KIT THE COPYWRITER

BRIEF:
New Seasons Market and Precept Winery put their heads together to create a new $10 wine, in red and white varietals. Working in partnership with our in-house packaging designer, I was tasked with creating a name and a brand for this wine.

INSIGHT:
We wanted a name that worked on both a functional and emotional level. Something that told you a little fact about the wine (in this case, that it's the product of partnership) but which also gave you a smile. "Partners in Crime" fit the bill perfectly. The slides on the left are from our initial concept presentation, giving you an insight into the thinking.

Once we had approval on the name, I worked with all stakeholders on shaping a brand that felt like a $10 New Seasons wine should - fun, approachable, and unpretentious.

(We were particularly lucky to be able to use illustrations by award-winning kids' author Jon Klassen on the labels. He agreed because 'New Seasons has a good lunch counter'. He's right too!)
 

RESULT:

The brand did exactly what we wanted: grabbed people's attention, and charmed them into trying the wine. After just 3 weeks on the shelves, it the red ranked #1 in our overall wine sales, while the white wasn't far behind, at #4. After 2 months, sales had reached almost $100K.

BRIEF:

New Seasons Market, Portland's much-loved grocery chain, needed a stand-out summer campaign to promote fresh produce and seafood. It had to be flexible enough to live across a bunch of different media, and - crucially - it had to stand out from the competition.

INSIGHT:

We realized that there's a strong comparison to be made between summer festivals and summer produce. People anticipate them fondly; they're here for a short, beautiful time; then they're gone. 

IDEA:

A campaign that billed our foods as 'summer superstars', with a visual style inspired by vintage concert posters from the 60s and 70s. The campaign sat perfectly with New Seasons' quirky, fun, slightly alternative brand voice, and allowed us to make playful communication in every space - from in-store postering to bus wraps to radio ads.

MY ROLE:
Jointly responsible for concept creation, and lead copywriter throughout the campaign.

BRIEF:

Create an in-store campaign to promote a range of products - including floral, bakery and confectionery - for Valentine's Day.

INSIGHT:

There's no single right way to express your affection on Valentine's Day. It could be through a bouquet, a cupcake, or even a pair of socks. It's all love!

IDEA:

A multi-department campaign under the banner 'Love is...'. 

BRIEF:
Create a distinctive, friendly voice for New Seasons Market's 'Partner Brand Label' - a line of products made in partnership with local makers in the Pacific Northwest. 

BRIEF: 
Create a public service campaign encouraging vigilance against online bank fraud.

INSIGHT:
Most cybercrime communications present bank fraud as something to be feared. We wondered if it would be more effective to take a positive approach.

IDEA: 
A new concept: Online Self Defence. The face of the campaign: Marc, an eccentric ‘Online Self Defence Instructor’. His drill-sergeant-style chant ‘Hang Op! Klik Weg! Bel Uw Bank!’ (Hang up, Click away, Call your bank) became the most recognizable part of the campaign. A TV spot drove viewers to a Safe Banking website, where they could learn more, test their online self-defence skills, and watch Marc’s TV show, “Secrets of Online Self Defence”.

RESULT: 
A dramatic drop in cyber fraud figures, down from 473 reported cases with a combined damage of 1.27 million euro in 2014, to just 106 cases for a total of 147k euro in 2014. 

MY ROLE:
I was jointly responsible for the overall concept. I also scripted key deliverables, including the TV spot and online content, in partnership with a Dutch copywriter.

BRIEFING: 
Create a giveaway that lets Bavaria establish a prominent role at Carnaval - a gigantic annual street costume party across the South of the Netherlands. 

INSIGHT: 
Each town in the region elects a 'Prince Carnaval' - an honorary mayor who wears a ludicrous costume, carries a scepter, and oversees festivities. Astonishingly, no brand had thought to claim this figure as their own.

IDEA: 
The Bavaria Beer Scepter - a sparkling, light-up, oversize beer holder that lets everyone 'Drink like a Prince'. We boosted it with a host of crazy stunts including a giant inflatable scepter at a local football stadium, and a pop song written by local novelty hitmakers The Gebroeders Ko. 

RESULTS: 
Sell-out success for the scepter. The tune 'Drink Like A Prince' makes it to the Top 20 in the Dutch charts, tormenting the entire agency for months.

MY ROLE:
I was jointly responsible for the overall creative concept and worked with a Dutch copywriter on the executions. Having a line I wrote turned into a novelty Dutch pop hit is one of my proudest moments.

THE BRIEF:
Create a global campaign platform for Adyen - a payments provider based in Amsterdam. By building an entirely new global payments system from the ground up, the company has revolutionised the payments industry, becoming one of Europe's most successful startups.

INSIGHT:
What Adyen does is complex and technical. But their benefit is simple; they let you get paid. Anyhow, anywhere.

IDEA:
The line 'Get Paid' became the campaign platform. We couldn't believe that no other payments provider was using it. Its merit lay in its total flexibility - we could use it to make clever conceptual ads or to explain Adyen's offering at very literal or technical levels.

