HI THERE
We're a 5 year-old London agency (although the partners have
been in the business for more years than they care to remember).
We combine the entrepreneurship, flexible structure and agility of a new world
agency – with an understanding of what makes people tick and plenty of
grown-up, commercial rigour.
London's Evening Standard called us "the coolest agency in town". Likewise, Ad News said we were "One of Europe's hottest agencies” and
The Drum said we were “The ballsiest agency in town”. Meanwhile we’ve been shortlisted for Campaign’s Agency of the Year for the last three years in a row.
Our elevator pitch is that we are “a creative company for people on a mission”. This is a simple but very deliberate statement of intent, made up of three distinct elements:
WE ARE A CREATIVE COMPANY... While we excel at advertising, we have set this company up to deliver a broader definition of creativity. If you get closer to the problem, the solution will reveal itself.
FOR PEOPLE... This may sound obvious, but in our technology-driven world it is all too easy to forget that people are still people, with human needs and desires. Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. Insight is still key.
ON A MISSION... We are all about behavioural change. We want people to do things, not just feel things, as a result of our work. We get out of bed to make a difference.
We’re really proud of our client roster, which ranges from a global retail giant such as Amazon, to heart of Britain brands such as Premier Inn and Yorkshire Tea. In a previous life, the team has also worked on supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose, and high-street retailers such as Boots and complex organisations such as The Post Office.
SOME RELEVANT MISSIONS
Below are a few examples of our work that we hope you’ll enjoy.
For ease of presentation, we’ve concentrated on film although
these ideas ran as multi-media campaigns, as you'd expect.
WORKING WITH THE WORLD’S FASTEST MOVING RETAILER
In 2014, we were honoured to become Amazon’s first UK agency. Since then, we’ve helped them sell iconic devices such as the Kindle, Fire TV stick and Echo, as well as promoting sales events such as Black Friday, Christmas & Boxing Day, and winning the American public's vote for best Superbowl ad this year.
Last year, Amazon then came to us with a brief to create their first ever global Christmas campaign, running in 12 markets worldwide. It was a mammoth operation, which needed to capture Amazon's role, across different occasions, categories, channels and markets as diverse as the US to Japan. With a complex challenge, we hit upon the simple idea of heroing Amazon's iconic packages and the epic journeys they make, to put a smile on the faces of people around the world.
The TV campaign featured a hero brand ad, four occasion-specific ads, and three deals ads for Black Friday, Cyber Monday & Last Minute deals. We ran supporting creative in radio & multiple cut downs and bespoke creative in digital and we partnered with Google to create a digital first which pulled the best selling products on Amazon’s website through to our digital advertising in real time. The campaign also spanned print, OOH and social, right through to internal comms.
The results have been outstanding: in terms of sales, this campaign has been Amazon’s most efficient ever. And, on top of sales figures, it’s done a brand job for them too. According to Media Post it was #2 in the US’s Most Loved Holiday ads.
Kantar UK reported that it was the most impactful Christmas campaign in 2017.
It topped the charts for being distinct, well branded, and making
people want to take action as a result of seeing it.
DRIVING GREATER
CULTURAL RELEVANCE
Pot Noodle is the UK's number 1 instant hot snack. But over the years, its lazy slacker brand associations had become irrelevant to today’s go-getting 18-30s and it was losing share to its competitors. So we flipped the brand’s core benefit – simplicity – so that it would appeal to these ambitious young Brits, and communicated it in a way that captured the hearts of this super-ambitious generation - but also made them laugh.
Altogether, the 'You Can Make It' platform has grown brand penetration to
a record 25% of households and increased sales to over £100M for the
first time ever. Pot Noodle is back at the heart of British youth culture.
The Pot Noodle 'Ring lad' became a proper internet celebrity. So we sent him to the O2 stadium to keep smashing gender stereotypes. You go, ring lad!
UNDERSTANDING WHAT
COMMUNITY MEANS IN
THE 21ST CENTURY
Hostelworld is the world's leading booking engine for hostels. While lots of 18-34s
were travelling, their doubts about hostel quality were a barrier to booking. Our brief was to showcase how much better hostels are these days, without making a boring brochure.
We needed an entertaining solution to appeal to Hostelworld’s savvy youth audience, globally, and without the spend of our competitors. So we created a series of online films starring Unexpected Guests staying in hostels, including 50 Cent, Charlie Sheen, Chris Eubank, and most recently the world's biggest diva, Mariah Carey, as they "Meet the world."
