For the Rugby World Cup 2023, in France, we re-imagined how we honour standout players with the Player of the Match Soundtrack Trophy that played the winning player’s match highlights back to him, embedded within a bespoke music track composed and created live during the 80 minutes of each match.

All 48 of them!

The rugby fanbase has for a long time been primarily over 35, white, well-established men. For the 200th anniversary of the sport, our client Mastercard wanted to look ahead by inviting a new generation of fans to be part of the next 200 years of Rugby.

We set out to attract this next generation of fans by representing them and allowing them to engage with Rugby their way, through short-form content and multi-sensory entertainment and by bringing French contemporary music and a global sporting event together. Part of Mastercard’s multi-sensory marketing strategy embracing the five senses through technology innovation to evoke powerful emotions for immersive and Priceless experiences.

We enlisted next-generation, award-winning French product designers (and Rugby Fans) Natacha and Sacha to craft an innovative, personalised trophy design, inspired by French traditions and culture, that incorporated a high-quality, motion-sensing speaker.

In Mastercard’s Sonic Studio, emerging French music artists, Philippine and Songø, worked with celebrated French producer, Surkin, to write and perform each bespoke song. This was then interwoven with pivotal broadcast commentary moments from the match, fan shout-outs and the unique Mastercard sonic sound to create each soundtrack.

Minutes after the final whistle of each Rugby World Cup 2023 match, the Soundtrack Trophy was presented to the Player of the Match, with his personalised soundtrack embedded inside, ready to play as the trophy was presented. An enduring live memento of each world class Rugby performance.

7 weeks, 3840 minutes of rugby watched, 48 bespoke Soundtrack Trophies created.

Role: Global Creative Director

Creatives: Yoky Pandowo and Alessia Ferrier

This project won Best Use of Technology in the Event and Experience category at Creative Circle Awards 2024

Swimming is more than a sport, it’s a fundamental life skill that is, and should be for everyone. But the sad reality is there is a lack of diversity in aquatics and an increased risk for the BAME community.

‘Black Children are three times more likely to down than white children’ - Swim England

‘Of all UK swimmers, only 2% are black’ – Swim England

The founders of Soul Cap didn’t learn to swim when they were kids. When they started to learn as adults, they saw a real problem in the pool. Swimming caps that didn’t fit voluminous black hair, they decided to fix the issue and the Soul Cap was born. The extra-large swim cap designed for hair blessed with volume.

It didn’t stop there though. They knew that there was much more to do, it wasn’t just swimwear that wasn’t inclusive. Black swimming is full of shame, stigma, and barriers.

Together with inclusive innovation consultancy, Studio Exception, we gathered candid stories and insights from groups of Black swimmers and non-swimmers from all over the UK. Their personal barriers to swimming formed the foundation of our work. Our start-up brand campaign turned to action with the launch of The Swim Proud Fund - donating £100k to grassroots Black swimming projects over the next five years in the UK. Through proposal submissions, financial support will be provided for swimming equipment, teacher training, swimming education and water safety.

JCDecaux’s Reach programme partnered in the project. Helping our initial tiny media budget to grow and launch the brand with The Swim Proud Fund to the entire country in 2023. Our UK-wide campaign ran for one week on iconic digital towers in key cities including London, Manchester, and Birmingham and on digital 6 sheets in train stations.

The Swim Proud Fund has been inundated with applications and the Soul Cap brand has reached new audiences all over the country.

For the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 one of the tournament’s key areas of focus was Sustainability – not just environmental protection but the intersection of Environment, Human Rights, Accessibility & Inclusion and Safeguarding.

Our task was to use the power of football and the tournament to drive attention to the plethora of resources and information on these pillars that usually go unread and start informed conversations around these issues through the lens of sport.

We created the #ThisIsGreatness campaign, highlighting how actions no matter how small can cause collective momentum. At the centre of the campaign were four powerful personal stories each focussed on a key sustainability pillar.

The story of Lisa - a vision impaired volunteer who is helping make the tournament more accessible for others, of a football team in Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau that became the hub of support and resilience during climate induced floods, the inspiration of the first Indigenous player for the Matilda’s and a story highlighting that both little and big actions can protect children in a sporting environment.

Each story was researched and filmed in collaboration with our storytellers. Each film produced and shot with an entirely female crew in partnership with our Australian production partner GoodChat.

