FOLD7

I’ve been working as a Senior Creative at Fold7 since 2015. Fold7 is the Jack Russell of agencies. I love how we take on the big boys, and so far we’re having a lot of success doing so. It’s still the early days, but so far this year has seen Fold7 get their first Gold at Cannes, their first Clio, and a Gold at the Campaign Big awards.

AMVBBDO

I served as a Board Director/Creative Director from 2008 to 2013. Working at AMV is something I always wanted to do in my career. Paul Brazier contacted me directly because of the previous work I did at 4Creative. Paul was a fantastic Creative Director to work with, and having an office next to him was great since he would always wander in and bounce ideas around. His support on selling big ideas like my EDF campaign and Galaxy was invaluable, and he never really felt like my boss, but rather a creative partner.

4CREATIVE

Working at 4Creative as a Senior Creative from 2006 to 2007 was possibly the best experience I’ve ever had. I worked there for nearly 2 years and had the opportunity to directly work alongside the client—which made for much better work. No idea was too hard to sell. The talent on the books of Channel4 were in a different league, and ultimately having Tom Taghom as Creative Director made any review a resounding success.

TBWA

Trevor Beattie is a legend. He took me for a boozy lunch at Teatro and while sitting next to Martine McCutcheon he decided that he’d offer me a job. For the first 2 years I worked mostly on the News of the World and Sun papers. During that time I wrote and created over 30 TV ads, and in some cases I directed them, too. This experience really taught me a lot about film. During those 7 years, TBWA had a department full of ad legends such as Ben Priest, All Moseley, Ed Morris, Paul Silburn, Matt Gooden, and Ben Walker. Simply put: there was nowhere better to be.

Most of the campaign materials were shot on location at this summer’s historic South African tour. The campaign celebrates the interdependency behind the Irish rugby team – from the players and coaches, via IRFU and its partners, to the diverse fan base across the island of Ireland. This theme of interdependency will be a cornerstone of #TeamOfUs – now, and in the years to come.

Galaxy had a problem, Cadburys were out selling them, as Galaxy was seen as an out of date brand and currently running an ad that was way past it’s sell by date.

The decision was made to revive the old endline that people still remembered and had love for... “Why have cotton when you can have silk” this not only had a superior tone to it but also a timeless quality, this assisted in leading the creative.

A rather ambitious idea was hatched, which was to bring back to life Hollywood’s greatest starlets with the help of Danny Kleinman and Framestore with new cutting edge techniques and as yet untested.

The idea was to produce a timeless ad, which would appeal to young and old alike and become a modern day classic.

After a year of research and after contacting Audrey Hepburn's sons, finally we got the green light and production began.

The launch of the Chauffeur spot couldn't have gone any better, sales jumped and the buzz online was incredible, it simply went beyond all expectations. It also picked up a graphite pencil at D&AD.

The government decided that they had a responsibility to educate the British public how severe the Global Warming issue really was. Whilst working with the planners on the brief it became evident that the best strategy to get people to listen was to make them think about their children’s future.

Armed with this powerful angle the campaign was born. The year this ad went out it received the most complaints any government ad has ever received (202) and it was the most complained about ad that year, all of which were thrown out by the ASA incidentally. It just proved how powerful the ad actually was and how serious the situation of educating the UK really is.

In 2011, EDF Energy was in a tough place. The business was losing money and it had little differentiation from its rivals in a marketplace beset by consumer mistrust. It needed a new approach.

Up until that point, EDF had viewed marketing as a communications function that merely ‘coloured in’ a broader business strategy.

The client eventually embraced the notion of a ‘customer love’ brand strategy and bought into my idea of “Feel Better Energy” brand positioning, that not only informed its marketing comms, but the entirety of its business, from product and price, to promotion, place and people.

The star of its revitalisation strategy was the brand character I created called zingy. Zingy created an emotional bond between EDF and it’s consumers. Zingy not only proven popular with adult consumers (In June 2014, 80% of consumers recognised Zingy and 40% associated it with EDF), he even inspired children to build Zingy replicas in Minecraft!

More prosaically, when rivals were still losing business, Zingy and Feel Better Energy have helped EDF grow its market share and its once-declining customer base, by 13% at the same time achieve strong profitability. Not only that but at the marketing awards it won the grand prix at the marketing society excellence awards in 2015.

Most of the campaign materials were shot on location at this summer’s historic South African tour. The campaign celebrates the interdependency behind the Irish rugby team – from the players and coaches, via IRFU and its partners, to the diverse fan base across the island of Ireland. This theme of interdependency will be a cornerstone of #TeamOfUs – now, and in the years to come.

Hard to remember a time when Film4 wasn’t free, but it was once a subscription only service. When they decided they were going to make it free to the UK, it was the best brief ever. Not only that, the director I chose was Kevin Spacey, who conveniently gave us fantastic access to a lot of talent that simply wouldn’t be affordable otherwise. The campaign was a resounding success and everyone in the UK knew that films on Film4 were now totally free.

Zingy—the brand character I created and star of EDF's revitalisation strategy—, here pictured in a print ad. Zingy was successful in creating an emotional bond between EDF and its consumers, and proved to be extremely popular not only with adult consumers, but with children, too.

Channel 4 Slash Music TV Ad

Channel 4 realised that their competition to find new music talent had also given them access to a lot of music that the general public hadn’t ever heard. They needed an ad to promote where people could access all this great-unheard music. 

Vodafone - Irish Rugby - What We Did Last Summer

he campaign celebrates the interdependency behind the Irish rugby team – from the players and coaches, via IRFU and its partners, to the diverse fan base across the island of Ireland.