Modern brands can’t just tell people what they are, they have to live and breathe their values.

We brought the Samsung brand promise of “Do What You Can’t” to life for an audience of tech-empowered makers and content creators, pivoting the brand’s 5.1m-follower Instagram channel to give them the exposure they deserve and want.

I ran the global Content Creators workstream at R/GA New York, coordinating global campaigns through a multi-discipline team of 20+ across the US and Singapore

I led digital strategy for NOW TV through 3 seasons of Game of Thrones, producing a number of digital and social campaigns.

Notable examples include a social-scraping ‘death calculator’ (because as we know, “all men must die”) with personalised videos for fans showing how they’d meet their end in Game of Thrones, and The Battle for Westeros; a real-time strategy game played out across the map of Westeros.

The Battle for Westeros campaign allowed fans to claim areas of the map in the name of their chosen house, supported with real-time updates via two live streams on Facebook and Twitter, and promoted with a suite of social AV content fronted by the leaders of each House.

I led the campaign, from brief to client sell, UX and reporting.

Our task with well-loved NOW TV properties was always to engage existing fans in a NOW TV-branded environment, to ensure that when it came to watching the latest season, they were watching it on NOW TV. These activations all delivered significant dwell time, organic share rates and hugely increased social conversation around the brand in relation to GoT.

I led digital strategy on NOW TV through 3 seasons of The Walking Dead. Some of my favourite campaigns in that time included an interactive livestream where fans could vote to save their favourite characters from Neagan at the start of season 7, and this; The Walking Dead Survival Guide.

In this campaign, we enlisted dry British comedian Joe Wilkinson to front a series of webisodes reminding fans of some key plot points from the previous series, and providing some light-hearted ‘advice’ on how to survive the walker apocalypse.

I led the campaign, writing the brief and selling the idea to the client, writing UX wireframes and reporting. We were also asked to pitch for this work, and I led the team that won.

As with Game of Thrones, our task was to engage existing fans in a NOW TV-branded environment, to ensure that when it came to watching the latest season, they were watching it on NOW TV. Our The Walking Dead activations all delivered significant dwell time, organic share rates and hugely increased social conversation around the brand in relation to TWD.

I worked on King for around 2 years at the lead creative agency, producing TV and digital campaigns for a number of games, including the Candy Crush franchise, the Farm Heroes franchise and the Bubble Witch franchise.

At the Bubble Witch 3 Saga launch we had to communicate one key gameplay evolution from the previous iterations in the series - a new aiming line, courtesy of our plucky protagonist’s new magic wand. We identified this as the key element for comms because, simply put, it made the game easier. In a world where Netflix menus take up as much dwell time as content, and ‘afk games’ are increasingly popular, people who play these softcore mobile games are looking for low level engagement and disproportionate rewards. This was the basis for our campaign; Work Your Magic.

I wrote the strategy and the briefs, including the TV and all the digital, right down to app store thumbnail image optimisation.

Bubble Witch 3 Saga was a hit, overtaking the other ‘bubble shooter’ games on the app store within its first week and staying at number one throughout the campaign.

Grant & Sons’ Tullamore Dew is a well-loved Irish Whiskey worldwide. As with many global brands, Tullamore Dew operated at vastly different levels of digital maturity across its disparate geographic markets.

Working with Uncommon Studio London, I ran the workshops and developed the global playbook that enabled William Grant & Sons to bring their various global markets in-line and on-message, in a pilot and a format that’s been so successful it’s now rolling out to other brands in the portfolio

I led digital strategy on NOW TV through the first two seasons of Westworld. In that time, we produced an interactive digital video with branching multiple choice questions to help fans understand how they’d fare in the lawless environment of Westworld, and a social AV content campaign; ‘3 Telltale Signs You’re a Westworld Host’, playing on the social content zeitgeist of the time and bringing a little NOW TV comedy to an otherwise dark show.

In the former, we wrote multiple branching scripts and shot to-camera footage to resemble a host from Westworld asking questions in the prep area featured in the show. Because of our strong existing relationship with HBO (based on the quality of previous campaigns) we were able to quickly get signoff for content.

In ‘3 Telltale Signs You’re a Westworld Host’ we tweaked everyday situations fans might encounter to reflect the malfunctions hosts were beginning to experience in the show at the end of season 1, while reminding them of key plot points to keep excitement high ahead of season 2.

I led both campaigns, wrote the briefs and sold the ideas to the client, outlined branching story arcs and built measurement frameworks. We were also asked to pitch for this work, and I led that team that won.

As with Game of Thrones, our task was to engage existing fans in a NOW TV-branded environment, to ensure that when it came to watching the latest season, they were watching it on NOW TV. Both campaigns very efficiently placed NOW TV in the existing social conversation around Westworld, and had great CTR, VTR / completion rates and organic shares.

