Lightning in a bottle. A match made in Heaven.

Try convincing a brand to make fun of itself. And then try to deliver a creative execution that meets the extraordinarily high expectations of the fan base of an iconic entertainment property 18 years in the making. In 2007, we did.

18 months of sell-in and planning. The idea completely died more times than I can remember. But ultimately, we were able to do it ... we converted twelve 7-Eleven stores in North America into Kwik-E-Marts, the convenience store from The Simpsons. Additionally, we produced a lot of the products that had previously only existed in animated form.

The most professional fun I've ever had, and the most scared about an idea I've ever been. But ultimately, customers loved it. And they waited upwards of 3 hours just to get a chance to go in to a Kwik-E-Mart.

Sales were through the roof, and 7-Eleven was suddenly cool again. We picked up 2 Gold Lions for the initiative, and the Wall Street Journal named it the #2 advertising idea of the decade!

"D'oh Thank Heaven" we had clients who were willing to take a chance with us.

Mom: What did you do last weekend?

Me: Oh, I spent the day with Will Ferrell out in San Diego.

Yup, I actually got to say that. Because advertising is sometimes really, really cool.

7-Eleven coffee needed some help. Specifically, it needed some news during a year where we didn't have a whole lot of new news. So we decided to create some of our own, by reimagining how the coffee cup itself could work.

We partnered with celebrities and their causes to create Cup With A Cause, a program that allowed celebrities to promote their personal causes to the 7-Eleven customer; and a donation was made to that cause with every cup sold. The celebrities created the artwork for the cups, and worked with 7-Eleven to promote the program via PR, radio, social media and in-store elements.

7-Eleven's Cup With a Cause was featured in an episode of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, where he used proceeds to build a skate park next to a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles.

7-Eleven has thousands of products that provide that extra jolt of energy to those who are constantly on the go. And people generally know that we have those individual products. So how do we reposition the stores as an "energy destination?"

We partnered up with up-and-coming extreme sports athletes to create content that showcases what one can do when energy is in your veins.

We asked customers online to help us craft a series of never-been-done-before stunts, and then had our athletes perform the ones that had received the most votes.

The promotion lived online, and was distributed via 7-Eleven and partner product social media channels. Engagement was high, and energy product sales spiked during the promotion.

I wish I could talk about this extraordinary strategy and insight that we had developed when working with the Dallas Stars. But some times, creatives are best when you just let them loose to be creative.

That's what happened here. We didn't need to reposition the Stars. We weren't solving a business problem, per se. We just had some donated media that the Stars needed to fill, and they wanted to remind hockey fans how much fun can be had at a Dallas Stars game. Additionally, we had the All Star game coming to Dallas for the first time ever.

Some of my favorite copy lines are in this work. Smart and edgy.

Oh, we also got to create a new fan experience - The Fan Zam. We imagined what it could look like and how it could function. And then had someone fabricate it for us.

Dibs is a really cool snack. They're bite-sized ice cream nuggets coated in chocolate. And they're delicious. Really delicious. Don't sit down to watch TV with a whole tub.

Nestle research had indicated that Dibs was not popular with the teen crowd, who snacks continuously. So we partnered with MTV to develop the Dibs Bite Sized Film Fest - a program that asked consumers to make their own bite-sized films about how much fun it was to snack on Dibs.

We got almost 1,000 submissions. And the winning idea rivaled many that I've seen from traditional ad agencies. The winners got some money, and saw their idea aired during the MTV Movie Awards. And the clients saw a pretty good lift in brand equity scores.

7-Election is a program that 7-Eleven runs every four years during the presidential elections that allows customers to "cast votes" through their selection of coffee cups. Each candidate cup has a unique bar code that is used to tally that vote, and results are posted daily to showcase which cup is "winning." Strangely, yet awesomely, 7-Election has accurately predicted each of the past four presidential elections.

Maybe next time, the presidential candidates will do a little more campaigning with 7-Eleven. Or at least ask their supporters to come buy our coffee.

This past execution, during the Obama v. Romney matchup, was delivered beautifully. With simple, yet powerful Americana art direction.

The industry thought is was good enough for 2 Cannes Silver Lions. An added perk.

People think of 7-Eleven most often for gum, chips, soda and cigarettes. But 7-Eleven actually has one of the most progressive fresh food delivery systems in the nation. Also, they've come out with a hot foods platform that allows stores to prepare tacos, pizza and wings for customers in under 3 minutes.

But how do you get people to think of 7-Eleven in a new way? How do you get them to think of the stores as a viable food destination.

We created "The Flavor Of" campaign for the San Diego market. And we launched with television spots and outdoor boards that focused on the wide variety of craveable items that customers might not expect from 7-Eleven. All done in a lifestyle execution that sought to redefine the stereotypical 7-Eleven customer.

