Driving cross-country can evoke deep thoughts.

Driving cross-country can evoke deep thoughts. For Lamb, it inspired a voice—the slightly philosophical and warmly comedic voice of Mother’s 10 Cane Rum campaign.

Driving from San Francisco to New York last August, Lamb, 29, a Chicago native, remembers thinking about a pile of dirt, and how it “used to be people.” After starting at Mother in September 2004, he began working on copy for the rum campaign and remembered that thought. “A lot of the [inspiration] came from all the things I saw and thought about while driving for 10 hours straight.”

With art director Sean Carmody, Lamb created whimsical characters hailing from the rum’s home county of Trinidad, in print and TV ads as well as a 60-page magazine and the bottle’s label.