Inside Adventure - Red Bull
Problem: how do you find new ways to tell the oldest type of story AND save the day when adventures go wrong?
Insight
AI technology can actually make extreme adventurers feel more human to the everyman.
Story
Extreme adventurers experience newly extreme environments - just not the ones they were expecting.
A world-class paraglider comes face to face with what went wrong and what could have been during an epic mission to a Tanzanian volcano.
This subverts so much of what people usually expect about adventure content. It’s indoors, for a start.
Elements connected
We won a hard-fought commission from Red Bull to develop a world-first AI-driven format via an innovative, custom-built virtual production studio. I identified the opportunity enabled by the new technology, led the pitch, assembled the technologists and production crew and shaped the format.
Complete with bespoke AI technology and towering, hyper-immersive LED screens plus YouTuber host Beau Miles, we enabled Red Bull adventurers to step back inside the most awe-inspiring and emotionally challenging moments of their expeditions in a way they - and the viewers - never expected possible.
The AI and virtual production technology helped us recreate the ‘moments that never were’ and show the art of the possible.
Outcomes
The result was a way for Red Bull to monetise content previously thought to have been wasted. A new format for a new age and a new way to make extreme adventure much more accessible to wider audiences.
Twisty.
Defender Trophy hype film
Branded content for Defender
Problem: how do you relaunch an obsolete and divisive concept for the modern world?
Insight
The realest adventures are had by those who don’t boast about them.
Story
Two vets on the frontline of conservation in Africa are the personification of everything the competition could be.
The story explains the principles and values of the new competition and brand through the lens of the vets work on the ground over decades rooted in tenacity, courage, empathy.
Elements Connected
Our task here was to launch the global Defender Trophy competition, encourage entrants, build on a huge legacy and inspire a new generation of epic adventure.
This was a reboot of what used to be the Camel Trophy - a now defunct and potentially controversial cross-continent marketing programme very much of its time.
I lobbied for and then brokered the relationship with the client through their existing agency network.
Then over a period of 18 months I led the developing relationship and built the format in collaboration with multiple brand partners local and global.
Outcomes
It culminated in a stunning and sometimes dangerous shoot across Namibia with vets on the often lethal frontlines of conservation.
Our limited series of launch films (including this one below) come with an even bigger, challenge-based global format for this new version of the classic cross-continent competition.
The relaunch content gave new life and new impetus to the brand’s global teams and local partners, achieved global press coverage and ignited the competition for a new era.
Gnarly.
Subaru Japan x what3words
Dune Bug
Problem: how do you translate brand values and product features in a local context that can also work globally?
Insight
Surprise and delight is an international language.
Story
The aim of this film is twofold: give our client what3words more marketing collateral to attract more automotive partners to their navigational tech; help Subaru promote their model in Japan.
Here, a ‘snowboarder’ sets off for a seemingly typical day on the white stuff only for the viewer to have their expectations confounded when we see the real run is the only dunescape in Japan.
Elements connected
After developing the client relationship, I co-wrote and co-produced this short, conceived the overall creative concept and co-managed the production team on the ground in Japan.
Outcomes
The film was promoted digitally by both Subaru and what3words, localised for Japanese audiences and reedited for use in multiple territories for w3w’s partner acquisition campaigns.
Steezy.
what3words x Jaguar Land Rover / Defender
The Perfect Shot
Problem: How do you make boring features of a technology product thrillingly real?
Insight
Technology doesn't belong in the wild - until it proves it does.
Story
The wild doesn't care about your software and the adventuring world won’t either unless you show what it unlocks.
We created a cool, mini-epic story to solve this challenge using one of the creators we’ve built deep relationships with, in this case a Nat Geo presenter and his climbing crew.
The presenter-climber Ben and his buddy set off to capture a once-in-a-lifetime shot of a mystical and revered wild place: Mount Whitney in the Alabama Hills. But how on earth are they going to scale the rock before the fleeting moment passes?
