Home Info Playground           Contact      
Back to Top

Recruiting a generation of 
non-volunteers to volunteer.

earned
branding
print
Awarded
Brand: LOCOGProject: Games Makers Role: CreativeAgency: McCann London

Brand: LOCOGProject: Games Makers 

The brief was to recruit 70,000 volunteers willing to work throughout the Olympic Games, from 5 a.m. starts to midnight finishes, often without seeing a single event themselves. But the bigger challenge was perception. Volunteering felt worthy rather than exciting, especially to younger people.

Our solution was simple: don’t call them volunteers. That’s what people do in charity shops.
We called them Games Makers. The name gave the role status, identity and a sense of purpose. It inspired a new generation, smashed recruitment records and helped change the perception of volunteering in the UK.

Turning weird orders into 
wonderful advertising.

social
print



Brand: SubwayProject: Subway ReceiptsRole: CD + CreativeAgency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Brand: SubwayProject: Receipts

So much in life doesn’t go your way. Lunch shouldn’t be one of those things. That’s the thought behind Get Your Own Way, a brand platform built around Subway’s greatest strength: letting people have things exactly how they want them.

To launch it, we put real fans and their very real orders centre stage, celebrating all the weird, wonderful and wildly specific ways people make Subway their own. It’s since become an ongoing homage to the people who shape the brand as much as we do, with stories pulled from the places fans already talk about it. And yes, some came from Reddit. With permission, of course. Great artists steal. Smarter ones ask first.

Empowering agencies 
to inspire not fire talent.

film
print

Brand: Cannes Lion FestivalProject: Delegate PassRole: Head of Art + Creative
Agency: McCann London

Brand: Cannes LionsProject: Cheaper than Redundancy

Our friends at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity wanted to drive sales of delegate passes, giving holders access to everything the festival has to offer. Rather than targeting those already performing at the highest level, we focused on the people who might get the most from being there: creatives looking for a little more guidance, inspiration and a push in the right direction.

That shift gave us a more interesting role for the festival. Not simply a celebration of the industry’s best work, but a place where the next generation of great work could begin.

Turning uncertainty 
into understanding.

film
print
social
retail

Brand:  Financial TimesProject: Lead Without ExampleRole: CD + CreativeAgency: The Brooklyn Brothers

Brand: FTProject: Lead Without Example

As Covid took hold, the world looked to its leaders for answers. The problem was, nobody really had any. There was no precedent, no rulebook and very little certainty. For the FT, that made trusted information more valuable than ever, but subscriptions were heading in the wrong direction.

Working closely with the FT’s in-house team, we turned the campaign around in a single weekend on a shoestring budget, making calls to governments around the world as events changed by the hour. It was fast, scrappy and made for the moment. More importantly, it worked: the decline in subscriptions reversed and new audiences began to grow.

Redefining standards to 
create generational growth.

print
retail

Brand: SubwayProject: VariousRole: Creative Director
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Brand: SubwayProject: Various

Subway makes sandwiches. Big ones. Over the past year, I’ve led a brand overhaul that has taken its appeal to new heights across the UK and EMEA, creating a more distinctive, confident and consistent version of Subway wherever it shows up. The work has stretched across brand, campaigns, social, digital, in-store and everything in between, helping move Subway from consecutive years in the red back into growth.

What started as a single project quickly grew into an ongoing partnership. One brief became another, then another, as we built trust, expanded the work and found new ways to push the brand forward. A project client became a retainer client, one sub at a time.

Turning a media channel 
into an entertainment channel.

OOH
 
SOCIAL
print
earned
awarded

Brand: Microssoft XBOXProejct: Survival BillboardRole: Head of Art + CreaitveAgency: McCann London

Brand: Microsoft XBOXProject: Survival Billboard

The new Tomb Raider reimagined Lara Croft as a gritty survivalist, launching into one of the busiest periods in gaming. Rather than add another poster to the noise, we turned the oldest advertising medium into an entertainment channel. Survival Billboard put eight gamers on a billboard in central London, where the public controlled the weather via livestream, unleashing blizzards, downpours, wind and heat to see who could survive the longest.

Made with Jim, Jacob, Sanjiv and Jamie, one billboard became a live show people stayed up to watch. Average dwell time went from the usual eight seconds to eight minutes, with 3.5 million views and 32,000 comments in under 22 hours. It went on to win 17 Cannes Lions alongside D&AD, One Show and LIA honours. Turns out people will look at a billboard for quite a long time if you put actual people on it and make them suffer.

Advertising a game
we couldn’t advertise.

OOH
 
SOCIAL
print
earned
awarded

Brand: Microsoft XBOXProject: DestinyRole: Head of Art + CreativeAgency: McCann London

Brand: Microsoft XBOXProject: Destiny

How do you advertise one of the biggest games of the year when your competitor has paid millions for the exclusive marketing rights? You don’t. Instead, we noticed Destiny sounded suspiciously like a fragrance, so we created one: Destiny. The New Fragrance by Xbox. A fake product gave us a perfectly real way to remind everyone that the game was available on Xbox too. Did we wander into a legal grey area? Maybe. Did it get noticed? Absolutely.

