SOCIAL AND CONTENT
Any creatives worth their salt should already be immersed in it; after all, social media channels are arguably the most important in our industry. The work isn’t always the most glamorous but there are still plenty of opportunities creatively. It’s important to realise that like any other media channel (technical considerations aside) the creative role is the same – to grab attention, disrupt, convert, be relevant, build customer relationships and brand equity. What I love about this channel, is that it proves you don’t need a lot of money to produce something fun and engaging.
Over the years I've created social campaigns for telcos, tech companies, financial institutions, charities, gaming companies, sports teams, consumer products and prestige automotive brands... The work has ranged from twitter posts and solus instagram stories, through to fully integrated campaigns involving every social media channel of note. Below are just a few favourites:
Colgate Mouth Fit with Kieran Read
Sporting celebrities and toothpaste don't make the easiest recipe for engaging oral-hygiene educational video content (there's a mouthful). However, we managed to have fun with this one. Kieran surprised us with a less than totally wooden performance and the young fans seemed to enjoy them, granting us hundreds of thousands of views.
Social Media Video 1
Social Media Video 2
UNIBET HYPE VIDEOS
NO BUDGET, NO TIME, NO PROBLEM.
It's no mystery that it's easier to produce something engaging on a big budget. However, the agile world of content often comes with short deadlines and tight margins. Add to that, the few seconds you have to capture someone's attention and the range of tricky formats – content can be quite the challenge. It's a skillset all of its own and not everyone can do it well. That doesn't mean it can't be something dramatic and playful. These Unibet sports betting hype videos were made entirely with stock footage with budgets in the hundreds, not thousands.
Blingo Promo Hype-video for Kindred/Unibet
Kindred is one of the largest global online gambling companies. It doesn't limit itself to slot apps but also has a large range of live gaming experiences where participants can tune in remotely to play online via their mobiles. In this case Kindred teamed up with UK hiphop bingo sensation "Blingo". We promoted live bingo events throughout Europe. The initial brief was for a series of hype-videos for social media (Instagram and Facebook) as 6s, 15s and 30s edits. They were so well received, we also created edits for TV. Tune in episode 2 coming soon.
Vodafone Warriors supporter portal and social media content.
When you’re a die-hard Warriors nut, it’s a long time between games. This was the impetus behind the Vodafone One Tribe fan site. Rather than the usual yawn-inducing stats and game tables, we gave fans the chance to fill the void and really get to know their heroes, with genuine behind-the-scenes insights and entertainment. The site featured a plethora of games, galleries, competitions, player-contributed articles, etc. Webisodes were a key component, which starred a new player each month. These were emailed to the fan base, and used to bring viewers back into the site on a regular basis.
It's amazing that such a short time ago, file sizes posed a real hurdle for shareable content. Please excuse the heavy compression on these files – you’ll get the idea though. These were the initial three videos of a long series created.
CityFibre staff engagement campaign (Lockdown 1)
At the end of 2020 I concepted a company culture and staff engagement campaign for CityFibre; which was to go live late in the first quarter of 2021. Then the pandemic hit and most such campaigns went straight on hold. However, being a key provider of infrastructure, CityFibre continued to operate during the lockdown and despite the logistical difficulties, were still keen to progress with their campaign. This posed the problem, of how to create bespoke imagery assets, internal guidelines, teaser campaigns, video content and a host of other collateral without the benefit of photographers, videographers and other technical resource.
Plus, I was actually trapped in lockdown in Greece. In the end it fell upon my shoulders to create most of the assets including the 32 page internal brand guidelines and a complete image library containing dozens of light graffitied shots.
