that’s why her hair’s so big. it’s full of insight.
IT ALL STARTS WITH AN IDEA
✦
IT ALL STARTS WITH AN IDEA ✦
CREATIVE \ STRATEGIST \ STORYTELLER \ PROBLEM SOLVER \ PITCH WINNER
SINCE THE SUMMER OF 2023, I’VE BEEN BUSY WINNING BRAZEN (PR WEEK’S BEST AGENCY OUTSIDE OF LONDON) NEW BIZ PITCHES WITH AN ALMOST 80% PITCH SUCCESS RATE IN MY FIRST YEAR
WINS INCLUDE SUDOCREM, ABBOTT LYON, MANCHESTER AIRPORT, TATE & LYLE, PETS CHOICE, KENJI AND THE WORKS… TO NAME A FEW
BUT HERE’S THE THING. WHILE MY JOB ROLE IS ‘CREATIVE’, I’VE KNOWN I’M PROBABLY DEFINITELY ACTUALLY ALSO A STRATEGIST SINCE THE MOMENT A MENTOR AT SCA 2.0 COMMENTED ON HOW MUCH MY EYES LIGHT UP WHEN I SHARE INSIGHTS
FINDING HEADLINE WORTHY INSIGHTS, UNDERSTANDING AN AUDIENCE’S REAL WHY AND DEVELOPING STRATEGIES THAT MAKE A CLIENT’S FACE LIGHT UP JUST LIKE MINE — THAT’S WHAT REALLY GETS ME GOING
SO HERE I AM. SEARCHING FOR MY FIRST CREATIVE STRATEGIST ROLE. LOOKING TO JOIN A TEAM IN WHICH I CAN LEARN, GROW AND BE A PART OF MAKING INNOVATIVE, IMPACTFUL CREATIVE
live WERK WERK WERK WERK WERK
01
BUTLIN’S - THE POWER OF FANCY DRESS
CHALLENGE:
Build brand awareness of Butlin’s Big Weekender offering – action-packed weekend getaways that encourage guests to dress up, let their hair down and make lifelong memories with friends – to drive awareness of the breaks, while simultaneously championing how much great value for money they are.
SOLUTION:
Fancy dress isn’t just fun and games. Our famous British reserve goes out the window and, all of a sudden, we’re more confident, less awkward and unphased by striking up conversations with strangers. Why? A feeling of escapism that makes us feel happier.
So, armed with this insight and more costumes than we could shake a stick at, we issued a survey story to identify the UK’s most bored town (Stoke-on-Trent… no we weren’t surprised). We then hit the high street with TV personality Charlotte Dawson to remind locals why they shouldn’t underestimate a silly costume.
RESULTS:
181 hits across national, consumer, regional and broadcast, 1,522 engagements, 165,543, impressions, 164 link clicks, 149 sticker taps across socials, 46.5m OTS
02
DR. OETKER RISTORANTE - PIZZA RECLAIM
CHALLENGE:
Drive awareness and excitement for Dr. Oetker Ristorante’s thin & crispy frozen pizza with an experiential stunt for widespread media coverage.
SOLUTION:
Ristorante is Italy’s most popular pizza. Yep, you read that right! This frozen pizza produced on an industrial estate just off the M6 accounts for 20% of Italy’s ready-made pizza market.
It is truly then… a slice of Italy.
“So, who would be most excited about a slice of Italy?”, my brain asked itself knowing I couldn’t say me… those driving home from the airport with the holiday blues, obviously!
Introducing, baggage pizza reclaim! We loaded Liverpool John Lennon Airport’s arrivals baggage carousels with free pizza - helping holidaymakers returning from the Italian Riviera make their holiday last just one meal longer. Plus, we developed a tonne of insight via survey data to reveal how much the nation dreads cooking post travel.
With “unprecedented” travel disruption dominating the news agenda at the time, the story flew.
RESULTS:
400 families took home 2x free pizzas at the airport activation, 34 coverage hits achieved, 5x national pieces, 25m consumers reached, 94% of web coverage linked to a Ristorante rebrand web page, 100% of hits featured brand assets and quote on rebrand from Dr. Oetker.
03
SUDOCREM - CHEIF PLAY OFFICER
CHALLENGE:
Engage and educate families with a ‘good news’ story; tapping into key summer moments and challenges that focus on the ‘cuts and grazes’ usage of the product.
SOLUTION:
With mounting work pressures, busy social calendars and increasing financial worries, 1 in 5 parents admit they have forgotten how to play with their children. That’s right, they’re not just struggling to find the time to play, they are forgetting how.
Which got me thinking… this play thing is serious.
So, we made it Sudocrem’s mission to help every UK parent learn how to play with their kids again by recruiting a very serious yet very very playful Chief Play Professor.
Our social content educated parents on why play is so important and inspired them to get serious about being silly.
