I co-created the idea and wrote the script, but left the agency before production. I think it turned out well.
A quick couple of ads put together for an article in FTadviser.
I’ve always liked this one-off ad. Image and headline working together to tell a story.
The niggles got made and were given away in branches. Staff even ran a competition to 'pimp' their niggles - with very amusing results.
This was a spec idea for some awards or other - a pasty version of Heston Blumenthal’s sound-enhanced fish and chips.
Did you know that Slough Trading Estate is home to some of the world's leading companies, like Mars, O2 and Ferrari? As part of their rebrand, I wrote their entire website - becoming the world’s leading authority on Slough in the process.
An interactive video-based rugby game to illustrate the principles of investment risk and reward. I devised the idea and wrote the microsite.
Convincing people to stop making excuses and start planning for their retirements.
This idea came out of the hoary, old joke that marriage is a sentence not a word. It allowed me to give my writing muscle a workout. The poster’s never run but I think it would make a great cross-track.
Another campaign getting people to start a pension. It was also one of my first. Time does indeed fly.
Getting the brand name into the idea made this campaign memorable and effective.
It was very good of City A.M. to mess with their front cover in service of my idea for Lyxor ETFs.
A cheeky ad for a financial news website.
Inspired by the ad above, here’s yours truly making an idiot out of himself.
SG CFDs were the first to offer a free stop loss, meaning you couldn’t run up frighteningly large debts. These ads dramatised this quite technical product feature in a simple and memorable way.
I’m not entirely sure anyone has ever read a brochure from cover to cover. But I’ve always enjoyed writing them. Brings back memories oof writing my masters dissertation. Examples on request!
That was the idea when I placed Alcoholics Anonymous helpline stickers underneath pub tables. The idea won a ‘Vinegar’ for Best Use of Unusual Media at the Chip Shop Awards.
I really think this could work. Warnings on cigarette packets are ineffective. People have an attachment to what’s inside. So why not force tobacco companies to print warnings on the cigarettes themselves? A week after I came up with this idea, Kate Moss smoked while on the catwalk. I bet she wouldn't have done so if she had to hold a cigarette that said, 'My breath stinks'.
It didn’t make me a millionaire but it did result in a feature in The Sun as well as a two-year gig reviewing movies on BBC Three Counties radio.