What is it about travel that makes us hungry? Despite a Wildbean Cafe in every BP, people were detouring to fill up with other food and drink.
So to re-launch the brand in Australasia we brought to life the bizarre world of hungry people stuck in cars - a windowed box where cravings run wild.
The Transport Accident Commission of Victoria wanted to make having just one drink before driving socially unacceptable - a tough ask for a culture build around alcohol consumption.
In response to the brief, we and the team at Clemenger Melbourne created ‘Better Apart,’ a campaign that doesn’t wag fingers but asks a simple question; “Why is having just one drink totally irresponsible in some situations, yet socially acceptable before getting behind the wheel of a car?”
“Better Apart” was such an effective strategy, our one-off campaign became TAC’s offical anti-drink driving platform and still is.
Despite Australia getting more sunshine hours than most countries, only 10% of Australians have solar power. Working with Origin Energy and the team at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne we created ‘Don’t Waste Your Roof,’ a campaign that helped people realise the value of their roof space and install solar.
I was the copywriter on the launch film, a mockumentary about a middle-aged couple travelling the country in their modified campervan stealing peoples’ sun.
“Funniest ad of the year.” M+AD.
Who better to espouse the almighty sense of control you’ll feel using SKY’s streaming apps than a washed-up-work-from-home super villain? And his mum. Collaborating with comedian Josh Thompson and director of ‘What We Do In The Shadows,’ Jackie Van Beek, we wrote 23 individual spots that took New Zealand inside the mind and lair of the 265th most feared villain on earth.
SKY TV New Zealand had over a million subscribers who got their bill via post each month. They asked us to get customers to switch to email billing, a more cost effective and environmentally friendly alternative. So rather than just send a letter we introduced them to Lloyd – the creepy weirdo who seals their envelopes. Lloyd licked his way into peoples’ living rooms and they hated him so much 35% of subscribers switched in the first month alone. The campaign was so effective it won an Effie.
L&P is a soft drink made in the tiny New Zealand town of Paeroa: population 4281. Facing pressure from the energy drink market they needed to differentiate themselves from the competition. After erecting a giant plastic bottle in the town square failed to boost sales they turned to us for help. So while Red Bull were telling people to jump out of the stratosphere we did the opposite and told people to do absolutely nothing, cementing L&P as the chillest drink around.
“This is possibly the awesomest ad concept ever.” Simon, YouTube.
“Only some people will truly understand this ad. So so genius.” Louise, YouTube.
“McDonald’s new ads are as tipsy as its late-night customers.”Editor’s Pick, Ad Age.
“This will stick even when it’s late and you’ve had a few.” BestAds, Best Outdoor.
“Hilarious McDonald’s ads show how drunk people order late night.”Digital Synopsis.
“Macca’s celebrates it’s most loyal customers - The pissed ones.”B&T.
"Decoding them is half the fun." AdAge
For Pedigree's global adoption drive, we and the team at Clemenger Melbourne collaborated with Warner Bros. Disney and Sony Entertainment to re-imagine popular cartoons without their iconic canine sidekicks.
As part of the ‘Don’t Waste Your Roof’ solar power campaign for Origin Energy Australia, we developed a first of its kind app. in partnership with Google Maps. ‘Rate My Roof’ let people find out their roof’s solar value for up to 30 years just by drawing around it.
Research told us Kiwi Volkswagen owners have a long tradition of handing down their beloved cars to other family members. They’re known in the car industry as “Volkswagen Families.” We created a brand TVC that brought this customer truth to life through the story of two brothers.
A nationwide print and outdoor campaign for the Volkswagen Transporter.
A Rail Safety campaign that didn’t focus on fatalities but instead memorialised the hundreds of unseen near misses happening at rail crossings every day. Harrowing dash-cam footage set to emotional first-person accounts from train drivers highlighted and the impact these near misses leave behind. I wrote the concept and directed the films.
Campaign website: nearmisses.co.nz
Press: nzherald.co.nz rnz.co.nz stuff.co.nz
The 2016 Kaikoura earthquake was the most reported natural disaster in New Zealand’s history. But amongst the destruction, the earthquake also uplifted 100 kilometres of new coastline, created underwater geysers and alpine lakes, exposing hidden landscapes never seen before. When the Coastal Pacific railway re-opened in 2019, we turned a news disaster into a new destination.
Why did we create the world’s longest soft drink bottle? It’s kind of a long story.
L&P is a lemony soft drink with a cult-like following here in New Zealand. The problem was nobody could describe exactly what it tasted like. So after the best we could come up with was ‘refreshingly different’ we decided to assign the brief to the entire country.
Thousands of original and utterly nonsensical flavour notes poured in on social media. “Pouring popping candy down your wetsuit” and “being gently punched in the throat by a gang of sweet lemons” were some of our favourites.
There was too much liquid gold to fit on a regular L&P bottle, so next we engineered a 2 metre long glass bottle, filled it with L&P and printed the world’s longest taste description on the back. Radio ads announced it as the ‘Official’ L&P taste description and our long bottle earned free media, becoming a Kiwiana collectors item that fetched $2000 for charity.
That’s basically the long and short of it.
2020 was a tough year for everyone in New Zealand but especially for families living in poverty. Covid-19 took so much from all of us, it was time it gave something back.
Simply by turning the number 19 into a donation amount we were able to raise $1.5 million for Kiwi kids. 19 for 19 did so much good in 2020 it was rolled out again by KidsCan in 2021.
Kiwi men will do pretty much anything for a STIHL chainsaw. We wanted to test just how much, so we created a choose-your-own-ending online film that really raised the stakes… or should I say steaks?
The underdog spirit runs deep in the New Zealand psyche. So to promote McDonald’s sponsorship of Emirates Team New Zealand we tacked away from the fleet of high-performance sports ads with a David vs Goliath tale about how the underdog spirit lives in all of us.
New Zealand is paradise on earth. But behind the beautiful scenery is an ugly truth. It’s also home to some of the worst inequality in the developed world.
To make complacent New Zealanders aware of this unseen reality, the team at Ogilvy created New Zealand Truism, a social media campaign made entirely from stock that parodied an NZ tourism launch. Hidden within it were shocking home truths that subverted the idillic image many New Zealanders still believe in.
We teased the campaign on social by juxtaposing stunning landscapes with unsettling facts, before a series of Human Rights ‘Must-Dos’ set out a fresh vision for New Zealanders to aspire to.
Since COVID, breast screening numbers in New Zealand have dropped by 12%. But there's a 95% chance of surviving breast cancer if detected by a mammogram.
The funny thing about breasts is, once they're on your mind, you start seeing them everywhere. So we turned everyday objects shaped like breasts into thousands of mini mammogram reminders.
Pause is Power challenges the win-at-all-costs mentality associated with modern sports culture by portraying the pause as a moment of power, not weakness.
To launch the platform in New Zealand, we partnered with our elite rugby and cricket players to produce a social content series that revealed a never seen before insight into athletes' mental health.
