Russell Ramsay left as ECD at the end of 2016 to be replaced by Lucas Peon. We'd won a WWF project at the end of the year and spent 2017mainly creatibg TV and oprint for HSBC and OXO. We were also CDs on Shell Aviation, Listerine and Ribena.
OXO: Valentine's Day OOH
The joy of being CD on a brand as famous as Oxo is that teams love giving you ideas for it. This was one of the best ones and won a FAB award. Created by Simon Sworn and Kat Thomas.
OXO: 'Quiet night in'
The next outing for the Oxo family was dad's quiet night in. However as everyone else's plans start to fall through, Dad finds himself having to cook for five which, thanks to Oxo is a walk in the park. Critics approved of a dad who knows his way round a kitchen and who isn't completely at sea when plans change.
Shell: 'Gravity Light Stories'
The big story here was Shell's Gravity Light, a device that uses bags of flour as weights to power a light so that people in developing countries stop using kerosine lamps. The lights give enough light to read a child a bed time story and I was commissioned to rewrite 50 classic folk tales from around the globe for the project. Here is a small selection, the rest I am slowly putting on YouTube.
The overall gravity light project won a Cannes gold and one of the films reached 8.5million views before Shell took the campaign off YouTube
HSBC: 'Swimmer'
By now, the main HSBC client had left the building in disgrace and his number 2 proved just as unable to buy an idea. Dave arrived in South Africa with the script still not signed off. Our last ad before a regime change at the bank, after which they brought in Richard Ayoade, filmed ads in the UK and started using English. Created with Naz Nazli
Ladybird: Sir Tim Berners-Lee
In 2017 I realised that I didn't have a signed copy of the Ladybird Book I wrote for the BBC back in 2000, and that Sir Tim-Berners Lee who I had an email exchange with during the writing process didn't have a copy at all. I sent him two at MIT plus a $10 note to cover the cost to send my one back (he created the web for free so why pay postage?) Anyway, he sent the signed book back and the $10!