Together, these videos have generated over 25M views, over 1000 pieces of
editorial coverage in 23 markets and over 2 Billion impressions. Most importantly,
69% of young people exposed to ‘Unexpected Guest’ content said they were
more likely to stay in a hostel as a result. Since the campaign started, Hostelworld bookings growth has increased every year, and is currently running at +21% yoy.
We also worked closely with Google to launch a Hostelworld "Speak the World" App, helping to connect our International community.
And because picking up plastic off the beach is actually one of the most effective ways of halting plastic pollution, we also wanted to enlist the Hostelworld community to help in the war on plastic. All travellers have to do is go to the beach and pick up a pre-determined amount of plastic, bringing it to us in return for a 'Paid by Plastic" night in a hostel.
WINNING THE HEARTS
OF BRITAIN
Premier Inn is the UK’s leading hotel business brand, with over 750 hotels across the UK. But it faces intense competition. We needed to evolve Premier Inn's brand strategy and tell a single bigger story.
Our insight was that nobody visits a Premier Inn just to stay in a Premier Inn. They’re always going for another, bigger reason, whether that’s an important business meeting or a family occasion. We needed to communicate all of our product points within this bigger human story. We summed this up with the humble idea that wherever you’re going, Premier Inn is “a great place to start”. This simple thought worked - in challenging market conditions, Premier Inn grew total sales by 9% last year.
WINNING THE PUBLIC VOTE FOR BEST SUPERBOWL AD
Finally, it would be remiss of us not to mention our Amazon Alexa Super Bowl spot featuring celebs such as Gordon Ramsay, Rebel Wilson, Cardi B and Sir Anthony Hopkins, all trying and spectacularly failing, to replace Alexa.
Wins included USA Today Super Bowl AdMeter, Kellogg’s School of Management
Super Bowl review, the YouTube Super Bowl Adblitz, Ad Age’s Super Bowl ranking,
and Best Retail Brand in Twitter’s inaugural Brand Bowl competition.
A LITTLE MORE ABOUT
THE FOUNDERS
Danny Brooke-Taylor
Danny has been lucky enough to be Creative Director at some great agencies, including TBWA, MCBD and most recently, Mother. During that time, he worked on many iconic challenger brands such as Virgin Trains, PlayStation, Apple and Adidas. He’s also bagged lots of awards at Cannes, The One Show, British Arrows, Creative Circle and been nominated 10 times by D&AD. In fact, his Hovis commercial “Go on lad” was voted “Ad of the Decade” by ITV viewers in 2010. In February 2018, his Amazon work was voted the best Super Bowl campaign by the American public.
Co-op Member 633174913218203612.
Helen Calcraft
Helen got her first break at AMV BBDO, where she became the youngest woman to be promoted to the board (at 28). After a decade there, she went onto London Business School’s Executive MBA programme, where she graduated with distinction. Despite taking precisely none of the LBS’s great courses in entrepreneurship, she then co-founded ad agency MCBD in 1999. Ten years later, MCBD was a top 25 agency, hailed by Campaign as “one of the more impressive start ups of the last decade”. Campaign recently named her the Number One Account Handler in the UK and in April 2018, Ad Age named her one of the best in Europe.
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Andy Nairn
Andy stumbled into advertising by chance, after graduating from Edinburgh University with a First in Law. Twenty years later, Campaign named him the Number 1 planner in the UK and one of the top 10 in the world. He started life at AMV BBDO, before moving to RKCR/Y&R, where he helped Virgin become Cannes Advertiser of the Year. After a spell at Goodby Silverstein in the States, he then returned to the UK to head up planning at MCBD, helping them become IPA Effectiveness Agency of the Year in 2005, 2007, and 2010.
Co-op Member 633174913218206078.
AND FINALLY
Our name comes from a Napoleon quote. When asked what he needed to win a war,
the great commander famously said “Bring me your Lucky Generals”. In other words, he
wanted people with a track record who would roll their sleeves up, go into battle and win.
We love that mentality but, like Napoleon, we know that in reality, there is no such thing as luck.
So we will do whatever it takes to get results for you.We will work our socks off for you, in the
belief that the harder we work, the luckier we will all get.
THANK YOU.
WE SALUTE YOU.