The films were used to drive attention to resources on each of the key sustainability pillars, as a well as to guides that helped fans kick off conversations with their families, friends, or colleagues on these social issues. During the tournament we delivered panel discussions at the Fan Festival sites as a way of furthering conversations in the space. Demonstrating that sport can and should #standformore.

This campaign won the “Diversity & Inclusion Advocate in Sports Award’ at the Ministry of Sport Awards in Australia in 2023.

Pets Welcome is the TripAdvisor for pets. The service opens up a new world of adventures for pet owners and their pets, breaking the monotony of the daily walk or visiting the same park over and over again. With over 20,000 pet friendly locations, rated by pet owners. The website enables pet owners to identify pet friendly businesses, from bars and restaurants, cinemas and cafes, through to pet services such as vets and groomers. Which they then have the ability to rate for pet friendliness, add further comments or add new locations to the service.

The website was built in conjunction with Google, with all the relevant location data being pulled in through the Google API. With the Google rating, users can be confident the location they are visiting is not just pet friendly but is also owner friendly!

As well as creating the app we created a 360 campaign including targeted social advertising, Out of Home and Advertorial partnerships with Time Out, Evening Standard and Balance Magazine, to support the launch across London.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Dave Jennings and Tristan Poulter

We pitched and won the opportunity to work with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) on the latest Fire Kills campaign. The brief had a clear task - get people to test their smoke alarms on a monthly (or more frequent) basis. 

A simple task, but a huge behavioural challenge – we discovered very early on that few people currently test their smoke alarms regularly, even fewer on a monthly basis. From our research we discovered that people genuinely dislike (even hate) their smoke alarms. Even more than they hate Piers Morgan!

How could it be that a utility that is there specifically to save people’s lives could be so disliked? This was a compelling tension that we felt we could solve, and through solving it drive the behaviour change required. 

We decided to reframe smoke alarms, to recast them as a well-meaning hero in the home. We wanted to create a character that people would identify with, and a positive icon to be celebrated. 

The ‘Unsung Heroes’ Fire Kills campaign ran throughout January across radio, print, digital, OOH and social media, as there is an increase in fire-related emergencies and deaths over the winter months, compared to the rest of the year.  The ads featured our friendly smoke alarms, which gave a gentle reminder to the public to make time for their home’s ‘Unsung Heroes’ by testing their alarms once a month.

The campaign had incredibly positive results. It shifted perceptions of smoke alarms. It increased awareness for the need for regular testing, with 19% of people believing they should now test weekly. And we achieved an uplift in claimed testing behaviour with 34% of people now claiming to test monthly.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Liam Chapman, Michael Naman, James Sinclair and Rodrigo Lebrun

We knew from our research on the  Fire Kills ‘Unsung Heroes’ campaign that getting people to change their behaviour when it comes to testing their smoke alarm more frequently was a tough challenge. So we also developed a handy app to act as a reminder to work alongside the campaign. 

Alarm Buddy is a simple mobile app designed to send smart timed alerts to your phone reminding you to test your smoke alarm monthly. Using an iBeacon attached to your smoke alarm, the Alarm Buddy app installed on your smartphone seamlessly connects to the iBeacon when you get within five metres of the smoke alarm and sends you a reminder if it’s time to test your alarm. This idea reframes the relationship between a person and their smoke alarms and reframes the smoke alarm as the well-meaning hero of the home.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Liam Chapman, Michael Naman and Jack Ashdown

Pet School is a new interactive digital experience that teaches children how to be the responsible pet owners of tomorrow. Max the dog and Luna the cat front the experience. The playful pair teach kids everything they need to know about pets through interactive videos, games and songs. Topics that kids will learn about include caring for pets, approaching unfamiliar dogs, feeding pets, looking after their health and learning about their behaviours. Kids are tested on their pet knowledge throughout the experience, receiving pet medals for completing each stage and a certificate upon graduating from Pet School.  Pet School creates a genuinely valuable tool for kids and parents while helping to champion Nestlé Purina as the most trusted Pet Care brand.

The site launched across Europe and is part of Purina’s commitment to teach 2 million children how to care for pets responsibly by 2023.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Dave Jennings and Tristan Poulter

Nestlé came to us and asked if we could create a global campaign to launch their new initiative 'Nestlé for Healthier Kids'. The initiative aims to help 50 million kids lead healthier and happier lives by 2030. 

