CLARE D'ANDREA & JOHNNY COOKE

As part of McLaren and Velo’s LOVE THE UNEXPECTED campaign we were tasked to create a short docu-film about a McLaren super fan with something exceptional about them. We found just the guy: Florian Weber, aka Paper Legend, ex car designer and master paper artist. Florian makes small-scale paper models of legendary cars, but it turns out he’s always had a dream – to create a full-scale paper sculpture of a McLaren F1 inspired car. So we decided to help make his dream come true.

SHOW YOUR HEART

A campaign platform for UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 – built to turn elite women’s football into a shared emotional event.

Show Your Heart invited players, fans and new audiences to bring their passion, pride and belief to the tournament. The work stretched across film, social, ticketing, OOH, player stories, fan engagement and matchday content – giving UEFA a simple, flexible rallying cry in the build-up to a record-breaking tournament.

The tournament went on to deliver 574,875 total match attendance, 87,192 fans at the Wembley final, 453m social interactions and 365m projected global live viewers.

FILM, SOCIAL, OOH, TICKETING, FAN ENGAGEMENT

Grassroots football clubs beat at the heart of their local communities, the glue that binds them together, but many of the UK’s 43,000 grassroots clubs are under threat from lack of funding and facilities. Over 5,000 are likely to close this year alone. (2022)

However, a few clubs are surviving and thriving through their innovative use of creativity and tech, like Baiteze Squad from East London, who only 3 years after forming are the current FA Sunday Cup holders with over 50 million views of their creative online content. Bossing it on and off the pitch. So how can we learn from Baiteze to help many more clubs to thrive?

Working with The Elephant Room we created the Samsung Grassroots Academy – the world’s first football academy that doesn’t teach tactics and skills, but instead teaches grassroots clubs to win hearts, likes, fans, and followers by harnessing the power of their creativity with Samsung technology.

And to kick it all off we collaborated with Baiteze to create a promo film to inspire and motivate our audience.

The Court is Yours. An integrated campaign with a simple objective; get more people to play more tennis, more often. It doesn’t matter how bad, or mad you are, just pick up a racket and play at your local park, club or even against your garage door. Get out there and make the court yours. There was a partnership with champion Joanna Konta, the current British number one. The campaign launches Nature Valley’s™ new Coconut and Almond flavour protein bar and is led by 60 second content film, social campaign and OOH which brings to life the real, everyday side of tennis with park players young and old – the hits, the misses and mini-fist pumps.

ONLINE FILM, SOCIAL, PRINT, OOH, EXPERIENTIAL

🏆 IPM Awards - Gold, Most Effective Sponsorship / Silver, Most Effective Partnership

Marketing Society Excellence Awards - Marketing Communications Shortlist

BT Sport Industry Awards - Campaign of the Year Shortlist

MAGNERS - 'MADE IN THE DARK' EXPERIENTIAL

Magners Irish Cider is made in the dark to achieve its distinctive taste. 
So, for their new summer campaign aimed at publicans and drinkers alike, darkness became our special ingredient too. We launched a nationwide search for pub gardens in need of a makeover and invited them to enter a competition to win a ‘Made in the Dark’ Cider Garden transformation. For the lucky recipients, these makeovers happened all in the space of one night. We created a relaxed, natural environment with an orchard feel, using wooden crates and hanging chairs.

Cannes Lions - best use of experiential marketing.

EXPERIENTIAL, ON-TRADE, SOCIAL

As part of the 2021 international launch of the new Google Pixel 6 smart phone, we were tasked with creating the French campaign, including this TV ad: written remotely, filmed in Margate, edited in London, and aired… in France. Naturellement.

The new phone features an array of cool new functions, including Face Unblur, Live Translate and adaptive battery, a phone that adapts to you, whoever you are and wherever you’re from, in all your uniqueness. This is the message we sought to convey. To help us we found the perfect brand ambassador in French singer songwriter, HOSHI: a progressive and proudly independent woman who provided the music and the voiceover to our TV spot. Now an ongoing advocate for the brand.