With just $6,000 in paid media, the idea generated $3.8 million in earned media and helped Xbox take 50% of Destiny sales on a fraction of PlayStation’s spend. Destiny bundles also helped Xbox One outsell PS4 for the first time. Sometimes having your hands tied forces you to find the better idea.

Turning tourists into 
guardians of Iceland’s beauty.

EARNED
film
social
b2b


Brand: Inspired by IcelandProject: Icelandic AcademyRole: CD + CreativeAgency: The Brooklyn Brothers + Islenska

Brand: Inspired by IcelandProject: Icelandic Academy 

Iceland had a nice problem to have: everyone wanted to visit. But record tourism was putting pressure on the landscapes and communities people had travelled so far to experience. Telling visitors off wasn’t going to help, so instead we turned Icelanders’ frustrations and advice into something people might actually want to listen to: Iceland Academy, a playful school for learning how to visit the country properly.

Locals became our tutors, teaching everything from responsible travel to avoiding hot-tub awkwardness. With zero media spend, more than 20,000 students from 75 countries enrolled, and at one point we received more applications than Harvard. Not bad for an academy with no campus, no tuition fees and quite a lot of volcanos.

Helping the plant-curious
go meat-free.

Film
 
SOCIAL

Brand: RichmondProject: Meat-FreeRole: CDAgency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Brand: RichmondProject: Meat-Free

It’s January. You’re feeling adventurous, curious about veganism, and maybe even tempted to give it a go. But going from meat-eater to fully vegan overnight is a big ask, and for most people, behaviour changes in smaller steps.

So rather than asking people to overhaul everything, we gave them an easier place to start: one meat-free dinner a week. And if you’re going to try something new, you may as well start with something familiar. You can’t go far wrong with the nation’s favourite sausage brand, even when there’s no meat in it.

Using the law to 
challenge the law.

earned
film
social
b2b


Brand: Direct LineProject: This is Not a VanRole: Creative DirectorAgency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Brand: Direct Line InsuranceProject: This is Not a Van

Like most insurance brands, Direct Line was seen by tradespeople as a necessary evil. Tool theft was one of their biggest daily battles, with seventy per cent having been victims, yet the law offered vans nowhere near the same protection as offices. Rather than simply make another campaign about theft, we found a way for the brand to actually do something about it: legally reclassifying vans as offices and using that to challenge the law itself.

Produced with our friends at The Glue Society, the work drove an uplift in quotes and improved tradespeople’s opinion of Direct Line. It turned insurance from something that paid out after the problem into a brand willing to fight the problem in the first place. Did it get me a cheaper quote on my extension? No. But that’s life.

Transforming a chicken brand
 into a get shit done brand.

film
print

Brand: Fridge RaidersProject: Get the Day DoneRole: CDAgency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Brand: Fridge RaidersProject: Get the Day Done

When you’re exhausted and your head feels like it’s literally retracting into your body, this is the brand that gives you the boost to keep going. We took it from being a simple snack to something with a much clearer role in people’s lives: the little push that helps you get shit done.

The campaign delivered an uplift in brand awareness, with sales improving during the media period versus previous quarters. And yes, the head really did retract. No CGI, no post-production trickery, just a very committed practical effect.

Turning a brand’s legacy 
into a launchpad.

film
print

Brand : Sony MobileProject: Best of SonyRole: CreativeAgency: McCann London

Brand: Sony XperiaProject: Best of Sony

We launched a global campaign for Sony’s flagship phone and needed an idea that could live up to the brand behind it. Sony has spent decades shaping culture through gaming, cameras, TVs and the Walkman, so we looked back at that legacy to show how all of that innovation had now found its way into your pocket.

The campaign was brought to life by Hollywood director Tarsem Singh, with stills shot by some Swedish photographer guy called Marcus, and soundtracked by a David Bowie remix we somehow managed to secure. Bowie’s first reaction when we played it to him was to call us the C-word. He later approved it, and we ended up releasing the track properly. It was big, colourful and gloriously physical, and I’m still finding paint powder in my ears.

Giving a small brand a 
big voice in a noisy market.

OOH
 
SOCIAL
print
awarded


Brand: Ethos TravelProject: Time to Get AwayRole: Head of ArtAgency: McCann London
Brand: Ethos TravelProject: Time to Get Away

The last week of January is grim. Christmas is a distant memory, summer feels a lifetime away, and your calendar is already filling up with things you’d rather not do. So we created a typographic escape from the January blues, with a new piece of work for every day of the week.

It started as spec work, with the typography set by Carl Warren and me, and gave a small brand a much bigger voice in a crowded category. It also gave us the rare professional opportunity to print swear words at scale, which felt like a win in itself.