Israel. Palestine.
Spooks.
It’s a dramatic intifada waiting to happen…
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Feature: review of Spooks, episode 5
Israel. Palestine.
Spooks.
It’s a dramatic intifada waiting to happen…
Monday 18 October 2010
PartyPoker.com: interactive banner featuring Francesco Totti
I worked on all aspects of the launch campaign featuring il Pupone, but the piece that stands out is this interactive banner. You can play a game of headers with Totti, seeing how many times you can keep the ball in the air by clicking your mouse. I was one half of the creative team which created and pitched the initial concept, and scripted the video shoot and developed the final banner.
It's a really fun way to get prospective players interacting with the brand, especially in a country as fanatical about football as Italy. This was reflected in the response: it is still PartyPoker.com's most-clicked banner ad, and helped the Totti campaign increase the brand's Italian market share by 300%.
To play the game for yourself, download and open the Totti banner .zip file here. It contains everything you'll need to launch the banner - just double-click the file called tottibanner.html to join the great man himself.
PartyPoker.com print work: The Scandinavian Masters
I worked on a series of print ads promoting The Scandinavian Masters, a PartyPoker.com poker tournament exclusively for Nordic players. These ran in the Scandinavian poker press to both attract new players to the site and to support the online marketing campaign aimed at existing players.
To make localisation easy, we decided to play up the friendly regional rivalry between Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Finns - substitute the nationalities mentioned in the ads below for whichever ones suit you best.
This approach was so successful that the campaign was adapted for The Irish Masters, with the English on the receiving end of a little gentle abuse...
Here's a strong example of the creative direction we took:
View it full-size here.
Take a look at some more of the executions below the fold.
To make localisation easy, we decided to play up the friendly regional rivalry between Danes, Swedes, Norwegians and Finns - substitute the nationalities mentioned in the ads below for whichever ones suit you best.
This approach was so successful that the campaign was adapted for The Irish Masters, with the English on the receiving end of a little gentle abuse...
Here's a strong example of the creative direction we took:
View it full-size here.
Take a look at some more of the executions below the fold.
PartyPoker.com: 'Everyone's Playing' brand assets
PartyPoker.com has been through several rebrands, and I've edited and written copy for the vast majority of them. The 'Everyone's Playing' identity was one of my favourites. It's simple, punchy and communicated the brand's core value of accessibility at a glance. Plus it reads well and looks nice to boot...
Here are a few examples of the assets we produced to run as print ads, static digital banners and landing pages.
View it full-size here.
More below the fold: the copy is the same throughout, tying the different visual themes together across the campaign.
Here are a few examples of the assets we produced to run as print ads, static digital banners and landing pages.
View it full-size here.
More below the fold: the copy is the same throughout, tying the different visual themes together across the campaign.
Sunday 17 October 2010
PartyCasino.com: Circus direct mail
The spreads linked to below show the front/back panel and the main interior panels of the mailer. Click the links below to see full-size images:
Saturday 16 October 2010
PartyBets.com: 'Tabloid' campaign
This is a selection from a series of print ads which were written to promote football betting opportunities at PartyBets.com to UK tabloid readers.
The brief was to take the best features of the tabs' backpage headlines (the sporting wordplay) to sum up a featured bet each week. Whenever one these ads was run in the Sun or the Mirror, the brand's revenue showed a direct increase.
This is my super soaraway favourite:
View it full-size here.
These ads also ran as digital banners, following the same creative route over three frames. For example:
Frame 1: Good Kop, bad Kop?
Frame 2: Gerrard to score first and Liverpool to win 2-1, 30/1
Frame 3: Interested?
Take a look at a couple more that hit the back of the net below the fold...
The brief was to take the best features of the tabs' backpage headlines (the sporting wordplay) to sum up a featured bet each week. Whenever one these ads was run in the Sun or the Mirror, the brand's revenue showed a direct increase.
This is my super soaraway favourite:
View it full-size here.
These ads also ran as digital banners, following the same creative route over three frames. For example:
Frame 1: Good Kop, bad Kop?
Frame 2: Gerrard to score first and Liverpool to win 2-1, 30/1
Frame 3: Interested?
Take a look at a couple more that hit the back of the net below the fold...
Friday 15 October 2010
Feature: review of Spooks, episode 4
After last week’s light-hearted romp through cold-blooded killings, the real politik necessity of mutually assured destruction and a wealth of double-crossings, things in Spooks just took a turn for the worse.