Halloween is a great time for kids, and this Halloween Sainsbury's wanted kids to really get into character. Sainsbury’s Halloween costumes were interactive with Spooky Speaker - a free smartphone app brought kids characters to life in a spooky and unique way for Halloween. The app used voice distortion technology to transform speech, simply by recording a phrase and playing it back in one of 6 spooky voices, complete with wonderfully animated mouths to match each of the costumes available in-store. Our app featured in the top 100 free chart on iTunes. Ad agency AMV:BBDO created a TVC to promote the app for the following Halloween.

APP, SOCIAL, IN-STORE

Wayfair have got so much awesome stuff it’s been causing couples conflict on what to choose. We decided to embrace that conflict and have a little fun with it.

AMEX wanted to make an appeal for people all over the UK to help their suffering high streets by 'shopping small'.

But how?

We realised that online or big-chain shopping can be convenient – but it can also be isolating, and we human beings need to make connections for our wellbeing. And for this we need look no further than our high streets, where there is so much more value than we might assume.

TV, RADIO, OOH, PRINT, AMBIENT

VISIT QATAR + WORLD CUP

For Qatar Tourism’s "No Football. No Worries" campaign, we were tasked with creating a series of fun and unexpected films starring none other than legendary Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo. But this wasn’t about football – it was about showing how much Qatar has to offer when the game’s not on.

We put Pirlo in the middle of some amazing Qatari adventures: sand-boarding down the dramatic dunes of the Inland Sea, exploring the stunning Museum of Islamic Art, and even kitesurfing at the pristine Fuwairit Kite Beach. The result? A humorous and feel-good campaign that proves Qatar’s world-class experiences go way beyond the pitch.

Agency - AMV BBDO

We generated a buzz around Mickey & Minnie ahead of their 90th anniversary, with a special lifestyle campaign promoting their new line of festival fashion wear. This ensured Mickey & Minnie stayed part of the cultural conversation and engaged with the youth adult community. We hosted a pop up launch party in Soho and the audience was made up of three headline influencers and 50 additional break-through micro influencers who will be invited to the event for free. Guests will be inspired to create their own content as they are invited to preview the Mickey fashion lines, interact with Disney hair/make up stations, GIF booths, goodie bags and be part of live content.

INFLUENCER EVENT, STYLING, PRODUCTION DESIGN, SOCIAL, FLYPOSTERS.

AMSTEL - 'RIDE TOGETHER' EXPERIENTIAL/INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN

Amstel is the newly official beer sponsor of Prudential Ride London. To celebrate this, we recruited some lucky hopefuls to participate in the Amstel Challenge. We are celebrating the teamwork and togetherness of the cycling movement. After our teams of four cross the finish line, they will each be treated just like pros in the Amstel Velo. We’ll look after both bike and rider, as well as pulling all the data and professional pictures from their journey so they can relive and share it together. We’ll worry about the details, so they can revive, relive and reward the ride with a cold pint of Amstel. And they’ll have the chance to hear from our very own Amstel Team of Legends, who will talk about their own riding experiences together, and offer teams the chance for some impressive post-ride analysis… The Velo design is inspired by cycling geometry as well as Amstel roundel and the recurring shapes in our RideTogether lockup.

Working with AMV BBDO we were tasked with showcasing some of the wonders of Qatar to a family audience. So we chose a family as our protagonists who arrive in Qatar not in the best spirits, but with the help of the magic of the place (embodied in a team of cartoon character sprites), they experience some of the most amazing places, sights and activities until they are brought back together as one at the end.

We pitched one main film featuring the whole family, with three more side films that followed different characters as the protagonists. They bought it! And we got Wally Pfister (Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award Winning DOP) to direct them.

🏆 World Travel Awards 2023 -  World’s Leading Marketing Campaign AND Middle East’s Leading Marketing Campaign.

Virgin Trains - 'Don't Go Zombie' integrated campaign

Virgin Trains wanted to lure people out of their cars and onto trains. So we created ‘Don’t Go Zombie’ a fully integrated campaign inspired by that glazed-over, soul-destroying feeling of spending far too long behind the wheel. The idea took over OOH, DOOH, radio, digital walls, interactive banners and online, including a Google Street View game where players rescued zombies by shooting them with a Virgin Trains ticket gun. Richard Branson was even up for joining the undead as a zombie in the game, but sadly, schedules had other ideas.

