Durex wanted to advertise its new range of sex toys on TV and radio, but broadcast regulations prevented the products from being shown before the watershed. The clients at Reckitt were adamant that the products were shown. Dual-screening behaviour, where we watched TV whilst checking our phones was just emerging, so I had the idea of using new tech to turn every advert into a trigger: a companion Durex app listened for the TV or radio broadcast, then automatically launched a symmetrical, more explicit product version of the same film, on the user’s phone.
It was a world-first dual-screen advert and transformed a restriction into the campaign’s defining creative idea.
The campaign went on to win a Gold Smarties Award and an Aerial Award for innovation.
At DraftLine (AB Inbev’s in-house agency), I worked on a social first campaign for the Belgian beer brand, Leffe. The campaign was for the Italian market and invited drinkers to pair Leffe Blonde or Rouge with Italian dishes.
A campaign I created at Havas featuring, OOH, social, film and an experiential live feed of various Cornish coastline including the Doom Bar sandbank, displayed live on the massive digital billboard at Waterloo.
I’ve worked on many film franchises. Usually there are strict embargoes until release, so one usually has only the trailer to work with. It’s an interesting creative challenge. For Trolls Band Together II transformed limited launch assets into an interactive karaoke experience, to give families a fun and participatory way to engage with the movie.
Racing Point were a new F1 team. The underdogs. They didn’t have a historical fan base, so needed to recruit new, younger fans, with a more radical, ‘all or nothing’ positioning. I wrote the campaign, Commit or Quit.
To launch Nintendo Flipnote Studio, I created a campaign called, ‘Flipnote Monsters’. It was a social-first campaign that invited players to design and animate their own monsters to take part in an online battle.
Over eight thousand kids entered the competition, with illustrator Andrew Rae judging the winning creations before bringing them to life in a series of films on Nintendo’s YouTube channel.
The campaign turned a simple product demonstration into a genuinely engaging creative experience.
I loved making this OOH to promote low fares to students. The campaign started with social posts asking students for images of their parents, which became a series of simple, price-led promotional posters.
This idea for JAL is probably the only award-winning campaign to run on a Sushi belt, winning Silver at Creative Circle.
At Dentsu I created a lot of work for Canon. Campaigns were driven by new product features, so the challenge was always to find ways to present technical information in creative and engaging ways.
Idents aren’t allowed to sell. Which is tricky when your client wants to show off their new car. With a tight budget and even tighter timeline, I wrote and shot a series of spots for Channel 4’s First Dates, that put the features centre stage, without technically making any claims.
Working with Ella’s Kitchen was always a joy. The challenges often helped to make the creative journey memorable. For the launch of their snack range, a limited budget meant I wrote and directed the animation for this spot myself.