Around 200 people die in British and Irish waters each year.

Currently, men aged between 18 and 39 make up over two thirds of that number.

The RNLI are aiming to see that number halved by 2024.

They approached us to find a solution to speak to a difficult to reach and even harder to influence demographic, encouraging them to Respect The Water.

In order to stand a chance of making a meaningful impact with the audience we had to find a credible platform that they trusted and wouldn't ignore but with consideration for the heritage of the RNLI.

The answer was working with LadBible to create three short documentaries: telling relatable, real-life stories of young men with first hand experience of how dangerous not respecting the water can be.

These films played out during a summer long activity, supported by reactive editorial on LadBible's social channels.

Results:

These films became RNLI’s most successful awareness campaign of all time.

"Respect the water" was also Lad Bible's most successful branded campaign that year.

The reach has exceeded 4.2 million views on Lad Bible’s Facebook page to date - with more than 40,000 shares, likes and reactions, and 3,000 comments. 

The sentiment was overwhelmingly positive. Many tagged their friends to warn of dangers, helping the RNLI save more lives around the coast.

Awards:

The films won both Gold and "Best of the best" at the Brand Film Festival with judges remarking that they were: "Powerful and perfect for the intended audience".

"Highly Commended" The Drum Content Awards

So, how do you make your advertising cut through? Don't make it look like advertising - make it feel like it's coming from the channel itself.

Oh, and make it funny.

...it also helps to have access to a Hollywood A-lister to read your scripts and the Warner Bros animation department at your disposal.

For the first time in the history of UK television, the regular Channel 4 break continuity was taken over by Lego Batman during the weekend before the launch of the Lego Batman film.

The campaign involved unique contextual continuity announcements featuring our hero commenting on Channel 4 shows about to broadcast.

To keep the takeover going on social media too, Channel 4 also let Batman take control of their Twitter handle for 5 hours on the opening night.

Results:

After running in prime time on Channel 4 for four days, the continuity announcements had been seen by 40 percent of the entire U.K. population.

One in six of those who saw the campaign booked a ticket to see The Lego Batman Movie.

As a result, the film opened at no.1 at the UK box office. Holy effective ad-break innovation, Bat-fans.

Awards: It won something at every competition we entered it into, including:

Winner: Cannes Entertainment Lion for Excellence in Partnerships in Branded Content.

Shortlisted: Cannes Media Lion: Media - Use of TV.

Winner: Campaign Magazine Marketing New Thinking Awards: Content Excellence.

Winner: AdWeek Media Plan Of The Year Awards: Best Use of Branded Content/Entertainment.

Winner: MediaWeek Awards: 3 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. Awards including "Best Use of Content" and "Media Creativity".

Winner: The Drum Content Awards: Best News/Media/Publishing Content Marketing Strategy/Campaign and "Highly Commended" for Most Innovative or Creative Use of Content.

Winner: The Drum Creative Awards: Most Creative Use of Media.

Winner: Campaign Media awards X2: Branded Content and Media and Entertainment.

Winner: Festival of Media Global Awards: Gold: Best Use of Content. Bronze: Best Branded Content in traditional / non-digital channels.

Winner: The Drum Marketing Awards: Music and Entertainment Strategy of the Year.

Sensodyne: Future Now

As market leader in the sensitivity toothpaste category, Sensodyne was under attack.

Its successful scientifically-led campaigns were now being copied by mainstream toothpaste brands - you know the ones: 'As a dentist, brand X is the only one I recommend blah blah blah'

Trouble is, when you're the market leader, everyone is after a bit of your profit, so Sensodyne were not only having their testimonial idea copied, they were now being outspent by the challenger brands.

So, they needed do something beyond yet another dentist testimonial.

The solution was to tap into the growing trend of science and technology becoming mainstream entertainment - y'know giving an audience something they might actually want to watch...

In partnership with Discovery Networks we created Future Now – a series of five films focussing on how Sensodyne’s product technology is applied in the wider world and crucially, were also entertaining and interesting.

Future Now was housed in a Discovery entertainment hub, not a Sensodyne sponsored environment - so it felt like shows that were coming directly from Discovery.

With a combined viewing time of over 7000 hours in it's first three months, the films appeared in Discovery’s TOP 15 viewed videos globally.