In our story, the what3words integration becomes a system literally designed to locate the unlocatable. The key that unlocks the adventure and enables the spine-tingling capture.
Elements connected
A story that allows us to connect Defender brand messaging with that of what3words and which will work in video online and in print for the BASE audience.
Boots on the ground: i joined our core crew up with local region experts and additional producers.
I created a production plan to capture assets for multiple online and social channels.
And I acted as the conduit between two sets of clients, the production crew on-location and the editorial team.
Outcomes
The central video was distributed by all three parties (JLR global YouTube channel, what3words global network and BASE).
The story made a striking and unusual (and a bit Goth?!) mag cover, central spread and a print marketing tool for what3words.
Online we added social and interactive elements so that viewers can be inspired and take real action too.
Secret Compass
Brand strategy & identity
Problem: How do you reinvent a brand for a totally different audience and market?
Insight
The quality the brand’s clients prized the most about the team was their seemingly infinite ingenuity in achieving the extraordinary.
Story
The challenge here was to reimagine the brand identity of Secret Compass - a provider of extreme adventure trips and co-founded by TV adventurer Levison Wood.
The SC business had evolved over time and now primarily supplies risk management services to the film & TV industry. It has delivered world famous programming like Skyscraper Live with Alex Honnold for Netflix, Pole to Pole with Will Smith and Limitless with Chris Hemsworth for Disney among many others.
Some elastic thinking was required to find a positioning equally rich and relevant to both business aspects - and which stayed true to the well established spirit of the brand.
Essentially they are the TV industry’s secret weapon.
Without them so many headline shows and talent would not have made it. Their genius lies in their ability to find a way to achieve the project, regardless of the genuine mortal threat or terrifying conditions faced. Also, they’re literally always away (producing). So that worked nicely.
Elements connected
I interviewed clients past and present, in-house and freelance staff and conducted a positioning analysis of the competitive set.
Outcomes
I produced the new positioning and messaging, plus worked with a brand designer to deliver new brand guidelines and multichannel content governance.
Cruise Collective
A new proposition and brand for the global cruise market
Problem: How do you disrupt a well-established travel market using media knowhow?
Insight
In a busy cruise market, tying cruise products to people’s specialist passions could become a key differentiator.
Story
The challenge here was to quickly pivot the first version of this brand and business model for the cruise industry as it was heading for the rocks.
Together with a regular UX design collaborator, we course-corrected the development of this brand and proposition. We reimagined the brand identity and built out the digital product, ensuring far better product-market fit.
The start point for us was to evaluate the opportunities associated with the original idea. Our Media had an array of excellent commercial brand relationships within the cruise sector, the sector itself is still undergoing significant growth globally, and Our Media has the advantage of being able to reach millions of potential customers through their owned titles and network.
Elements connected
Following a phase of discovery and research with stakeholders at the cruise partner brands, prospective and current cruise-lovers and an assessment of the wider intermediary market in cruising, we developed a new and differentiated proposition. This positioning harnessed the power of Our Media’s specialist interest titles and passionate audiences and matched them with passion-related products offered by the different cruise lines. We grouped the different products from the different cruise brands by passion point and interest and not by other product features as the rest of the intermediary market did.
We evolved the brand assets to make them richer, more dynamic and appealing and created seamless user journeys to acquire many more in-market prospective customers.
We also developed a content strategy which harnessed the power of the ‘collective’ cruise expert voices to hook in users searching for content and cruises related to their personal passions.
Outcomes
The new site delivered over £300k revenue for our client in Year #1 and continues to grow revenue and margin year-on-year.
Jibby.
GE Healthcare - campaign content
‘Lou’ - a B.A.D. story
Problem: How do you sensitively tell the story of a deeply personal and upsetting subject?
Insight
Sufferers of this illness often felt chained to it but being seen and heard was liberating.
Story
It was really tricky to get the tone and story right for this one: a video campaign to drive awareness and behaviour change around Bile Acid Diarrhoea for GE Healthcare. Bile Acid Diarrhoea can be soul-destroying and debilitating for sufferers, alongside the other chronic effects.