It's fair to say they didn't have much time or much money. But they wanted a film with lots of emotion and a film that had to feature a broad mix of Nestlé parents and care givers from around the globe. Oh and this global film could only be shot in one place, Vevey, Switzerland - Nestlé HQ. And we had 2 days to complete it.

We worked with the brilliant director William Williamson on the film. The full ‘Healthier Kids’ campaign, including digital and social assets, launched across 20+ countries on 15th May 2018 - UN International Day of Families.

Nestlé were hugely pleased with the film and it inspired lots of the local markets to create their own content as well as creating an overall uplift in Nestlé employee pride.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Dave Jennings and Tristan Poulter

To launch Adventuros, the new range of delicious dog treats from Purina, we encouraged dog owners to take a wild taste adventure and unlock their dog’s love of exploring the wilderness. The irresistible, chewy treats come in a variety of wild flavours unique to Adventuros including Wild Venison, Boar and Buffalo. So we set our doggie adventures in the habitat of these animals, starting with the landscape of the deer. The campaign ran across a host of social and digital touch points.

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Dave Jennings and Tristan Poulter

Tasked with the launch of the Microsoft Band, we wanted to inspire ordinary people to #DoGreatThings.

We found 2 extraordinary human beings, everyday folk living normal lives, yet they were on their way to achieving some incredible feats.

The first film followed Mark Vaz, a window cleaner on his way to running 400 marathons in a year for charity. The second film followed Emily Chappell, a London cycle courier, turned athlete, turned professional writer in preparation for the gruelling Trans Continental Cycle race. The TCR is an annual, self-supported, ultra-distance cycle race across Europe - one of the world's toughest ultra-endurance races.

With the eye of Director, Liz Unna at Indy 8, the films tell these people’s extraordinary stories, whilst also educating people about the product features of the Microsoft Band. 

Mark’s film won Ad of the Day on VOTD

http://votd.tv/winners/1839/mark

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Laura Watkins and Rodrigo Lebrun

After doing some great work on the Purina Adventuros brand our clients gave us the opportunity to pitch for the new Purina Beyond account. Beyond is a new pet food available throughout Europe. It combines selected natural ingredients with Purina pet food expertise to create a 100% complete pet food for dogs and cats. We won the account and made this first film called ‘Barley and Beyond’. In the film we follow Purina employee Gabor from farm to factory as he looks at all the care and attention that goes into one of Beyond’s natural ingredients, barley. 

We found a small puppy in the cornfields when we were shooting the film in Hungary. He followed us all day.  So after a vet check, numerous jabs, micro-chipping and a pet passport, Farley the dog was adopted by one of the creative team and now lives happily in London. You might be able to spot Farley in the film?

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Rachel Clough and Jan Pruijser

After six years of Run London how does Nike continue to challenge London’s runners in a new and exciting way? We tapped into the long-standing rivalry between North and South London; creating the first ever mass team running event. This was achieved through an integrated campaign including posters, press, website and retail design. It culminated in 17 500 North runners competing against 17 500 South runners. Spoiler Alert! The South won by 17 seconds. 

I won a D&AD Yellow ‘Integrated’ Pencil for the Run London: North vs. South campaign, which helped soothe this North Londoner’s pain a little.

Having won the pitch for the Nokia Flagship Stores launch in London, we got to work on reimagining the Regent Street Christmas lights. 

The Regent Street Lights started in 1954 after a visiting journalist commented that London wasn't very magical at Christmas. Each year the switching on of the lights has come to signify the start of the Christmas season for most Londoners.

Nokia wanted to give a lighting installation to London to celebrate the arrival of their flagship store onto this famous street. They wanted to put the magic and beauty back into the Christmas lights. They also wanted to offer something innovative and immersive. The result - lights that were responsive to the elements and the shoppers alike – something that Regent Street had never seen before.

It took over a year to design and build ‘Unity’ in partnership with United Visual Artists and The Crown Estate.  ‘Unity’ won a D&AD Wooden Pencil for Digital Installations.

Weirdness Alert!

This campaign was to launch a strange new hybrid product from Philadelphia. Cream cheese mixed with Cadbury's chocolate, or Choccy Philly as we liked to call it. Some loved its swavoury flavour. Others found it a monstrosity. Jennifer Saunders helped stoke the edible debate.