King is best known for the Candy Crush franchise, which I worked on through two iterations, but the company also owns other “saga” franchises. One of these is Farm Heroes. The latest iteration in the franchise introduced a new mechanic, in which players could match a number of fruits to create one giant superfruit - this was Farm Heroes Super Saga.

Our job was to communicate in a clear but exciting way that there was a new gameplay mechanic, and to get as many advance registrations as possible. This was a TV + digital campaign in which we produced 3 different TV ads, a 6-episode YouTube series, BTS AV with cast in-character, social content, a website and a suite of digital and app store ads.

I led the campaign, wrote the briefs and sold in formats, built the measurement framework and led reporting.

Farm Heroes Super Saga was a huge success and remains a core part of the King stable.

I worked through two Christmas seasons on NOW TV, in which we produced the most successful digital campaign NOW TV has ever run and so much so that they recreated it for a second year.

#FestiveFinds was a campaign designed to highlight the huge range of content available on the NOW TV service. At Christmas especially, people have more time to watch TV and movies, as well as arguably more time (as work hopefully winds down!) to indulge in some light entertainment in the workplace…

We created an interactive visual puzzle that featured 50 of the top viewed or most anticipated movies and series available on the service throughout the festive season, hosted on a standalone (branded) site and promoted with a suite of social content.

I led the account, the campaign, wrote the brief, created the idea, sold in to the client and wrote the UX, built the measurement framework and led the reporting.

With an average dwell time of over 20 minutes and over 120,000 visitors, the first campaign was such a success that the following year we invited noted British cartoonist Dan Woodger to recreate it. Both years were held up internally at NOW TV as some of the best and most effective work they’d produced.

While working on the Activision account I got to lead social strategy for the EU on Call of Duty, at the time the largest entertainment franchise in the world.

Call of Duty fans are a highly vocal group, largely split into two camps; those who think COD releases should always be set in a first / second world war environment, and those who clamour for innovation (without necessarily knowing what innovation should look like!)

With Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare we had to communicate a near-future setting and some innovative gameplay mechanics - for one half of the fanbase this was a welcome change, for the other half it was a travesty. Communicating the innovation as well as a “familiar gameplay you know and love” message was key to getting both sides on board.

I wrote the social strategy, content briefs and led creative teams in navigating messaging for this split audience, wrote the measurement framework and led reporting.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was a successful title for Activision Blizzard, despite the online community remaining vocal and thoroughly partisan!

I worked on a number of Samsung business units in my time at WCRS, one of which was Samsung Home Appliances, which had launched a partnership with top chefs to promote their latest offering.

The Samsung Club des Chefs is a multi-year, ongoing campaign which features content, experiential and live elements. On a day to day basis this account was about engaging an affluent consumer in high-end food content through social and showing how it can be replicated at home. During events, it was about share of voice and leveraging our chefs’ fame.

As an example, during CES I coordinated an on-the-ground social and production team to create daily content for Samsung social channels and led reporting, based on a measurement framework I built. I also led the pitch team to win the account.

I worked on Activision Blizzard accounts for just under 2 years, across Call of Duty, Skylanders and Destiny (plus a number of DLC releases for each). During that time I was fortunate to be the strategist leading the Destiny launch on social in the EU. Destiny was an entirely new IP and a type of game that really hasn't been done before.

Our social strategy focused on the elements of the game that we knew gamers wanted. Desk research and interviews with console gamers gave us an insight into what they would be looking for, once the ATL had done the job of piquing their interest.

I led the digital strategy for EFIGS, briefed social content and led reporting.

The social content performed more strongly than Activision Blizzard had anticipated, contributing to Destiny taking the mantle of the most pre-ordered game of all time. In social specifically the community grew faster than any other Activision title past or present and players still spend 3x as long online on average as they do with other games in what’s become known as the ‘looter-shooter’ genre.

I shook hands with Buzz Aldrin at Lynx / Axe Space Academy in Florida.

I worked on Lynx in the UK & Ireland for a little over 3 years. In that time I led a social audience of over a million fans through interactive treasure hunts, livestreamed events, real-time reactive content and genuine media ‘world firsts’, such as a mobile-controlled game housed in a YouTube desktop masthead.

One innovative campaign was Lynx Apollo, in which we pledged to send one person from the UK & Ireland into space. The digital-led campaign saw fans gathering votes and building their profiles, before a select 100 gathered in London for a competitive event that saw 6 go through to the Space Academy. From there they would be taken to Cape Canaveral for astronaut training before just one was chosen to be sent into space.

I led the social campaign, led the on-the-ground team that was documenting each event, flew a plane over Cape Canaveral at dawn and led reporting throughout the campaign.

Over 80,000 people created profiles in the UK & Ireland to compete for a chance to go to space.

I was fortunate to be part of the Sky team soon after the launch of Sky Mobile. While the brand-led TV creative was produced by another agency, our task was to support it with direct TV, print and digital comms to get people to sign up to a new mobile brand in a highly competitive space.

