Jeff Terwilliger, senior art director at Pocket Hercules, digs from his well of stories to share behind-the-scenes of three of his favorite campaigns that he’s ever worked on.
For those who know Jeff Terwilliger, senior art director at Pocket Hercules, it’s no surprise that when he looks back on his expansive catalogue of work, the campaigns he’s most fond of involve their fair share of adventure.
Outside of art direction, Terwilliger is a competitive speed skater–one of the best in the nation for his age group. The fearlessness, agility, and rigor that make him such a strong skater always carry through his creative work.
“What’s so cool about Pocket Hercules that I didn’t get anywhere else, is you get to be more spontaneous and create on the fly,” said Terwilliger, who spent more than thirty years with different agencies before joining Pocket Hercules in 2017. “If we need to shoot in the snow and it’s snowing in Denver, we’re going to fly there. I’ll pack up and go. It’s so much easier to make quick, smart decisions on the fly when your team is small and people are willing to do what they need to do to get the job done.”
From his nine years at Pocket Hercules, here are Terwilliger’s top three campaigns that he’s ever worked on:
Toro “Grass Fed Bulls”
The Pocket Hercules crew shot this 2019 campaign in Dallas, Texas. At the time, it was one of the first projects that Pocket Hercules did for Toro Lawn Mowers. While other companies were busy filming grass mowing shots and product demos, Terwilliger and the PH team had the idea to shoot an actual fighting bull to symbolize the heritage of the old Toro bull logo and the strength and unyielding nature of the new lawn mower. The concept itself was simple, but still vastly different from what other lawn care companies were doing at the time.
“We were looking at casting a domestic bull through a bull wrangler,” said Terwilliger, “and the wrangler said, ‘No, you want a nasty one.’ So, he gave us Hugh.”
Hugh wasn’t just any fighting bull. As a two-time World Champion Freestyle Fighting Bull, he was a legend. On set, his reputation rang true. The crew had to shoot Hugh through a hole in his pen. If he saw people, he would get riled up and try to take them down.
In the end, Pocket Hercules generated a 30-second commercial, several online videos, and print posters from the shoot, successfully helping the brand get its “snort” back.
Toro “Win Winter”
For Toro’s 2020 “Win Winter” campaign, Terwilliger and Stephen Dupont, Vice President of Public Relations at the time, chased a storm all the way to Ironwood, Michigan. The forecast in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was dry that March, but Ironwood was slated to have its biggest snowstorm of the winter. So, Terwilliger, Dupont, videographer BJ Schulz, and photographer Nick Fay rented two pickups and hauled multiple snowblowers within hours up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
While scouting locations, Terwilliger and Dupont came across two lift operators at the local ski mountain who had the perfect look for the campaign. “These guys were awesome. One had a big, burly black beard, and the other had rough teeth and a long scraggly beard. We were like, ‘You guys look totally hardcore. Do you have an hour?’ And they actually took us up on it.”
The next day, the team woke up at five in the morning, in the middle of the storm, and started blowing the snow off neighborhood sidewalks. They didn’t have permission to shoot, but figured there would be little resistance to a free snow removal job after a massive snowfall. They were right.
“It was awesome to shoot in a snowstorm,” said Terwilliger. “The snow was light and fluffy. The machines were blowing it like 40 feet in the air. The campaign turned out just great.”
After getting once-in-a-decade footage of this major natural event, the team slugged back to their hotel to find all of the furniture from the lobby completely gone. The news of COVID-19 just hit, and any and all efforts to keep people six feet away from each other became necessary in the blink of an eye. Over the course of just one shoot day, the entire world had changed.
Harley Davidson “Free(er)”
Ten stunning print spreads and asset capture for an entire year’s worth of Harley Davidson marketing materials–That was the task at hand for the brand’s 2017 “Free(er)” campaign, headed by Jim Nelson at lead agency Wolfes and supported by the team at Pocket Hercules.
After coming up with the headline that led the charge of the campaign, Nelson, Terwilliger, and the rest of the crew spent two months shooting in every dusty corner of Colorado, leaving no stone unturned. Though production necessitated intense planning and exacting coordination for both safety and efficiency concerns, the campaign still bled adventure.
“We shot in mountains, over bridges, in tunnels, everywhere,” recalled Terwilliger. “On any given day, one photo crew and art director could be up in the mountains while the other team was in Denver shooting downtown or at a track race outside of the city.”
Over the course of two months, the crew captured beauty, product, and lifestyle shots for about 60 bikes in more than 20 different locations around Colorado, capturing the beating heart of motorcycle culture in the Rocky Mountain region.
Pocket Hercules: Small but Mighty
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