I joined L'Oréal as the final member of the newly assembled "No Red Tape Unit," one of two teams in the brand's internal creative group L'Agency. We had a specific directive: to get people talking about the 37 brands in the L'Oréal portfolio. And, per our name, we had a mandate: our ideas went straight in front of brand leadership, bypassing the usual processes, guidelines, and other 'red tape.'

We operated outside of the brands' traditional marketing channels, finding unexpected avenues to earn consumers' attention. We used a geography savant to sell mascara, a basketball star to sell lotion, a coven of witches to sell perfume, an army of redheaded bellhops to sell hair dye, and we glued OOH posters up with makeup primer.