Selection of my work
01
Sell the reward, not the product.
Bookstart, a government-funded organisation, had the data to prove that reading to even very young children could improve literacy throughout a child’s development. But would that form of ‘scientific’ messaging register with parents of infants, given everything else they are coping with? Not unless we could wrap the message in an emotional, mutually rewarding context. ‘Sell the sizzle, not the sausage’ as some crude but quite smart marketing guru once said.
The resulting campaign adopted the visual style and language of children’s books to show the immediate, positive impact of sharing books with our children. The campaign was developed into TV executions, press ads, radio and online. We even wrote and produced our own little book as a fulfilment piece of which over 80,000 copies were requested.
Bookstart | National TV | Press | Radio
Bookstart Bedfordshire: improving childhood literacy video
02
Market domination in three words
PokerStars was the world’s first online poker site yet within years of its launch the market became saturated with myriad competitors both local and regional. In the face of this competition the challenge was how to cement Pokerstars in the audience’s eyes as the premier choice. We could have said it was the biggest, the safest or the most advanced, all of which were true. Or we could find the way to say all of those things in just three words: we are poker.
PokerStars | Global TV | Social Media | Global creative lead and writer.
03
Empowering the audience to become part of the solution
Samaritans' Christmas appeal had two jobs. Ask for money in the month when every charity is asking, and reach the people who will need the line on the day itself. Most appeals choose one.
So the pack made the donor the distribution. A letter about who calls on Christmas Day, a leaflet with the number to keep or pass on, and a paper crown, printed with the helpline, to be worn at the table where somebody might quietly need to see it.
Will any of them be at your dinner table?
Samaritans | Direct Mail | Award-winning
04
The power of typography
The client: ‘We bought these odd-shaped ads on the cheap. Can you fill them please?’
Me: ‘Hold my South African beer’.
The client was expecting a series of typical promotional ads highlighting their prices to South Africa. Through a combination of witty, engaging writing and some beautifully crafted typography, they received a campaign that elevated their messaging in a fashion that was absolutely on brand.
Virgin Holidays | National Press
05
Nobody picks up a leaflet about needles
Everyone knows that giving blood is a good thing and yet very few actually do it. The people the service most needed were young, healthy and least likely to read anything a health authority sent them. A leaflet was never going to be picked up, and if it was, the word needle would end it.
So we didn't issue a leaflet. We developed a comic - a proper one, with monsters and superheroes in it - and let the story run until the last page. The giant lizards may be imaginary but the threat of an emergency isn't. So here’s how to give blood. The good people at Marvel loved the concept so much they allowed us free usage right to Spider-Man and his pals.
National Blood Service | Direct | Issue 1
06
A little lateral thinking transforms mundane into compelling
First child goes free. So what happens to the second?
The offer itself was nothing new: a Caribbean price-off with a free-child clause, like a hundred others that autumn. So instead of a beach and a happy family, an x-ray of a suitcase with the second child folded inside: the one who didn't make the cut. The reader gets the joke before they've read a word, and the small print finishes it: Virgin Holidays declining responsibility for the sibling's ‘feelings of disappointment, anger or rage’ while left behind with granny is the second gag riding on the first, and it's funnier for arriving in the terms and conditions than the headline.
Virgin Holidays | National Press | e-DM
07
The power of authenticity
Pretty much every alcohol brand tries to sell you a dream. They’ll seek to persuade you that their product is the doorway to a world of bars, clubs and beaches full of happy, beautiful people having a better time than you are. Ruddles County, a humble bitter rooted in the countryside, was never going to win that kind of battle and shouldn't have tried. What the brand possessed was the opposite of dreamy, unrealistic aspiration. It had authenticity.
Ruddles County. A beer from the real world.
Ruddles | National outdoor | McCann Erickson