In fact, the aggregated hours spent watching Future Now was the equivalent of every episode of the Simpsons 39 times over.

...and I know what you're all dying to ask me, 'Yes that's all very impressive Dave, but what does the ROI look like?'

Well, to back it all up: the films also delivered business and brand results. Here's the kind of numbers that traditional advertising thinking couldn't achieve:

Sensodyne’s Purchase Intent increased by 37%

Propensity to buy increased 10%

And 56% of viewers felt more favourable towards Sensodyne

Having run in six markets, Future Now is now being planned for roll-out across a further 50 countries with some markets taking the series to TV.

It also continues to win a bunch of awards world-wide, including:

Awards:

The Lovie Awards: Internet Video: Long Form or Series

Festival of Media Global Awards: Best Use of Native Advertising

Right, this one is a beauty even if I say so myself. It looks great, won awards and was incredibly effective, which is pretty much the gold standard when it comes this kind of thing really isn't it?

So, what do you do when your brand is getting an absolute beating in the press due to delays caused by asylum seekers sneaking aboard your trains?

Well, we could change the name I guess?...

What we actually did was a rebrand and long term strategy change that included OOH, a new TVC, some seasonal sponsorship idents and something called DCO (Digital Creative Optimisation) which is kind of like what industry people currently refer to as Programatic, but smarter.

...and what does all that mean? Well the short version is:

In a market that was in decline, we managed to completely buck the trend and not only did sales go up, but we also nicked market share from the competition.

This resulted in EuroTunnel's best ever financial year to date.

Now at this point you can either skip to the pretty films, or if you like numbers then boy howdy are you in for a treat cause here comes the science bit:

Consideration rose from 44% to 51% - a 16% uplift from pre-campaign and the highest level in 19 months.

Perception of ‘ease’ of using the service, and ‘speed' (the two most important drivers of choice in the category) rose to the highest level the brand has ever recorded on both metrics.

Growth in 7 out of the 8 key brand metrics outperformed all competitors across the campaign period.

Advertising recall of the brand's TV ads reached their highest level in 3 years.

2.1% increase in market share vs total market fall of 0.9% volume.

CTR doubled and DCO Delivered an unprecedented 286% lift in conversion rates and a 10% rise in average order value for Eurotunnel.

Campaign saw revenue increased by 5% - double their average ROI.
 

Dir. Colin Hesterly at Not To Scale.

Awards:

IPA Effectiveness Award.

Campaign Media Awards: Bloomberg Data & Creativity Award.

I oversaw a team responsible for McDonald's always on social media pages, during which time they achieved their highest ever engagement rates and I developed an unhealthy obsession with memes and emojis.

As well as the business-as-usual, reactive and calendar specific posts, we worked with online influencers on summer activations to help McDonald's connect and engage with the notoriously difficult to impress 16-24 demographic.

Here's some of the highlights, including one of my favourites: a piece of work we turned around in an incredibly tight timeframe to help celebrate Gay Pride. It proved to be so successful we took it from a social post to a digital OOH campaign that was shown at Pride marches across the UK.

The most successful social post, a simple optical illusion about McNuggets ended up being picked up by news agencies around the world. A Google search will give you articles on it from the LA times to the Times of India!...as well as for reasons we're not entirely sure of, Cosmopolitan and Teen Vogue: Click here to take a look at how McNuggets made the world's eyes go a bit funny while I contemplate if that will be one of the defining moments of my career...

Apple partnered with the FA to make Wembley Stadium the first venue in the world where you can combine your ticket with Apple Pay - offering fans paperless entry using any Apple device.

Apple gave us the tech. The FA lent us some footballing legends (Jordan Nobbs, Ryan Sessegnon and Jeff Hurst). We did the funnies…Back of the net!

The films played out on social channels and continue to be shown around the stadium and on fat LES (Or, Large Exterior Screens to you and me) to educate and entertain the crowds as they approach the turnstiles.

Dir. Nicholas Reynolds

To boost awareness and sales of Freeview+ boxes I wrote contextual spots to demonstrate their new features, built around content from the shows the adverts played in.

