It’s not compost. Or trash. What is it?

It’s always (actual) fun getting to introduce something (actually) new instead of something (fake) “new.” Like Mill, which recently launched a kitchen bin that takes food scraps and turns them into food grounds. As in, your old food becomes new food for chickens. Instead of ending up in a compost heap or, much worse, in a landfill.

Even though I wrote (and rewrote, and rewrote…) the script, let’s give it up for the immensely impactful direction on this one by Spencer MacDonald. Plus our dynamite co-conspirators on the client side, notably Chris Brown. And of course the whole Avocados and Coconuts squad who somehow find ways to make work like this happen, time and again.

Everyone on this one was committed to a worthy goal: don’t make the same launch video everyone else does! Especially not for a tech product.

There’s a lot to do: establish the stakes, explain what it is, add some flavor, sprinkle liberally with The Why. And also: be good. Be interesting. Have a point of view. Respect people’s attention and the brains that make that attention possible. Avoid the tropes, and the traps.

This was a proper launch spot introducing a new company, and a new technology that promised new possibilities. It was above the fold on their site when their first press releases pinged out to the media, plus it showed up in feature segments on shows like Good Morning America and CNBC’s Power Lunch, and was embedded in many of the high-profile articles that were part of the introductory press effort.