Following a pitch, we were appointed by The Girl Effect, a partnership between the Nike Foundation and DFID, to launch a new initiative ‘Girl Hub’ – an extension of the ‘Girl Effect’ campaign. 

The ‘Girl Effect’ was created by The Nike Foundation in 2008, with the ultimate goal to raise awareness of poverty in poor countries and inspire people around the world to contribute to the cause. 

“The Girl Effect is clear; the economic case for it is very profound. By investing in their education, we help young women and girls avoid early pregnancy, HIV and forced marriage. That completely changes not only their personal trajectory, but that of their family, their community and indeed their country,” 

Maria Eitel, Founding CEO and President of the Nike Foundation.

We were tasked with creating a campaign to launch Girl Hub in Rwanda – to help them reach their goal of providing improved conditions, life choices and realisation of rights for girls. Rwanda was the first country for the Girl Effect to be implemented.

Over the course of a year we took numerous trips out to Rwanda to understand the needs and lives of Rwandan teenage girls and develop our campaign ideas. It was an extraordinary and humbling challenge.

A brand campaign developed for Johnson's Baby.

The idea was based on the unique relationship that develops between parent and child. We were interested in presenting it as a partnership rather than the traditional parent child hierarchy. 

We shot, directed, and edited this film with the brilliant photographer turned director, Tif Hunter. All relationships featured in the film were real parent and child partnerships.

Thank you to everyone big and small that helped us bring the idea to life.

Emeco has been building aluminium chairs in Pennsylvania since 1944 when they made the torpedo-proof 10 06 chair for the US Navy. We were appointed to help raise awareness of the Emeco brand amongst architects, designers and all lovers of good design. 

We wanted to demonstrate that Emeco chairs are not just beautiful but also highly durable. We constructed a series of tests - including a Strength Test, a Drop Test, and a Lightness Test. We filmed these scientific (?!) experiments to test the claim that Emeco's 77 step craft process makes their chairs 3 times stronger than steel. These test films are true to the brand's quirkiness, and demonstrate the excellence of the product in an entertaining way. The films were first aired on the Emeco stand at the Milan Furniture Fair.

We also worked on the launch of the 20 06 chair, designed by Norman Foster for the Tent Exhibition, part of 100% Design London. The Foster chair tested the boundaries of design. He wanted to make it extremely light but extremely strong. Emeco built the chair exactly to Foster’s concept - it only weighs 7lbs but it is strong enough to hold up to half a tonne!

To demonstrate the 20 06’s product attributes we showcased two chairs on the Emeco stand. One chair held a very, very heavy anchor, the other was suspended in the air by a large helium balloon. To celebrate the new chair and the exhibition we produced two more test films that document the journey for the two 20 06 chairs.

“At Emeco everyday change has been happening slowly and steadily. This year in Milan it felt as if we hit the “Tipping Point” when things happen all at once, and little changes (à la W+K) make a huge difference, like a movie made on a shoestring budget making hundreds of millions of dollars. The market has caught the Emeco virus – the Aluminum chair epidemic has begun!
People were blocking the aisle with their jaws dropped watching the Emeco chair tests, brilliant! Everyone came by to check us out, all the big shots of design, owners of the best furniture companies, journalists.“

Gregg Buchbinder, Emeco Chairman

Role: Creative Director

Creatives: Ben Everitt, Ben Tubby, Noe Kuremoto & WK Side – Ed, Kelly, Sarah and Seb

After the success of W+K Side (W+K's talent incubator) I created and built W+K Platform with Sam Brookes at W+K London. Platform was a way to attract interesting creative talent to the W+K global network.
Platform opened its doors to season one in September 2009.

12 Platformers made up season one, and this was their Platform manifesto.

We are Platform.

We are not an internship or a creative school.

We are a creative experiment.

We are hand picked from all over the world.

We have backgrounds in the arts, social sciences and technology.

We tackle business problems with innovative solutions.

We are a research lab, prototyping unit and craft workshop.

We can animate your music video and Arduino your kitchen plant.

We ask lots of questions.

We learn by doing things with our hands.

We have amazing patrons to teach and inspire us.

We are season one.

