Clari Inc. wanted to be top of mind for anyone traveling to the Salesforce World Tour event in London. So this video was displayed on a loop at a dozen train and tube stations, local to the ExCel Centre.

The Salesforce event had a 'Make everyone an Einstein' theme, so the idea had to resonate with the audience, on their way to the show.

Clari is a revenue operations platform that sits above Salesforce, enabling businesses to get greater visibility of the sales pipeline, and prevent revenue leaks.

G=SC2 was an obvious route that pays homage to e=MC2.

Discom wanted to crystalise its messaging to maximise the impact of future comms programmes.

By understanding the challenges and opportunities that climate change presents to Discom’s target audience, I produced a messaging house that can be used for all personas, across all platforms.

The full playbook details several target businesses and target audiences, with messaging that answers their challenges with benefits of talking about climate change.

The challenge

With so many cybersecurity vendors in the marketplace offering similar ways to protect data, applications, and individuals, being distinctive is a big ask.

I needed to find a way to tell the story of how the Thales + Imperva cybersecurity offering enhances protection by enabling businesses to see cyber threats in new and more detailed ways. 

The head-turning idea

When you can see who and what is at risk - and where - you can act quickly to protect yourself, your assets, and your business, and in the wild, survival depends on being alert to any possible threat.

Basing the visual storytelling on ‘in the world’ this creative route stands out. What other cybersecurity vendor uses wild animals to tell its story? It’s assertive, unusual, and intriguing; and talks about the positive outcomes that are possible, when businesses see risk differently.

The challenge

Zendesk wanted an ABM campaign concept — aimed at three national retailers —to tell how its omnichannel platform enhances customer experiences by deliveing greater visibility, engagement, and performance.

With customer service agents constantly overwhelmed by the volume of customer enquiries, requests, and orders — no matter which comms channel they used — consumer satisfaction levels went down as complaint numbers went up.

The head-turning idea

The headline ‘All Ways. Right plays on the aspect of ‘zen’ to position the platform as a way of delivering customer calm across any channel.

The visual ident takes elements from Zendesk’s logo to showing balance at the top level, no matter what is going on beneath.

Always looking around at what brands are doing, always adding great ideas to our swipe file, and always taking inspiration from the world around us.

These creative reviews are designed to let accounts teams show clients more than just what creatives do for them and drive demand for bigger, better, braver ideas.

And it’s working.

The challenge:

To get CISOs, CIOs, and business owners who’ve recently been hacked to instinctively know they can turn to NCC’s hotline for immediate support, by saying there’s only one thing you need to do when you’ve been hacked.

The brief:

To create a globally relatable brand awareness campaign that focuses on long-term recall, clear differentiation, and taking immediate action.

The head-turning idea:

We made cyber security a physical thing people can relate to. PRONTO the dog displays all the traits of man’s best friend and comes from the world’s best cyber security dog training facility.

A quick look at some of the latest work my AD partner, Nick Cremin and I produced for MOI Global.

Credit: Faraz Akbar (video production).

Genesys wanted an ABM campaign concept to tell how its consistent, omnichannel experiences deliver greater visibility, engagement, and compliance to help HMRC to get more tax right and drive societal growth.

With agents constantly up against it, morale often takes a hit; adding to HMRC’s pressure to achieve the expected tax.

This route is about positioning HMRC employees as the heroes who, with the Genesys platform helping turn this around, will see their efforts close the tax gap, helping businesses and the wider society.

To raise the profile of the Creative Department within the agency, we introduced Heads Up Creative. A monthly look at various things that inspire us and how this influences the head-turning work we do for clients.

These are excerpts from January’s edition.

Following the success of our GCC banks campaign, Collinson wanted to target a number of financial institutions in Europe. They wanted to emphasise the benefit their (travel-orientated) loyalty programs can bring, in terms of strategic imperatives, most banks in the region share.

Loyalty programs are about experiences that give customers satisfaction and bring them benefits.

But expectations are rising. Loyalty is no longer just about points and satisfaction. Customers expect more and it’s imperative that banks upgrade to first-class loyalty programs that deliver more—customer delight, higher engagement opportunities, and opportunities to innovate new rewards ideas.

This creative route is about how Collinson’s consulting experience, intelligence, and skill results in first-class loyalty platforms that deliver more—to banks and their customers.

Full ABM campaign assets include:

-landing page, content hub, long-form ebooks, and insights guides

-nurture emails, social posts, and programmatic banners

-webinars and videos

The Challenge:

Colt was looking to bring its global workforce together, to celebrate the company’s 30th birthday. Whether in-person or virtual, the need was to build excitement for the event with a strong identity and suite of comms to keep interest high, up to and into the event.

