Oh hey I’m Mike. I was supposed to be the 5th-generation Behrends to take over the family farm but then I chose a life of letters, ending the succession. These are the stakes I bring to the table.
I am currently a creative director on ESPN at Arts & Letters Creative Co. Previously I was a CD and writer at Fallon on the Arby’s “We Have The Meats” campaign. I’ve worked in-house and at agencies on brands like Target, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dick’s Sporting Goods, H&R Block, Entenmann’s, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Trolli, plus some bonus work with Pusha T, Old Spice, and ESPN SportsCenter by way of ✨𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔡 𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔫𝔢𝔯𝔰𝔥𝔦𝔭𝔰✨
Please enjoy this curated selection of work, not excluding this AdAge op-ed or the monster 𝕒𝕟𝕕𝟙 below from my “basketball era.” And feel free to send not spam to michaeljbehrends @ gmail dot com. ✌🏻❤️
Arby’s Free Sandwich Month
The Voice Of Arby’s will not stand for any more of your Arby’s slander. There are two ways to get this madness to stop. One is to give a free sandwich to anyone who signs up for the Arby’s app, the other is for Ving Rhames to climb out of your television during countless March Madness commercial breaks and force feed you a Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich until you are forever changed and better for it.
🏆 EFFIES
CD—Me and Joe Johnson
CW—Neil Lopez
AD—Steve Torres
Director—Jake Szymanksi tha God
The Voice Of Arby’s will not stand for any more of your Arby’s slander. There are two ways to get this madness to stop. One is to give a free sandwich to anyone who signs up for the Arby’s app, the other is for Ving Rhames to climb out of your television during countless March Madness commercial breaks and force feed you a Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich until you are forever changed and better for it.
🏆 EFFIES
CD—Me and Joe Johnson
CW—Neil Lopez
AD—Steve Torres
Director—Jake Szymanksi tha God
The NBA On ESPN
If you would’ve told me at age 17, when I lived life Ball Above All™, bedroom walls plastered with posters from SLAM Magazine, traveling around the country all summer playing in AAU tournaments for Minnesota Select in front of Mike Krzyzewski, that I would one day be making work for the NBA and ESPN, I would’ve said yeah that sounds about right.
Old heads will disagree, but the NBA is as exciting as it’s ever been. The best player is a 6’11” 290-lb. Serbian dude who doesn’t touch a ball in the offseason, Anthony Edwards pounds on someone else every night, LeBron is playing with his son who is also named LeBron, not mention that Luka trade heard around the world.
It just feels DIFFERENT.
CD—Me and Chris Kim
CW—Sam Case and Trevor Joplin
AD—Jacob Castillo
If you would’ve told me at age 17, when I lived life Ball Above All™, bedroom walls plastered with posters from SLAM Magazine, traveling around the country all summer playing in AAU tournaments for Minnesota Select in front of Mike Krzyzewski, that I would one day be making work for the NBA and ESPN, I would’ve said yeah that sounds about right.
Old heads will disagree, but the NBA is as exciting as it’s ever been. The best player is a 6’11” 290-lb. Serbian dude who doesn’t touch a ball in the offseason, Anthony Edwards pounds on someone else every night, LeBron is playing with his son who is also named LeBron, not mention that Luka trade heard around the world.
It just feels DIFFERENT.
CD—Me and Chris Kim
CW—Sam Case and Trevor Joplin
AD—Jacob Castillo
🍖So Much Arby’s🍖
Here’s a pile of Arby’s spots I wrote as lead writer on the business, wherein we advanced the iconic We Have The Meats! campaign, partied with Scott Van Pelt at ESPN in Bristol, opened a steakhouse with a NFL Hall Of Fame runningback, shoved people’s heads into a soft turkey carcass, somehow became The Official Restaurant Of The PGA Tour, navigated production shutdowns at the beginning of a pandemic, and won some awards.
🏆 EFFIES, AdFed Best In Show
I’ve written over 10,000 Arby’s scripts. These are my favorites.
CD(s)—Charlie Wolff & Joanne Torres
AD(s)—Chris Berry, Rob Anton, Matt Terrell, Jon Moehnke
Here’s a pile of Arby’s spots I wrote as lead writer on the business, wherein we advanced the iconic We Have The Meats! campaign, partied with Scott Van Pelt at ESPN in Bristol, opened a steakhouse with a NFL Hall Of Fame runningback, shoved people’s heads into a soft turkey carcass, somehow became The Official Restaurant Of The PGA Tour, navigated production shutdowns at the beginning of a pandemic, and won some awards.
🏆 EFFIES, AdFed Best In Show
I’ve written over 10,000 Arby’s scripts. These are my favorites.
CD(s)—Charlie Wolff & Joanne Torres
AD(s)—Chris Berry, Rob Anton, Matt Terrell, Jon Moehnke
“Mike is an artist. He has ideas. If Mike isn’t involved with the campaign, I’m not involved with the campaign.” —Ving Rhames, condescendingly, during a VO session
“The Fearless & Peerless Rory Scovel”
I inadvertently spent four years hanging out, texting, talking IRL, and Zooming with the most exciting stand-up comedian working today, Rory Scovel.
Then Paste Magazine let me go long and published the whole saga.
This was never supposed to happen.
👀READ IT RIGHT HERE👀
I inadvertently spent four years hanging out, texting, talking IRL, and Zooming with the most exciting stand-up comedian working today, Rory Scovel.
Then Paste Magazine let me go long and published the whole saga.
This was never supposed to happen.
👀READ IT RIGHT HERE👀
