Rodrigo
Linhares

Immigration, heritage, and legacy — the key themes at the heart of ‘Permanent to Eternal,’ the short film I wrote and directed. It heralds a bold new type of collectible content, makes blockchain technology more relatable, and uses the power of art to question the world around us.

Fueled by the idea of immortalizing memories, not just symbols, we transformed the meaningful story behind a tattoo into an eternal digital format, an NFT. This NFT offers an intimate window into our protagonist’s innermost thoughts, emotions, and personal journey.

In partnership with the Moco Museum, the idea was brought to life in an immersive exhibition in Amsterdam. Bringing our protagonist’s captivating story to the public and inspiring them to share their own stories.

Working alongside the team at Monks, I helped develop “We Move as One,” a campaign born from the uncertainty of the global pandemic and grounded in a simple human truth: behind every athlete is a community that moves with them. As the lead writer across the film series, I researched each athlete’s journey and helped shape the campaign’s tone of voice, storylines, and scripts.

For the Summer and Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Monks partnered with Allianz to spark confidence around the world, bringing together nine local directors to tell the inspiring stories of 11 athletes and Allianz associates, each sharing, in their own language, what gives them the confidence to keep moving forward.

As part of the writing team, I helped shape the tone of voice and storylines across the film series, so every story felt personal, whatever language it was told in.

We turned the faceless mannequins in storefront windows into a new way to help find missing people.

We started with Patrick Alford, who disappeared at the age of seven. Six years later, we wanted to put his story and the search for him back in the public eye.

Based on an age-progressed image of Patrick at 13, we worked with a sculptor to recreate his face, capturing identifying details like the scar on his left eyebrow and his protruding ears. The mannequin was then built to match his height and body measurements at that age and painted to match his skin tone.

We dressed it in a red T-shirt and blue jeans, the same clothes Patrick was wearing when he was last seen. Next to the mannequin, we displayed key information about his disappearance, including where and when he was last seen and a contact number for anyone with information.

Then we placed Patrick’s mannequin in a busy New York storefront, turning a window normally used to sell products into a space to help find a missing child.

The idea came to me while walking the busy streets of New York. I noticed how much attention we give to storefronts, sometimes more than to the people around us. So I wondered: what if those windows could help us find someone?

Beyond coming up with the idea, I also took on a producer role, reaching out to stores and inviting them to be part of the initiative.

The goal was simple: get more stores involved, put more missing faces in front of more people, and hopefully help bring someone home.

Featured

PIX11, ABC7 Eyewitness News, AdAge, Creativity, NYPD News, Shoot, AdNews, Campaign US, Crain’s New York Business, DNA Info, MediaPost, and more.

Highlights: covered by PIX11 (channel 11) and ABC Eyewitness News (channel 7).

When monopo London was invited to launch Chinese badminton legend Lin Dan on Instagram, we knew he didn’t need an introduction. He was already one of the greatest players the sport had ever seen.

Like every superhero, what he needed was an origin story, a way for fans around the world to get closer to the person behind the legend, and discover a story they had never seen.

So, as lead writer working with AmCo Studio, I turned Lin Dan’s journey into a graphic novel built for the Instagram age: scrollable, swipeable, shareable.

Across nine episodes, we followed Lin from childhood and his first signs of extraordinary talent through the struggles, rivalries, and defining moments that shaped him into Super Dan.

Each chapter unfolded as a 10-frame illustrated carousel with its own bespoke cover, released one episode at a time and building toward the moment the legend was born.

At the heart of the series was his iconic rivalry with Lee Chong Wei, reimagined not simply as a badminton match, but as an epic battle between two athletes destined to dominate the sport.

Nine chapters. One origin story. The making of Super Dan.

As lead creative and writer, I dug into Lin Dan’s story to uncover the moments that shaped the legend, then wrote the full narrative and crafted it into nine chapters designed for social media.

“Snickers just put the most epic Photoshop fail on the back of SI’s Swimsuit issue”(Adweek)

“Sports Illustrated’s Bikini Issue cover is all messed up, thanks to Snickers”(Creativity)

As copywriter on the campaign, I helped bring “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” into the world of photographers and retouchers for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The idea was simple: what would happen if the people behind those perfect swimsuit images were hungry while doing their jobs?

We created ads that looked like typical Sports Illustrated photography, but with mistakes hidden in plain sight. The ads ran on both sides of the issue’s back cover and also helped promote the Snickers Hunger Bars, a limited edition featuring different hunger symptoms on the wrappers. For “Retoucher,” we hid 11 mistakes throughout the image and invited people to find them and share what they spotted on social media.

Featured

Adweek, Creativity Online, The Drum, Reddit, Adland, Little Black Book, and Lürzer’s Archive.

Every year, thousands of moms and dads are deployed overseas, leaving behind the people who miss them most. For their kids, months apart can feel like forever. So we found a way to bring a little piece of their parents back home, keeping them close until the day they could be together again.

As copywriter on the project, I worked with Mattel and Operation Homefront to create personalized action figures of these real-life heroes for their kids. We 3D-scanned each parent to capture their likeness, then carefully recreated the details that made each figure unmistakably them.

But what really brought them to life were the personal touches. Each figure came with accessories inspired by their favorite moments together, from a fishing rod to a cricket bat. Even the packaging celebrated the skills that made them heroes at home: cuddling, joking, dancing and simply being Mom or Dad.

Now, meet Mitchel and Maddi, and the hero who never left their side.

When people get hungry, mistakes happen. As copywriter on the campaign, I went looking for proof, hunting down some of the worst real-world screwups and claiming them with branded stickers. We also staged a few unmistakably bad jobs of our own in high-traffic locations, inviting people to spot them and share their own #HungryMistakes.

The idea caught the attention of ADWEEK, which said we were “killing it,” and even made its way to The Telegraph.

Silver Epica · Silver ADDY · Communication Arts Advertising Winner · Kinsale Shark shortlist.

To introduce the new Volkswagen Tiguan’s Sign Assist technology, I asked myself a simple question: What if we could read all the signs life throws at us?

The answer became an award-winning film that brought home a Cannes Film Lion, an LIA, and a few other trophies along the way.

Thank you, Pedro!

Nearly 80% of people who join a gym in January quit within five months. So for Brick, we turned the hardest five months into something members could actually hold in their hands.

We created a 5-month fitness plan as a Matryoshka doll, with each layer representing a new stage of progress and a smaller version of yourself waiting inside.

To help members stay on track for all five months, the Matryoshka came with a flash drive containing their personalized workout plan.

This print campaign won Russia’s first-ever Gold Lion at Cannes, and marked the beginning of my creative career.

The insight came from my childhood, when I used to ignore the instructions in LEGO boxes and leave room for my imagination to build whatever made me happy.

That way of thinking has stayed with me ever since, and still guides how I approach creativity today:
Learn the instructions, so you know when and how to break them.

P.S. This does not apply to assembling furniture. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Cannes Lions Outdoor Gold · Golden Drum Grand Prix · Epica Bronze · Golden Drum Silver.

“Plain bizarre, yet still manages to deliver the main benefit clearly and memorably,” wrote VICE about this Volkswagen film, created with DDB Tribal Germany. Proof that a brand with such a rich advertising legacy can still surprise.

It started with a simple “what if?” during a brainstorming session: what if a tree could walk onto the road to warn a driver of danger? That thought became one of my favorite scripts, and eventually, one of my favorite films.

From writing the script to helping design the costume, from the offline edit to award submissions and stages, this film has my fingerprints all over it.