With 3 core benefits to communicate, this was a challenge - our audience largely don’t want complexity, but mobile phone plans and services are necessarily complex. By leveraging a very clean, simple visual style and concentrating on a few words in our lead messages we were able to land the core benefits of Sky Mobile in a cluttered market.

Roll, Mix and Save were our focus words - roll over your data for later, mix up your plan whenever you like, and save money if you’re already a Sky TV customer (this is where we anticipated the fastest adoption).

I led the team that produced a number of TV ads, print ads, large format outdoor, digital and social to support Sky Mobile through its first year or so of trading.

At the time I left the account, Sky Mobile subscriber count had overtaken targets.

Skylanders is an adventure game for children and the very first mass market ‘toys to life’ game. A hardware piece called a ‘portal’ is connected to a games console and then individual figurines can be placed on it to bring them to life in the game.

I worked on two releases while at TMW, the first of which was Skylanders Trap Team. This campaign was built around a new gameplay mechanic, traps, which would allow players to capture new playable characters from the game without owning the corresponding figurine.

Given the average age of the audience and the complexity of the gameplay innovation, we chose to concentrate instead on the story and prominent characters, weaving in gameplay wherever we could. This led to such great executions as the Twitter-controlled, livestreamed #HitPainYatta (which you can see more of here) and a suite of social content that really made prospective players feel part of the Trap Team.

I led the social strategy, wrote content briefs and briefed the idea for #HitPainYatta, sold it in to client and oversaw production and reporting.

Skylanders Trap Team was a sales success and the Skylanders franchise enjoyed two further releases.

At WCRS I led the Hasbro account, working on a number of brands including Play-Doh, Transformers, My Little Pony, Hasbro Gaming (e.g. Monopoly) and the Hasbro masterbrand. I produced digital, social and print content in that time, including for the release of My Little Pony The Movie.

I was also the strategist on the pitch team that won the Hasbro account.

For a little over a year I led the Sky account at Digitas UK.

In that time, I worked on around 10 TV campaigns, 15 print campaigns and 15 digital campaigns across three business units and two territories.

One of these business units was Sky Broadband. This is interesting because it’s a commodity with the support of an entertainment giant - with Sky, internet access isn’t just about whether or not you can check your email, it’s about the breadth of content that the internet brings you. It’s a delivery mechanism for entertainment.

Sky Broadband consists of a number of offerings at various price points but the single thing that elevates it above other services is the entertainment, and this is where we focused our comms.

I led multiple campaigns in the UK & Ireland that majored on content, across TV, digital and print, writing briefs, selling ideas to client and keeping work on-point.

Skylanders is an adventure game for children and the very first mass market ‘toys to life’ game. A hardware piece called a ‘portal’ is connected to a games console and then individual figurines can be placed on it to bring them to life in the game.

With Skylanders Trap Team, we were concentrating on the storyline and the key new characters that it introduced, including Pain Yatta - a brightly coloured monster that looks like a piñata, whose attack is to vomit sweets onto enemies…!

For the launch, we built a Pain Yatta piñata, 5 feet long, suspended by bat on a robotic arm that was controlled by Twitter API, and invited Skylanders fans to tweet to #HitPainYatta. The person who hit the Pain Yatta piñata last when it broke would win a host of Skylanders prizes.

Actor Danny Dyer particularly enjoyed this execution, shouting “smash his f**king face” from the crowd as the second piñata (of the three we commissioned) spilled its prizes.

With the Lynx / Axe Peace TV creative produced by another agency, our task was to produce all the supporting content. To land the idea “Make Love Not War” in digital and social spaces, we engaged a number of influencers and creators in different areas, and pledged to give as much as we could raise to the charity Peace One Day.

We asked fans to focus their passions for peace, working with renowned music producer Naughty Boy to create an exclusive track and content around its creation, under the banner Make Beats Not War.

In partnership with ASOS we engaged 4 up-and-coming designers to create shirts in Make Threads Not War, with all proceeds going to the charity, and a fifth design created by Lynx fans themselves in a creative competition.

Make Moments Not War was fronted by Young Photographer of the Year Matthew Lloyd, whose conflict photography expertise was used to bring local heroes to light and encourage others to get photographing through an Instagram competition.

I led the social content and was responsible for Lynx’s online presence in the UK & Ireland, briefing and producing content, managing competitions and reporting.

Unilever brand Lynx (Axe in the US) had to behave like an entertainment brand to keep its huge fanbase interested. For the release of the new Lynx Chaos / Axe Anarchy (US) this meant a campaign with some engaging challenges.

In the UK, we created a six-part digital treasure hunt, carried out over Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, standalone websites and YouTube, asking fans to find clues to claim their tickets to the party of a lifetime on Chaos Island / Anarchy Island (US).

14 lucky winners from the UK & Ireland were taken to Belize and treated to a week of sea, sun and fun as their well-earned reward.

I created social content, was responsible for posting, reporting, on-the-ground content capture and marshalling the 14 UK & Ireland winners through the week.