MY ROLE:
I was jointly responsible for the the platform concept. Not all the ads you see here were created by us though. The intention was for Adyen to hand the platform to their different country teams to be used as they saw fit.

THE BRIEF:
Fisher Investments, the wealth management company, wanted a banner campaign designed to attract high net worth individuals looking to invest 350,000 euros or more.

THE INSIGHT:
Fisher's angle was that they're better than a bank at managing these large investments; more specialised, more personalised, more attentive, more transparent. It was a great, strong message. We just needed a way of dramatising it.

THE IDEA:
A series of provocative text-only ads that compared letting a bank handle your investments to various ill-advised activities. We wanted to respect the intelligence of our target audience and not over-explain things to them; it was kind of a wink to their own financial knowledge. Interested parties could then click through to download a brochure explaining the details of why Fisher was better than a bank.

BRIEF: 
Amsterdam startup Camarilla is a new kind of social networking app, which gives you a place to share photos and videos with your 15 closest friends. They asked us for a brand position: a simple, compelling shortcut to understanding why you should download Camarilla, even if you've already got Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

INSIGHT:
We realised that smallness was Camarilla's defining characteristic. It's the opposite of big, sprawling, multifunctional giants like Facebook. It's small, simple and for just a few of your closest pals. 

IDEA: 
We positioned Camarilla as 'the world's smallest social network'. A simple, memorable and intriguing claim that could feed into all their communications. As it turns out, smallness is (paradoxically) a very big idea.

RESULT: 
Camarilla is currently making waves around the world, with active users in over 130 countries, coverage in the likes of TechCrunch, and interest from top celebrities.

THE BRIEF:
ING bank had done a big takeover of Schiphol airport, splashing the phrase WORLD, HERE I COME (and various permutations thereof) on airbridges and walls.

The idea was to show them as an encouraging, human bank that empowers its customers in their everyday lives. However, they were struggling to find a way of using the 'Here I come' platform to advertise their Commercial Banking service.

THE IDEA:
We paired some quite human lines - the kind you might overhear any leisure traveller saying  - with ultra-ambitious commercial banking images. These were displayed on lightboxes and digital screens throughout the airport.
 

BRIEF:
Australian energy company ERM Power wanted to conduct an employee engagement survey. How could we persuade their busy workforce to participate?

INSIGHT:
People are more likely to do a survey if they feel like their gripes, bugbears and whinges are likely to be acknowledged.

IDEA:
A series of "fill in the blank" statements that take on wildly different meanings depending on the extra word you add.

MY ROLE:
I created the concept and wrote the copy. I'm pretty proud of these; it's nice to make some purely copy-driven ads.

BRIEF:
Create instore display concepts for new Lacoste products at Foot Locker stores across Europe.

INSIGHT:
We realised a lot of instore shoe displays (and in particular, window displays) were overcomplicating things. To solve this, we devised something called The 20 Paces Test. Concepts had to be capable of explaining the shoe to passers-by from 20 paces; mainly by blowing the product up big, and framing it with a heroic-looking visual concept. 

MY ROLE:
I assisted the art director with visual concepting and wrote the copy lines. This approach led to several new sales records for Lacoste.

We were invited to present some ideas to Dutch muscle car company Donkervoort.

Their cars are notorious for the extreme physicality and rawness of the driving experience. We didn't think this was really coming through in their communication.

We proposed a new position for them, as the ultra-masculine alternative to more mainstream brands like Porsche.

BRIEF: 
Create a campaign to drive interest among car drivers in Yamaha products.

INSIGHT:
Yamaha products all share a common factor; they bring you far more into contact with your surroundings than a car. They let you rediscover everything.

IDEA: 
A series of ads offering you the chance to 'Trade windscreen for widescreen.'

MY ROLE:
I was jointly responsible for the concept and wrote the copy. 

BRIEF: 
Create a co-branding campaign between Marvel's new film, Thor The Dark World, and Burger King.

INSIGHT:
Burger King offers small, medium and large meals. But there isn't yet a size that reflects the mightiness of the Thor character. 

IDEA: 
Eat Like A God. We created a new category. The 'God Size Meal'. It's like Extra Large. But Larger.

MY ROLE:
I was jointly responsible for the concept and wrote the copy. Sadly this campaign didn't end up running, due to timing of the movie release. Slightly blasphemous tone aside, I'm very fond of it.

My art director and I had a morbid fascination with bad stock photography. It was only a matter of time before we rewrote Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start The Fire' as a list of cliched stock subjects. 

This got picked up by Buzzfeed, Creative Review, The Poke etc. For some reason Shutterstock didn't endorse it though.

Back before I became a copywriter, I used to work in magazines. This might be why I get such amusement from creating covers to imaginary mags.

These have all enjoyed degrees of fame/notoriety online. The Portland one was picked up by the Willamette Week and has been shared thousands of times.

However, the parenting one in particular seemed to strike a chord with people; I gained about 900 Twitter followers in a couple of days and it got featured on The Huffington Post, Jezebel, The Daily Telegraph, The Poke, Shortlist and a lot of others.

Daft drawings and random musings, mostly based on puns