Gyms come in all shapes and sizes. As do the customers that frequent them. But at the end of the day, most have almost identical equipment and similar pricing plans. So customers don't really see much difference at all. Additionally, a lot of people join with the best of intentions, and then stop going when they realize that it's really hard work to stay in shape.

For 24 Hour Fitness, we wanted to convey that our brand was more than functional. We are partners in your mission for a better you, and we'll do what it takes to help you succeed ... whatever your goal is.

This campaign features a clean and approachable visual identity, and has some of the smartest copy I've seen in a while.

No great background story here. The creative team had a really simple, fun idea for a holiday message. And we knew there was generally money left over in places at the end of the fiscal year. So we boarded it up, and went over and asked for some money.

A lot of times, clients want you to bring them good work that they don't necessarily ask for. And some times, they buy it when you do.

This one was a bit of a gamble. It was a new show that went undercover into organizations to find out the good and the not-so-good in the people and practices of well-known companies. The producer told me that their real goal was find the amazing stories of employees. But they needed the CEO of the company to be the one who witnessed those stories first-hand. And they needed us to trust them that it wasn't going to be an expose or a hatchet job.

"Hey, Joe DePinto. Would you like to take a week off of work to cloak your identity, travel around the country, complete tasks throughout the system, and talk to complete strangers about their thoughts on your organization? Oh, all the while, cameras will be running and you'll ultimately have no control over what they decide to air on national TV."

That was ultimately the ask.

Fortunately, 7-Eleven has tens of thousands of amazing stories about its employees. And fortunately, 7-Eleven has a visionary CEO that was gutsy and took the chance to experience the front lines of the organization in a very unique way. And fortunately, it all worked out great.

7-Eleven became the second episode of the series, which has gone on to be a huge success. The episode was a great representation of some unique and genuine employees of 7-Eleven, and showed how the brand represented so much opportunity in individuals' lives.

As icing on the cake, Oprah was moved by the episode and asked Joe and 7-Eleven delivery driver, Igor, to appear on an episode of her show. During the Oprah show, Igor was awarded his own 7-Eleven franchise store.

Tears were shed, and I was finally able to breathe - knowing that the agency wasn't going to get fired for the risky idea.

During the 2010 interim elections, President Obama began increasingly using this car in ditch/Slurpee line in his stump speeches. We laughed at first. But the more we heard it, the more we recognized an immediate opportunity. But we knew we had to act fast.

Within 48 hours of that realization, we had launched the Slurpee Unity Tour — a cross country road trip promoting the peace and harmony that a Slurpee can represent. We even had a new flavor, Purple for the People, that we sampled at every step along the way. The goal was to get to Washington, DC, where we would host an official Slurpee Summit and invite President Obama and Speaker Boehner to share a Slurpee in a bipartisan spirit.

The media loved it. And it gave 7-Eleven significant relevance during a nasty political season. We ended the trip with a free concert by Blues Traveler and a four-hour celebration blocks away from the White House.

We didn't ever see the President or Speaker. But because it was covered by almost every network, I'm pretty sure they saw us.

If was named Best Promotion of 2011 and was shortlisted by Cannes.

I don't remember exactly how we ended up with the DOMO property. But I remember the assignment was to have DOMO take over the store in a fun way.

I love the art direction on this initiative. Some of the packaging ideas were truly excellent.

To help take the idea out of the store, we worked with DOMOs creators to develop a three-part webisode on what it would be like for DOMO to experience a Slurpee for the first time. Ended up being a great little piece of content to use in 7-Eleven's digital channels.

The "Oh Thank Heaven" tagline has been around for decades, but has been used less and less in recent years. We wanted to find a way to bring it back in a contemporary way, and find a way to translate the line into a visual button to use consistently across elements.

This execution is a 30-second brand spot that conveyed just how much stuff 7-Eleven has for you when you either really want something or really need something. The spot does a nice job of adding some emotional triggers to a category that's almost entirely functional.

What would happen if you had to travel across the country, but could only stop at 7-Eleven stores for all of your food, toiletries, banking, snacking, etc.? We wanted to find out. Well, we didn't actually want to find out. We wanted someone else to find out, while we filmed the experience.

So we created Road Trip Rally - a cross country trek that pitted two teams against each other in a race to the Indy 500 (a 7-Eleven sponsored event). We casted. We designed the routes. We created vendor-sponsored challenges. We formed two road crews who shot, edited and published content for 16 days straight. And, in essence, created a 7-Eleven online reality show.

All told, we gained more than 2 million viewers. And we showcased just how much "stuff" 7-Eleven has that can keep you on the go.

3 weeks out of the office wasn't bad either.