Starring Lou Sanders and Tom Craine

Dir. Tim Kirkby

Results

The Made in Chelsea contextual advert was phenomenally successful and gained press like this:

'The Freeview spot is a great example of how you can intelligently target social audiences to get some of their buzz to rub off on your brand' 

Research found that:

'...the spots generated over 1000 mentions on Twitter over the two 10 minute periods immediately after the advert'

Here's some press on the campaign

I worked closely with Virgin Media and their other retained and rostered agencies to help them build a content strategy and map out a long term plan of how to bring it to life.

These films are some of their first steps into building credibility within the landscape of online gaming by working with influencers and talent as well as a piece of content to leverage and promote their football offering.

As part of their rebranding campaign, Lloyds Bank wanted a series of partnership pieces with Channel 4 that were 'Entertaining, unexpected and memorable'.

Featuring Clare Balding, Mary Portas, Ade Adepitan and Nick Hewer, the films focused on key life milestones rather than banking as they spoke about subjects including buying your first home or starting your own business.

It was the first time Lloyds Bank had used on screen talent in an advertising campaign. By giving the pieces the look and feel of a high end documentary - as if they were part of programming, they were very well received.

The format proved so successful for Lloyds that they continued the campaign with a new set of Channel 4 faces and stories.

Dir. Southan Morris

Here's some press around the campaign.

Oh what's that Kelloggs? You want to give me an excuse to eat cereal in the office for 'research', write funny copy and come up with never before tried duel screen competition ideas for E4?

Can I invent the word 'Chocovault'?

Yes! Seriously? Nice one.

Can I have a surprisingly serious e-mail exchange with the Channel 4 legal and compliance department about who would win in a fight between a Krave Chocovore and a chocolate E4 logo?

Really?

Ok, Can I make a pensioner age VO artist say 'Totes amaze!'?

I can? Yeah go on then, I'm in...

What resulted (other than me eating a lot of cereal) was a live contextual competition that I wrote and directed which ran every night in the ad breaks of a week of E4 shows.

Viewers had to watch the shows to find the answers to the questions set in the break, then enter on the Facebook page before the timer got to zero to win some seriously good prizes. 

Results

It did well.

Really well.

So well that the media companies and Channel 4 got me to do the Casestudy tape too. Here's some of the figures:

- 2.7 million people reached through owned and earned channels

- Combining TV and social, 80% reach was achieved

- Research showed the activity led to a +6% increase in the key metric of brand perception as 'up-to-date and cool'

- Consideration among those exposed increased by 14% to 59%

Here's some press on the campaign.

Paddy's Perfect Pairings

Yes, on the face of it a speed dating show based around crisp sandwiches presented by Paddy McGuinness might seem a bit "off brief" but stick with me:

Every year, Walkers release limited edition flavours and to celebrate their collaboration with Heinz condiments range they opened a pop up sandwich speakeasy: where you could order crisp butties with the limited edition condiment flavours as fillings.

Turns out, as a nation we have some quite strongly held views on this kind of thing. It can divide a room, or bring people together...

So what better way to celebrate Walkers' perfect flavour pairings than with a speed dating show at the pop up shop?

I know, obvious right?

By working closely with Paddy and housing the films online on the ITV hub, the shows had the feel of a genuine series - which helped us connect with a hard to engage with younger audience who may have otherwise missed or not responded to the above the line TVC.

Oh, and they're funny.

Hailed as an example of "the kind of successful branded content they want to make more of", Paddy's Perfect Pairings doubled subscribers to the Walkers YouTube page and the total combined views across ITV and YouTube are to date are in the millions - achieving 2 million of those in the first 24 hours of release.

Dir. Mark Henderson

The charity Time-To-Change.org.uk  wanted to change public perception and attitudes towards people with mental health issues, as well as encourage discussion around how to tackle mental health stigma using the #timetotalk hashtag.

I wrote a stripped back creative response featuring genuine people with mental health issues and their friends and family talking about how they support them. I also supervised the casting team of researchers who found our contributors.

The campaign ran across Channel 4 and ITV’s network of channels and included a radio advert which I wrote featuring the vocal talents of actor, Gary Beadle.

The films were well received by people affected by mental health issues and I'm very proud to be part of raising awareness about a previously taboo subject matter.

Dir. Mark Henderson

Here's some press on the campaign.