🏆 CAMPAIGN BIG AWARD - Winner / New Media Age Awards - Best Travel Campaign / MAA BEST Awards - Best Communication Campaign

MAA BEST Awards - Art Direction / Digital / Illustration / Advertising / IPA Effectiveness Awards - Bronze / DMA Grand Prix

OOH, DIGITAL, PRINT, SOCIAL

A campaign for the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world – Bridgestone – in partnership with sixteen Olympic athletes in the run up to the 2020 Olympic Games. As a lover of stories we high-jumped at the chance, because that's the brief in a heartbeat, to discover and tell stories, to engage and empower everyday people, everywhere. 

The work is fully integrated from the sixteen short films through posters, events, online competitions, digital banners and ads.

We went on to win numerous awards including an International Content Management (ICMA) GOLD AWARD, an #ESAAwards GOLD AWARD in Best Newcomer in Sponsorship and nominations in the #BTSIA in International Campaign of the Year and Young Agency of the Year, The UK Sponsorship Awards, the New York Festivals Best TV & Films and the Brand Film Festival.

FILM, EVENTS, DIGITAL, PRINT

SUBARU IMPREZA ‘SUBA GLUE’ INTEGRATED

To showcase the Subaru Impreza's legendary grip, we created Suba Glue, a simple idea built around the fact that the car sticks to the road. The campaign brought this to life through a series of playful executions, including branded ‘Suba Glue’ sticks, interactive direct mail, print, digital, in-store materials and a head-turning stunt featuring cars appearing to be glued upside down to a transporter. 

A simple product truth turned into a memorable integrated campaign that made the Impreza's all-wheel-drive performance impossible to ignore.

🏆 Integrated shortlist, Cannes Lions.

CONTACT has been nominated for Best International Short at Raindance Festival 2020

CONTACT is a short film written by Johnny and co-directed by Johnny and Sadie Frost in partnership with LOVE magazine. Conceived and filmed entirely during the Covid-19 isolation period, the film tells the story of five best friends in their own particular isolation. It shows the strains on their mental health and their need for connection. But all is not lost, because fantastically and magically a long gone William Blake pops up from beyond the grave and makes that connection possible.

The film is being premiered at EVERYMAN CINEMA in September including a Q&A with Johnny, Sadie and a representative of MIND the mental health charity, and it will feature before every film shown at Everyman cinemas for the month of September.

Sadie Frost comments, “Johnny and I created CONTACT to give hope and provide a positive creative focus during such a hugely destabilising and desolate period for all. We were so conscious of this being such a tough time for all the young people whose studies, early careers and passions were stopped in their flow. We wanted to make something that told their stories”.

Rafferty Law as Slow Loris, Kelvin Bueno as Dog, Cora Corré as Space girl, Bella Broekman-Tilbury as Scuba Diver and Rudy Albarn as Dinosaur.

The Hat has been selected for Cannes 2021 and been nominated for Best UK Short Film at Raindance International Film Festival.

The Hat is a short film starring Jude and Raff Law, written by Johnny Cooke and filmed almost entirely on an iphone during the COVID Lockdown period. It is the first in a planned series of shorts that will form the foundation for a new filmmaking model in support of Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America.

It’s 1991 and a clinical drug trial goes horrifyingly wrong for a group of young ravers.

We love to tell stories. And we're good at it. This project is a short film which Johnny wrote, produced, co-directed (and wrote the title tune for) in 2019. A Dark Comedy / Psychological Horror set in the South East of England in 1991 –the days of illegal raves – starring Raff Law, Jack McEvoy and Carl Barrat. Unusual for a short film it has 3 acts, and the turning point into act 3 may shock you. But that's all we're saying. You'll have to wait for it to be streamed after the festival run (or read the attached script), currently with 10 official selections to major international film festivals and 3 awards. There is now appetite for development into a feature film. Watch this space.