RESULTS:
Over 155 hits including The Mirror, The Express and The Metro, 13 broadcast interviews, and global news bulletin features
04
KENJI - LONDON FINDS JOY
CHALLENGE:
Devise a creative and engaging comms proposal to launch Kenji’s latest store opening at Westfield London. To include ideas for PR stunts that can drive brand fame to ensure high footfall from the moment doors open.
To note, the client’s Operations Director said something that stuck out to me on the briefing call: “We want to make Kenji a top London destination”. That became my focus.
SOLUTION:
London is becoming less 'liveable' than other European cities according to recent studies, with the number of Londoners who are satisfied with their city plunging 8% in four years according to the European Commission. And as a born & bred Londoner, I’ve seen first hand the shift. The commute, weather, politics, loneliness. Let alone the price to live there. It’s all just got a bit too much.
At the same time, studies show that the cultural phenomenon “kawaii” influences our feelings & behavior with a calming, healing effect.
What if Kenji’s “kawaiiness” was a solution to London’s problem? I thought.
My strategic proposal ‘London Finds Joy’ and creative ideas blew the client away and won us the pitch. I also proudly helped our Brazen Summer Camp student who I was supporting at the time land on his wonderful idea ‘Queue Hoppers’ that went live.
RESULTS:
8 trade coverage hits, 11 coverage hits, 3,591,092 reach, 18 influencers attended, 547,270 total influencer reach, 43 pieces of content posted, 2 retail trade exclusives
05
WEBBOX NATURALS - LANCATSHIRE
CHALLENGE:
Build brand awareness for Webbox’s Naturals range, helping them stand out in a competitive market resulting in purchase, penetration and trial via sampling.
SOLUTION:
100% of the Naturals range ingredients are sourced and produced in the beautiful countryside of Lancashire. Which I thought was interesting. Not every cat food can boast about where it’s made.
And as a cat owner myself, I knew a thing or two about how much cat owners love to show off their pet! In fact, two thirds of cat owners admit to spending more money on their pet than themselves. They also take on average 725 cat pictures/videos per year – that's nearly two per day – and “like” 398 cat-related posts per year. In one study, 810 of the 1,000 surveyed even reported to having a “go-to” cat GIF or meme that they look at when feeling down.
All this insight led us to our strategic proposal: ‘It’s A Cat’s World’. We’re just living in it!
To bring this to life we transformed Lancashire into LanCATshire - the Paris of the cat world known for it’s creme de la creme cat food. We gave famous landmarks a feline-themed make over, sent LanCATshire based influencers & their cats ‘Straight Outta LanCATshire’ shirts and developed insight with survey data that named Lancashire the UK’s most “crazy cat” area. I should move there…
RESULTS:
Coverage wasn’t as great as we’d hoped with this one, but I got to research & ideate about cats so a win is a win.
06
EE - TIKTOK
On my first placement at Saatchi & Saatchi I was briefed to use a TikTok trend to bring to life EE’s propostion: “Count on EE”
07
VISA - COPY
Also at Saatchi & Saatchi, I wrote some copy for Visa’s safe pay promise. My three audiences were Health, Beauty & Gaming
08
SUDOCREM - SKIN POSITIVITY
After much deliberation, I wore my normal foundation on pitch day
LIVE 2025!
CHALLENGE:
Raise awareness and encourage trial with new mums entering the category and, significantly, educate and re-engage lapsed users around Sudocrem’s versatility to deliver brand growth. Aka remind mums Sudocrem isn’t just for nappy rash, while still supporting the comms message: ‘Soothing Families Since 1931’
SOLUTION:
Sudocrem is a trending skin care hack with #sudocrem having 69.3M TikTok views and counting... I myself have used it as a face mask since I can remember.
But a skin issue like acne is never just surface level. In study after study, researchers find that those with acne can also develop depression, anxiety, social anxiety, a decreased quality of life, poor self esteem, feelings of loneliness and more.
Which got me thinking… acne must affect a whole family. A brother sat alone at a dinner table because his sister who suffers with acne has locked herself in her room again. Or a new mother with postpartum acne. She wants to cherish every moment with her baby, but she is distracted. Unable to be fully present because she is in pain.
Confident that the family wounds a skin issue like acne can create beautifully answered the brief, I fought hard to convince my SD & MD to be brave and pitch an acne/skin care focused strategic proposal. And my determination paid off! As not only did we win the business, but we inspired the (very risk-adverse) brand to enter into a whole new landscape of acne, skin care and social. See below some snippets of the deck I worked up.
My creative idea ‘My Beautiful Breakout’ is going live this year. It will be an art exhibition inspired by family experiences of various skin conditions, created with Sudocrem as paint.
MASTERCLASSES
I’ve enjoyed sharing a lot of my learnings from SCA 2.0 in masterclasses at Brazen. They’ve covered insights (to inspire more insight driven ideation across the agency) and creative problem solving, to help remind the team what creativity is all about
also started a podcast
More episodes coming soon!