PartyBingo.com print campaign
When PartyGaming's bingo room relaunched with the strapline 'What Women Want', I was part of the team responsible for coming up with some cheeky, friendly ad concepts that could also work through the line.
I've chosen my three favourite print executions and posted them below. You can check out a digital execution here.
View it full-size here.
Two more beauties live a click away...
I've chosen my three favourite print executions and posted them below. You can check out a digital execution here.
View it full-size here.
Two more beauties live a click away...
PartyBingo.com digital banners
When PartyGaming's bingo room relaunched with the strapline 'What Women Want', I was part of the team responsible for coming up with some cheeky, friendly ad concepts that could also work through the line.
I've chosen my favourite digital execution and posted it below. You can check out the print executions here.
I've chosen my favourite digital execution and posted it below. You can check out the print executions here.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
PartyMarkets.com acquisition banner
I was part of the team that worked on the launch of PartyMarkets.com, PartyGaming's financial trading platform. As the brand was aimed at new traders, we took decided to take the creative work in a clean, welcoming direction.
This digital banner ad was part of the through-the-line launch campaign which also featured an email campaign and a print brochure inserted into daily financial newspaper City AM. All the assets emphasised that PartyMarkets.com made accessing the financial markets straight-forward and affordable - while still satisfying the stringent FSA regulations around marketing.
This digital banner ad was part of the through-the-line launch campaign which also featured an email campaign and a print brochure inserted into daily financial newspaper City AM. All the assets emphasised that PartyMarkets.com made accessing the financial markets straight-forward and affordable - while still satisfying the stringent FSA regulations around marketing.
PartyMarkets.com email campaign
When PartyGaming launched its financial trading platform PartyMarkets.com, I was given the job of writing an acquisition and conversion email campaign to attract new real-money traders.
It was a tough brief: the audience of extremely savvy traders was a hard-sell and the FSA's strict restrictions on marketing messages meant I had an extremely tight space to work in. But by making sure I communicated the brand values of trustworthiness and simplicity, I produced a strong set of emails which brought lots of new punters to the product.
The launch campaign also featured digital banners and a print brochure inserted into daily financial newspaper City AM.
Here's a taste of the campaign.
Acquisition mailer 1
It was a tough brief: the audience of extremely savvy traders was a hard-sell and the FSA's strict restrictions on marketing messages meant I had an extremely tight space to work in. But by making sure I communicated the brand values of trustworthiness and simplicity, I produced a strong set of emails which brought lots of new punters to the product.
The launch campaign also featured digital banners and a print brochure inserted into daily financial newspaper City AM.
Here's a taste of the campaign.
Acquisition mailer 1
More examples live below the fold.
Sunday 10 October 2010
The NOW Festival brochure
This 48-page arts festival brochure is my favourite piece of work from my time with Agenzia, an integrated agency based in Nottingham.
As The NOW Festival was created to showcase talent in emerging art forms, we decided to take a bold direction in terms of look and feel. We developed a strong three-tone colour palette, a bespoke typeface and a vibrant tone of voice to get across the festival's identity. This was then used as the basis of all promotional creative work produced to support the festival and its related events.
You can see the visual impact in the image below:
As well as working on the creative direction of the brochure, I also oversaw all aspects of its production. I wrote, commissioned and edited copy ranging from long features to one-line event previews. I also laid out the pages and sent them to print once the festival director had signed them off.
The end result was a daring, unusual brochure for one of the UK's most innovative arts festivals. It got great feedback from the client and, more importantly, the public loved it too.
I think it's a piece that really needs to be touched and read in person: let me know if you want to get your hands on it.
As The NOW Festival was created to showcase talent in emerging art forms, we decided to take a bold direction in terms of look and feel. We developed a strong three-tone colour palette, a bespoke typeface and a vibrant tone of voice to get across the festival's identity. This was then used as the basis of all promotional creative work produced to support the festival and its related events.
You can see the visual impact in the image below:
As well as working on the creative direction of the brochure, I also oversaw all aspects of its production. I wrote, commissioned and edited copy ranging from long features to one-line event previews. I also laid out the pages and sent them to print once the festival director had signed them off.
The end result was a daring, unusual brochure for one of the UK's most innovative arts festivals. It got great feedback from the client and, more importantly, the public loved it too.