As part of the launch of the new Beetle, VW commissioned an AFP series -'Abbey Road Studios: in Session' on Channel 4. I wrote the concept for the promo campaign for the series which featured a rare interview with Paul Weller at Abbey Road Studios.

Alongside the TV teaser commercial that ran on Channel 4, E4, More 4, Film 4, and 4 Music, pre-rolls and additional short-form videos of the interview promoted the shows online.

Results

In the lead up to broadcast, the combined figures for the promotional films reached over a million views.

Dir. Liz Unna

Here's some press.

L'Oreal were bringing a new hair colorant to the UK aimed at the older home hair dying market and needed a more relateable tone of voice online and on TV to compliment the global brand ad campaign.

The key message was that it is an oil based permanent hair colour that gives longer lasting and more vibrant results, but in order to build trust, it was important that the pieces felt real and weren't scripted.

To give a believable testimonial real women were cast and asked what they thought of their new colour. Using their genuine and unscripted reactions was key to engaging with the target audience.

Dir. Ita Fitzgerald

Results

This 60" was cited world-wide by L'Oreal as the template for this type of communication for Olia.

It has subsequently been broadcast in territories round the globe and the 'real women' approach is used in pretty much every L'Oreal advert I've seen since as I shout 'Shouldn't I be seeing some royalties for this or something?' and hurl things at my television screen.

Here's some press around the campaign.

This was a fun one. Working for Pepsico's European crisp brand, Lay's to celebrate the European football championships.

Using hidden cameras in a shopping mall in Madrid, unsuspecting members of the public were surprised by our digital interactive AR touchscreen poster - which incorporated custom Snapchat football themed filters to help build anticipation for the European matches.

The billboard incorporated facial recognition technology, real-time motion tracking and augmented reality software, to enable the layering of ‘facial effects’ filters.

These filters mimicked the designs that could be found on limited edition packs of Lay's and people who interacted with the billboard were rewarded with real versions of the filters - bringing the action into the real world.

This work was translated into different languages and released on Lay's international YouTube and Facebook pages.

Dir. Sam Wrench

For Weetabix’s £2 million year long sponsorship of ‘Lorraine’ on ITV and ITVPlayer, they needed a series of 5″ and 10″ break bumper idents that showed how Weetabix would set you up for big days...and big questions.

The kids are the real stars of these. All I had to do was write questions like 'How would you solve the world financial crisis?' to provoke unexpected or funny reactions and then we put the best responses together in the edit.

The 5"s also made really fun short videos which we seeded online via social platforms to increase awareness of the sponsorship.

Dir. Guy Patterson

Here's some press around the sponsorship.

Summer

Sainsbury's wanted to get customers excited about Summer - and in turn, get them in store by owning the build up and anticipation for Summer - keeping them the front of mind supermarket choice when it came to shopping.

By curating the customer's own experiences of Summer and mixing them with footage shot on phones, we created a series of vignettes made of user generated content that updated every week, culminating in a "best of" celebration of Summer.

This was a partnership with ITV that played out each week in primetime ad break slots.

The approach was a departure from the traditional campaigns that Sainsbury’s ran. The fresh thinking contributed to helping retain the incredibly significant PHD media account.

Dir. Mark Henderson / Marcus Liversedge

I wrote a total of two years worth of seasonal idents for a seven figure Homebase 'always on' sponsorship deal of food programming across the Channel 4, Good Food and 4OD network of channels. The idents highlighted the entire Homebase range over the length of the sponsorship period and proved so effective that I wrote a new set for the following year as the sponsorship was extended.

Results

Since the sponsorship began, Homebase have seen key metrics change in research from customers who have seen the idents:

- Consideration & purchase scores – 'It amplifies range re-appraisal, increases persuasion to shop'

- Message take outs are strong around, stylish, quality, ideas for the home & transformation

- Research also showed the recognition and recall of the idents exceeded the rival competitor's long running sponsorship on the same channel within weeks of being on air - achieving a score of 61 against the average of 47. In fact, the rival competitor eventually pulled their sponsorship altogether - How's that for effectiveness? 

- The idents doubled cut through with the female ABC demographic and before it got changed, we even managed a positive shift in the perception of that whistling song...

Dir. Liz Unna, Mark Chaudoir

Here's some of the press around the sponsorship.