The aim was to give sufferers a voice and show them that there were options to improve the situation and not to suffer in silence, as many understandably do.
This video tells the story of L.ou who breaks free of her chains once she seeks out the right expert support.
Elements Connected
I led and designed the audience research before scripting and what came through from the patients we interviewed was a common sense of dark irony about the absurdity of the condition but also a longing for companionship and shared experience.
In the concepting, scripting, and creative direction of this film, working with a brilliant German animator remotely, this is what we tried to pull off. Also managed to cast one of my favourite actors from Smack the Pony and sneak in a Die Hard reference.
Outcomes
A successful social campaign driving registrations of interest to the support network but more importantly very positive feedback from the sufferers I interviewed to inform the concept, saying they felt seen and heard.
Austria Tourism
Branded multichannel content
Problem: How do you appeal to a notoriously difficult-to-persuade specialist audience?
Insight
‘Gravel-curious’ riders are attracted as much by the social scene around biking as the actual biking itself.
Story
For this brief from Austria Tourism, the ask was to drive consideration and visits to a gravel biking destination at very short notice (Salzburg).
Our central rider flies out for a rapid visit from the UK with minimal prep and packing, ably assisted on the ground by local experts who open up a stunning new world to her.
Elements Connected
Taking an outline idea from one of the staff writers I built a multichannel story, using the BASE global network to identify local influencers and creators who, along with our UK subject specialist writer, could tell this story, craft the content, feature within it and amplify it.
Outcomes
Content-led campaign across print, digital, social and email and a large library of assets that the tourist board can use in perpetuity.
Citalia
Always-on social
Problem: In a sea of choice, how to you tell destination stories that are distinctive?
Insight
Italy’s sometimes maddening eccentricity for UK audiences is actually the root of its attraction.
Story
Citalia lacked any coherent social strategy and needed desperately to increase engagement and direction, driving top of the funnel interest but also consideration for those more familiar with the brand’s offering. There was no connection between the brand’s core identity and what was being published on their key social channels.
Elements Connected
For Immediate Media, I set the social strategy by finding the commonality between the different audience segments and created a new, central editorial proposition.
That proposition need to give clear creative direction but also be flexible and rich enough to feed the high volume of activity required for real community building. The answer was finding a single lens we could apply to Italy’s wide variety of places, people and culture.
Having studied, worked and then got married there, it was cool to be able to inject some of that experience into this ongoing programme of work.
Outcomes
My social media strategy returned 4 times the average industry engagement rate.
A content playbook treated as gold standard with a framework rolled out to multiple other Travelopia brands.
A content monetisation playbook supported with bespoke commercial models, rate cards, sales coaching and visual materials.
Move Technologies / MoveGB
Comms & content strategy
Problem: If your main source of revenue suddenly jams shut, how can you use your core strengths to pivot?
Insight
Being fit and active takes on a new motivation when you’re fighting to save your community too.
Story
Back in the pandemic, (urgh, remember that?) I helped launch a new digital product and service set for Move Technologies (formerly MoveGB).
A pretty hard ‘pivot’ was required given the violent market shift.
We harnessed the power and energy of the existing community to support the now-remote class network and the instructors fighting to maintain a living.
Elements Connected
I led all the B2B positioning and messaging as well as the roll-out of the new services.
We made the most of the unique data we had via a marketplace platform to flip it into properly useful insights and recommendations for current and prospective clients.
BASE Adventure Media
Content strategy
Problem: How do you build a brand digitally with next to zero budget?
To grow the BASE brand and audience, we set up a gear-reviewing network of 50+ reviewers and creators for this key part of the site.
The network brought deep topic expertise, authority and in many cases, substantial additional distribution.
I designed and established SEO optimisation approach, page structure, governance and workflow, coaching the team to self-manage over time.
It’s now the best performing area of the site by some distance and routinely gets over 10 million impressions per month.