I think it's a piece that really needs to be touched and read in person: let me know if you want to get your hands on it.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Feature: The Shape of Broad Minds
This interview with hip-hop group The Shape of Broad Minds was originally written as a 'Ones to Watch' feature in the print edition of Clash Magazine. It's since been posted on their website: see it here.
Ones to Watch: The Shape of Broad Minds
Jneiro Jarel, the mastermind behind Philadelphia’s latest addition to the hip-hop pantheon, is in something of a rare state when Clash gets him on the blower. It’s that old familiar tale: one drink on a Friday night and suddenly it’s 6am and you realise you’ve been chatting up a rather fetching lamp stand for the last few hours…
Ones to Watch: The Shape of Broad Minds
Jneiro Jarel, the mastermind behind Philadelphia’s latest addition to the hip-hop pantheon, is in something of a rare state when Clash gets him on the blower. It’s that old familiar tale: one drink on a Friday night and suddenly it’s 6am and you realise you’ve been chatting up a rather fetching lamp stand for the last few hours…
Feature: 4Hero
This interview with drum and bass veterans 4Hero was originally written as a double-page spread, but appeared as a one-page feature in the print edition of Clash Magazine. It's since been posted in full as part of the Best of Clash series: see it here.
4Hero
Despite being more concerned with moving to big school when the first wave of acid house washed over a suspicious Britain in the late 80s and early 90s, today’s clubbers are all too familiar with the roll of drum and bass and the clatter of rave. No one bats an eye when the distinctive rhythms and bass lines of Britain’s homegrown dance culture are dropped in clubs these days, and even indie bands are cadging the tricks that the likes of Metalheadz and Roni Size used to pack a dancefloor with and keep it sweating back in the day. For old scene heads 4hero, however, it’s been a long journey from illegal shows in north London warehouses to being radio staples and Mercury Music Prize nominated doyens of the dinner party soundtrack.
4Hero
Despite being more concerned with moving to big school when the first wave of acid house washed over a suspicious Britain in the late 80s and early 90s, today’s clubbers are all too familiar with the roll of drum and bass and the clatter of rave. No one bats an eye when the distinctive rhythms and bass lines of Britain’s homegrown dance culture are dropped in clubs these days, and even indie bands are cadging the tricks that the likes of Metalheadz and Roni Size used to pack a dancefloor with and keep it sweating back in the day. For old scene heads 4hero, however, it’s been a long journey from illegal shows in north London warehouses to being radio staples and Mercury Music Prize nominated doyens of the dinner party soundtrack.
Feature: Lethal Bizzle
This interview with grime-indie crossover MC Lethal Bizzle originally appeared as a one-page feature in the print edition of Clash Magazine. It's since been posted on the website as part of the Best of Clash series: see it here.
Lethal Bizzle
Grime’s image isn’t really one of feet-up-telly-on domesticity. If the popular conception of the UK’s most misunderstood urban music scene is to be believed, MCs are more likely to be sharpening butterfly knives and loading baggies with baking soda to shot to drunks on Coldharbour Lane than they are to be putting a brew on and flicking over to the Big Brother highlights.
Lethal Bizzle
Grime’s image isn’t really one of feet-up-telly-on domesticity. If the popular conception of the UK’s most misunderstood urban music scene is to be believed, MCs are more likely to be sharpening butterfly knives and loading baggies with baking soda to shot to drunks on Coldharbour Lane than they are to be putting a brew on and flicking over to the Big Brother highlights.
Reviews: The Clash Essential 50
Written for Clash Magazine in March 2009 for their 'top 50 albums of the last five years' feature, The Clash Essential 50.
I contributed five reviews to Clash's look back at the 50 best albums published in the magazine's five-year lifespan. Click the links below to see them on the Clash website, or read them all in full below the fold. Here they are, in reverse order:
I contributed five reviews to Clash's look back at the 50 best albums published in the magazine's five-year lifespan. Click the links below to see them on the Clash website, or read them all in full below the fold. Here they are, in reverse order:
Feature: review of The Edible Garden
This show... irked me. Beyond belief. From the visual style to the chintzy script and right-on folky soundtrack, The Edible Garden was everything that makes me go 'nyergh' at lifestyle shows on the TV.
Before I go crazy with rage again, check out the review on WWM or read it below the fold.
Transport For Lunatics
Comment piece written for music and culture blog Shoots Bands and Leaves on 4/10/2010
As any of you who while away your three score and 10 scurrying to and from work through London's vast network of underground caverns will know, there's a tube strike on today.