The head-turning solution:

The BOG Connect spoke directly to the fact that 5000+ Colties were coming together for the first time in years, to reflect, learn, and celebrate. It made the event look and feel like an all-day broadcast TV show, with segments of information and entertainment.

The BIG Connect helped to land the informal, personal, infotainment event style which had audience members engaged; wherever and however they were joining.

The brief: Create adcepts for an ABM campaign, that “turns heads” and opens the door to a full content experience.

Rationale: No matter how much data organizations gather from various global sources, they can’t maximize its value unless they can access it, apply intelligent analysis, align it with business strategies, and act wisely on the insights it reveals. 

This route challenges the perceived status quo and tells organizations to make a step-change in how they use data—to transform its value. 

We use BIG typographic headline statements that are disruptive, provocative, eye-catching—and drive audiences to read on. 

Organising thought: For data to be king, you need a king maker.

Tech giant, Oracle, wanted to promote itself as a customer-centric organisation, and show how its products and services deliver value to every industry.

The best way to do this was to produce ebooks that explore, in detail, the trends, challenges and opportunities that affect a number of vertical markets.

I interviewed stakeholders, including: industry specialists, product teams and senior sales professionals to gather the key information.

Read the Financial Services ebook

Read the Higher Education ebook

Read the Healthcare ebook

Read the Telcos ebook

Read the Automotive ebook

Read the Media and Entertainment ebook

My talk to 200+ copywriters and creatives explored the demand for authenticity in marketing and looked at how today’s consumers respond to content, and why we must always think authenticity first.

Learn more about Creative North

Here’s what Manchester’s One Agency Media had to say

Read Rice Media’s review

The brilliant Paolo Feroleto summarised my talk in real time, with this stunning cartoon. His witty take on my presentation captures what I was trying to convey with great charm and humour. You can find more of Paolo’s work here.

A few things to remember, to help you think ‘authenticity first’.

Oracle wanted to break away from its usual corporate TOV, and create a buzz around its Customer Experience Suite.

Working with a senior art director to create the concept, I pushed the tone with the script for this awareness video.

Inspired by Apple and Honda ads, the mix of kinetic typography, quirky footage and punchy soundtrack is a long way from the stuffy look and feel of a typical Oracle marketing video.

Oracle wanted a voice-over script, radio ad, OOH, and social campaign to promote data security in the Oracle Cloud.

For this, I wrote ad copy, headlines, social posts, a VO script, a radio script and web copy.

I gave a talk at Copy Cabana 2017 about how Artificial Intelligence is being used to write copy.

AI is a threat, but it’s not all bad news.

Ogilvy’s Head of Copy, Glenn Sturgess and I look at how to harness the power of machine learning, and explore why the human copywriter isn’t finished yet.

Glenn Fisher, author of The Art of The Click, interviewed me after my talk at this year’s Creative North event in Manchester.

We talked about the importance of authenticity in B2B copy, how my background in sales has helped my career as a copywriter, and the people that have influenced and inspired me over the years.

Oh, we also talk about my passion for Fulham FC.

I hope you enjoy it.

Hear the whole story here.

Iron Mountain secures and protects what people value most.

From Abraham Lincoln’s papers (more than a hundred thousand), to master studio recordings (think The Beatles and Elvis), to digital reconstructions of world famous monuments (like the pyramids or even the Hoover Dam).

When re-thinking the livery for its trucks, I went ‘full pun’.

And the guys at Iron Mountain loved them.

The Connected Series is a set of assets comprising thought leadership insights related to industry verticals and CxO pain points.

It discusses real challenges faced by businesses and leaders, with examples of how Dell EMC and Dell Technologies are helping customers address digital issues.

View the Connected series here>

Every quarter, Oracle runs an advertising and social campaign.

To promote innovation, using Oracle Cloud, this campaign centred on Blockchain, AI and predictive technology.

For this, I wrote ad copy, headlines, social posts and web copy.

New subjects will go live during Q1 2019, so I’ll be updating this section soon.

Check out the Oracle homepage

Vaillant wanted to recruit more installers. But instead of simply tempting them with financial incentives, they wanted us promote their business support services.

I worked with an art director to show how, with Villant’s help, an installer is able to spend less time on the business, and more time on what’s important: life.

A major Japanese bank invested in a Fujistu Cloud to improve the delivery of financial services to its customers .

And Fujitsu wanted a case study video that told the full story.

To create demand from other sectors, I had to tell the story in a way that every audience can understand, I worked on this video concept, showing how other markets can benefit.

Watch the full video.

Moving goods around the world is one thing. Getting them where they need to be at the right time is something else.

PNC Global Logistics delivers goods anywhere in the world - on time. This is specially important for its fashion-retail clients.

PNC Global wanted web copy that sells its services to every industry.

Visit the site.