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Betabrand Poo Emoji Shirt

June 5, 2018 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Betabrand is known for a slapstick approach to content creation and storytelling, so when it came to coming up with how to present a shirt literally covered with poop emojis, the brainstorming session consisted of all sorts of lowbrow concepts. One of them consisted of photoshopping studio photos of a model being flushed down a toilet.

Sick of the rampant potty humor, in the creative meeting I proposed a presentation that was almost a complete 180: let the product serve as the humorous element and do something not at all expected. Instead, I wanted to model the mood in the style of a tv novella or soap opera to create the narrative.

It took some convincing, but the concept paid off, as the internet took the queues provided and ran with as the major blogs picked up the story. (Julie at BuzzFeed, you get me) The launch proved successful, inspiring a number of follow-up products.  Although some ‘photochop’ cheese was added to the gallery after the fact, it remains as some of the favorite work I did for Betabrand during my tenure.

Select Web Coverage:

Buzzfeed — This is the Classiest Poop Shirt You’ll Ever Wear

Gizmodo — This Poop Emoji Shirt is Crap

CNet — Poop Emoji button-up shirt makes your wardrobe stink

AdWeek — Betabrand’s Latest Stunt: The Poop Emoji Shirt

The Guardian — The Poo Shirt (or the rise of emoji fashion)

The Verge — Here’s that poop emoji button up shirt you always wanted

Thrillist — This Poop Emoji Button Up Shirt Smells Like Sucess

Daily News — Smiling poop emoji shirt, matching sneakers a hit with online shoppers

 

Filed Under: Betabrand Tagged With: Art Direction, Betabrand, Photography, PR

Bosky x Betabrand: Wood Sunglasses Product Launch

June 9, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Case Study: Photography & Creative Direction

Bosky Optics is an Oregon-based company that creates sunglasses and snow goggles with natural and recycled materials. For this collaboration between Bosky and Betabrand we had less than a week to come up with a plan for creative direction and execute it.

The concept we came up with? Wood models wearing wood sunglasses! This was a fun concept to run with. To execute it, we had a make-up artist paint our models, then enhanced the photos in post-production.

For this launch, I took an active role in creative direction, scouted locations, and did the studio and location photography with the assistance of our stylist/ photo producer Megan. Our graphic designers helped with post-production and retouching of the wood mannequin effects.


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Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Betabrand, Bosky, Photography, Sunglasses

Event Marketing: The Time We Jumped an Electric Bike Over a Car to Sell Pants

April 27, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Maker Faire is an event created by Maker Magazine that’s part science fair, and part county fair, intended to be a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness. It also was the site of one of the first event marketing stunts we put on during my stint with Betabrand.

To raise awareness of Betabrand’s collection of office/bicycle friendly workwear, the team created the character of Eco Knievel – the world’s first eco-friendly stuntman. While wearing Betabrand Bike to Work Pants, our fearless stuntman would launch an ebike into the air over a Humvee in front of a crowd ammassed at the event.

 

The challenge? In 2011, eMountain Bikes didn’t exist as they do now. It wouldn’t have mattered though as our partner for the stunt that providing the ebike for the event, only sells a utility-style ebike designed for delivering cargo. While said ebike was a hoot to ride around San Francisco and could do a mean burn out, (provided you locked the front brake while unweighting the rear of the bike) it handled about as well as a wheel barrow in the air.

Another way to describe it could be to say that this electric utility bike possessed a similar capacity for flight as a red brick.

Which, assuming you were astride said red brick as it launches into the air, you would likely be screaming at the top of your lungs as the unfriendly ground rushes up to meet you. 

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As the resident “extreme mountain biker” in the office, at one point, I was asked if I was interested in assuming the task of executing the jump. Although performing a stunt of this caliber was technically within my existing skillset (I once moonlighted as a mountain biking stunt man for an HBO production) on my personal bike, having ridden said electric bike around town, I was all-too-familiar with the handling of the utility bike, as well as its non-existent capacity for flight.

My response was a politely uttered “Oh hell no“. (This story plays a lot better if you read this line as performed by Chris Tucker in the cult classic film”Friday“.)

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My task assigned for undertaking was to recruit a stuntman and a crew to construct the ramps for the event, then produce the photography and documentary video. With a measly budget of maybe a couple of hundred bucks. Ok, it was maybe 2-3 times that… but not very much.

To assist in pulling off this event I recruited a pro BMX rider friend to help with assembling a crew to construct the ramps, transport them across the bay area, and perform the stunt.

On the day of the event, when the crowd ammassed on site and it was time to jump the bike he was genuinely scared. It was a bit ironic considering he could have backflipped his personal bikes over the ramps all day without breaking a sweat.

Needless to say the crowd was entertained and he walked away unscathed. Somehow we pulled it off, and our stuntman lived though the fact the bike flew like said brick. After the jump, he rode his bike through a wall of tofu, but that was nowhere near as daring as the main event.

Filed Under: Betabrand Tagged With: Betabrand, Marketing, Marketing Stunts

Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell

January 7, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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During my tenure at Betabrand, I rarely had time to scout locations for shoots as our release schedule moved extremely quickly. Because of that, we scheduled shoots based model availability and the time of day to capitalize on natural lighting conditions. If we needed a specific setting, I’d use Google Maps to plan locations.

I was looking forward to shooting the STL Tyvek Windshell; during our creative meeting I was given a mood board and a few locations were suggested as possibilities. Fortunately, I managed to get out on my bike to visit the site a few days in advance to find the time the lighting would be optimal. The extra bit of preparation resulted in a great set of images and when we were launching the product, we a lot of great visual assets to work with.

You can view the Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell at Betabrand.com.

Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Betabrand, Creative Direction, Photography, Tearsheets

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