Being a right-on cyclist with my own Lycra and everything, the ructions between the RMT's subterranean rat-men and their awful overlords doesn't really bother me that much. Sure, the hordes of grey-faced commuters forced blinking into the weak October sunlight make the journey a little more fraught: the roads through the city are packed with bikes, mopeds and cars clearly piloted by the criminally insane and there's a far higher incidence of pedestrian lemmings hurling themselves from the kerb with frighteningly blank eyes. Still, it's helping Londoners engage with each other more than the usual commute does - even if the brief spark of human contact only seems to light a conflagration of communal moaning.
What's tickled me is the news coverage of the strike. The BBC covered it in the London local news section: fair enough. They also featured it as a headline story in the main body of BBC Breakfast, which made me wonder if we'd see similar stories if Nottingham's tram drivers took a day off in a huff. Is the Underground really national news, or is it just a parochial dust-up that's easy to send a reporter to?
The cries of 'union stooge!' that went up when Ed Miliband was elected as Labour leader have made industrial action more noteworthy. I'm looking forward to seeing how his relationship with the unions unfolds as the cuts start to bite, and curious to see how the coalition PR machine swings into action to fight a renewed opposition.
Whatever happens, I hope tube workers decide not to strike again in November, as all the extra people lurching around above ground do have one rubbish effect on my ride: I can't sing embarrassing songs to myself without attracting attention. And with an internal jukebox which inexplicably started playing 'La Isla Bonita' all last week, any involuntary singing as I peg down City Road can only end in humiliation.
As any of you who while away your three score and 10 scurrying to and from work through London's vast network of underground caverns will know, there's a tube strike on today.
Being a right-on cyclist with my own Lycra and everything, the ructions between the RMT's subterranean rat-men and their awful overlords doesn't really bother me that much. Sure, the hordes of grey-faced commuters forced blinking into the weak October sunlight make the journey a little more fraught: the roads through the city are packed with bikes, mopeds and cars clearly piloted by the criminally insane and there's a far higher incidence of pedestrian lemmings hurling themselves from the kerb with frighteningly blank eyes. Still, it's helping Londoners engage with each other more than the usual commute does - even if the brief spark of human contact only seems to light a conflagration of communal moaning.
What's tickled me is the news coverage of the strike. The BBC covered it in the London local news section: fair enough. They also featured it as a headline story in the main body of BBC Breakfast, which made me wonder if we'd see similar stories if Nottingham's tram drivers took a day off in a huff. Is the Underground really national news, or is it just a parochial dust-up that's easy to send a reporter to?
The cries of 'union stooge!' that went up when Ed Miliband was elected as Labour leader have made industrial action more noteworthy. I'm looking forward to seeing how his relationship with the unions unfolds as the cuts start to bite, and curious to see how the coalition PR machine swings into action to fight a renewed opposition.
Whatever happens, I hope tube workers decide not to strike again in November, as all the extra people lurching around above ground do have one rubbish effect on my ride: I can't sing embarrassing songs to myself without attracting attention. And with an internal jukebox which inexplicably started playing 'La Isla Bonita' all last week, any involuntary singing as I peg down City Road can only end in humiliation.
Now playing! 'Nothing to See', Four Tet
A little bit of content written for music and culture blog Shoot Bands and Leaves on 4/10/2010
Going further down the glitchy rabbit hole than he did in There is Love in You, Four Tet's contribution to the new Soul Jazz compilation Future Bass is brilliant. 'Nothing to See' drifts on warm fuzz, burbling synths and chiming cut-up instruments, loosely anchored by the stomping, clubby kick drum than ran through his last LP and The Ringer EP.
Four Tet's post-house production sounds so organic you can imagine it growing on trees in a shaded, mossy forest. I love it - you should too.
Going further down the glitchy rabbit hole than he did in There is Love in You, Four Tet's contribution to the new Soul Jazz compilation Future Bass is brilliant. 'Nothing to See' drifts on warm fuzz, burbling synths and chiming cut-up instruments, loosely anchored by the stomping, clubby kick drum than ran through his last LP and The Ringer EP.
Four Tet's post-house production sounds so organic you can imagine it growing on trees in a shaded, mossy forest. I love it - you should too.
Feature: review of Spooks, episode 3
I love Spooks' blend of slick production, fast-paced action and brilliantly lunatic plotting. It's one of the few programmes I'll actively tune in to on the telly.
Check the review out in situ at WWM or read it in full below the fold.
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