” put WFM at the forefront of content marketing, garnering a James Beard Award and all types of recognition for leading retail with an alternative marketing style that allowed the brand to expand and engage segments new and established. Under my auspices, “Dark Rye” was put together by an amazing in-house team working with freelance creatives on a monthly basis. It was a true multimedia experience consisting of hundreds of long-form articles, videos, infographics, social integrations, and ultimately a television series.
This trailer fails to capture the breadth of the award winning content platform, but gives some nice flavor.
This sample of the content has the essential ingredients for a Dark Rye story: Someone doing something new, inspiring, somewhat off the beaten path and aesthetically motivated.
This is a rather startling piece of content that served to authenticate Whole Foods Market's support of a thoughtful examination of the choices we make around food and connection to a greater ethos. Light branding and an artistic perspective allowed the brand to maintain enough distance from controversy to avoid alienating a more conventional audience, but the profound gravity of the topic illustrates how actively the enterprise is seeking to engage the world we live in with dialog and it legitimized the WFM digital content platform as more than window dressing. This short film was shown at domestic film festivals and WFM's digital channels.
The intention behind the launch of Whole Foods Market's social programs was to be able to 'hear' the community around the stores, further interaction, and delight the customer by satisfying their expressed desires. Perhaps ironically, the best way to do so was to give all stakeholders a platform through which to speak! This video announced to the team members that they had the chance to speak up too and join their voices with the voices of stakeholders from the company, its customers, vendors, and store and regional communities.
This never-published spot for WFM's 5-Step Animal Welfare Program took a dense, almost impenetrable, multi-tiered, third-party verified, highly-claims-regulated, animal husbandry program, that threatened to alienate proud carnivores and animal rights advocates alike, and reduced it to something relatable, friendly and entertaining that made sense for all. I oversaw the work done through an agency called TAXI.