This is what season one got up to

http://issuu.com/wkplatform/docs/platform_season1

As a result of the success of season one, W+K London hired Yuki Yoshida, Katie Anne Harrison and Will Hooke as creative technologists and social media strategists. W+K Portland hired Nicole Karalekas as a digital creative and W+K Shanghai hired Kendra Wan.  Darren Wong went on to work for digital outfit 360i in NYC.

This was the pan-European campaign created for the major new shoe innovation from Nike called ‘Free’. The technology behind the shoe was inspired by the insight that many successful runners, particularly the Kenyan long distance runners, run barefoot as part of their training regime.

The Nike Free shoes mimic the natural motion of barefoot running and in turn help to strengthen many neglected muscles in your foot, making you quicker and less prone to injury.

The role of the advertising was to highlight the benefits of the Free shoe and the unique grid system of the sole was the inspiration behind the typography we created.

In the blind casting my foot won and ended up starring in the campaign.

What’s the best way to explore a new country? We think it’s to get lost.

With this in mind we created a campaign to encourage and inspire holidaymakers to go visit Wales.

This pan-European campaign was created to launch Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe programme. The campaign was about encouraging customers to donate their old trainers, of any brand, which Nike would grind up and turn into new sports surfaces like basketball courts. These courts were donated to inner-city communities worldwide. The ads ran in OOH and in-store across Europe.

The photographic shoot was very smelly!

These ads were part of the campaign to bring an understanding of Honda’s ‘Warm Engineering’ approach to the UK. These press examples show how Honda solves engineering problems with some unique and human-centric solutions all over the world.  Do you believe in the Power of Dreams?

I hand cut the Doilies for the shoot, it took 54 attempts before the Honda client was convinced it was good enough to shoot.

‘Doily’ won a D&AD Wood Pencil for Press Advertising

In 2011 P&G launched its first ever consumer-facing corporate brand campaign in the UK with the ‘Proud Sponsor of Mums’ campaign. The campaign put mums at its heart, recognising, celebrating and thanking them for the important roles they play in their families’ lives. This sponsorship of Mums ran up to and throughout the London 2012 Olympics. We created a global TV ad, as well as press and online assets for P&G.

These posters were created to celebrate England’s success in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The Empire Map poster was projected onto Australia House in London on the eve of England’s glorious win and received lots of news coverage.

Sorry, not sorry Australia!

The Honda Zoomer is a Japanese scooter that was made for people to customise.  The designers designed them to be as bare as possible so that owners could personalise them to their own needs. Honda was bringing Zoomers to the UK for the first time and they wanted to create a buzz.

20 Zoomers were given to people in the UK that Honda believed could really embrace the Zoomer philosophy and showcase the many creative ways Zoomers can be customised. W+K London was a lucky recipient of a Zoomer and my ECD Tony Davidson, knowing I was a keen scooter rider, gave me the scooter to customise. 

I loved the idea of bringing handmade craft to an object that was factory made. As someone who was very interested in traditional UK craft I liked the idea of the W+K Zoomer being a marriage of Japanese engineering and UK traditional craft skills. 

I worked with willow artist Anne Geddes to customise my Zoomer with willow weaving. Anne created a number of objects using her impressive weaving skills that she attached to the Zoomer frame, including willow panniers, a willow jellybean holder and a willow flag for the back of the scooter. She also wove the exterior of the wing mirrors, number plate and the crash helmet in willow. 

My final willow Zoomer was featured in Zoomerzine, the online Zoomer magazine, along with all the other incredible customisations from around the UK. My favourite was by a gamekeeper from Scotland who customised his Zoomer with tartans and a special seat box to hold his shotgun, golf umbrella, fishing rods and nets.

Tags, Puzzles and Pudding Sacks

W+K Entertainment is an offshoot of the main W+K brand that designs and creates all sorts of weird and wonderful things, like Dan Wieden’s musical ruler! Over my time at W+K London I was lucky enough to get three products designed as part of the limited edition ranges.

I came up with the concept and designed the W+K Christmas Tags and The Missing Pieces Jigsaw Puzzles. These products were used as novel Christmas Cards that were sent out to the W+K family, friends and clients around the globe. Christmas Tags won a D&AD Wooden Pencil for Graphic Design – Self Promotional items.

I was also the Creative Director on the W+K Christmas Pudding Sacks that Tom, Wevs, Sarah and Orlando - WK Side created. It just goes to show a rubbish idea can win a D&AD pencil.