- PROFILE
- PAST ROLES
- PHILOSOPHY
- PRESS
- AWARDS
I am a creative professional with a background in both above-the-line advertising and graphic design. I have senior management experience, and have won over 40 industry aWARDS including wins at Cannes, One Show and the New York Festivals. However, it is simply my passion for ideas, and my desire to create relevant and unexpected solutions, that gets me out of bed.
As Digital Creative Director of Carlson Marketing my main focus is creating engaging online experiences for our clients which include Coke, Müller and Hyundai. And while this mainly involves a conceptual and strategic contribution, I am still no stranger to Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver and After Effects. In fact, After Effects, or more specifically motion graphics, has become a recent passion that is finding its place within the agency's offering. I'm also no stranger to working through-the-line, and recently provided the winning creative for a large COI experiential pitch.
I've also been a regular contributor to popular publications such Computer Arts and .Net magazine, where I was the resident 'Site doctor' before later running a series of 'Web graphics' tutorials. More recently I have been commissioned to write an After Effects tutorial for a very popular creative resource website, something I'm quite excited about.
My blog 'What I Made' is also up and running, take a look and let me know what you think.
An overview of the places I have worked.
DIGITAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR | CARLSON MARKETING
At Carlson Marketing my main challenge is to help fulflll our compelling strategy of delivering big ideas through multiple channels. This involves working closely with clients (which include Coke, Müller and Hyundai) and internal teams (across disciplines), to ensure digital is more than just ‘integrated', but at the core of what we do.
Achievements so far, include winning the 'digital' Coke Football account. Producing a number of very well executed campaigns that marry strong ideas with unusual uses of technology - including the DMA winning (Bronze and Silver) 'Saturday is breakfast day' campaign. And rather interestingly (for a Digital Creative Director) I also provided the creative thinking for a large COI experiential pitch that we have recently won.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR | SYZYGY LONDON
As Creative Director of Syzygy London I was reponsible for the creative output of the agency, raising the profile of Syzygy and successfully competing for new business. With this came all the normal management responsibilities, including forming part of the senior management team and looking after a creative department of 12 people.
However, my main focus was the development of the agency’s advertising offering across its prestigous brands - Mercedes-Benz, Citroen, Channel 4, Harvey Nichols and the Pan-European Mazda account.
The latter, involved working closely with JWT Dusseldorf and Mindshare London to create integrated campaigns for Mazda across 20 markets. During this period I also attended the European Marketing Forums in Frankfurt (a large gathering of Mazda marketing representatives from across Europe and Russia) where I tried my best to sell and defend our increasingly richer and more dynamic concepts. Over time we made great strides with this account - increasing both the client's spend on digital comms as well as the quality of work produced.
Key achievements were winning Syzygy its first ever international creative award - a medal at the New York Festivals. We were also finalists at Cannes and the London International Awards. On the local scene, we won a Net Imperitives award, were chosen as NMA's Campaign of the Month and were a runner-up in the IAB's Creative Showcase. I also played a key role in winning a number of pitches including the Design Council and Essent Trading (a Dutch Investment bank).
CREATIVE DIRECTOR | AGENCY.COM
Initially tasked with creatively leading the massive BT online advertising account, and later Dulux, my remit expanded to that of Creative Director. My responsibilities involved working closely with the clients and internal teams to ensure a high quality conceptual product was delivered, working with senior management to improve processes, and managing an 8 man creative team.
Most notable successes included key contributions (conceptually, proactively and persuasively) to the Dulux ‘Colour Chemistry’ and NSPCC ‘Help us stop it’ campaigns. To this day they are still two of the most awarded campaigns to come out of the Agency.com network. Between them they won at Cannes, One Show Interactive, the New York Festivals as well as scooping the IAB's Creative Showcase Grand Prix award and being listed by Campaign as one of the year's top ten digital campaigns.
SENIOR ONLINE DESIGNER | PROXIMITY LONDON
Working on some of the UK’s largest brands such as Royal Mail, Shell, Panasonic, Whiskas and Department of Transport, my main responsibility was to generate distinctive online design and advertising solutions.
Notably, I encouraged clients to push the boundaries and embrace the use of interactivity, the online launch campaign for Panasonic’s X-70 mobile phone and some of my work for Whiskas Kitten being successful examples of this.
During this time I was also privately commisioned to design the launch website for the The Hospital (the London based club for creative professionals) - it went on to be shortlisted at 3 of the top international awards - Cannes, One Show and the London International Awards.
SENIOR ONLINE DESIGNER | CARLTON INTERACTIVE
As lead designer I managed a four person design team while overseeing the design of a number of large TV media brands such as ‘Survivor’ and ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’.
Key achievements included helping Global E-missions win one of the broadcast industry's most prestigous awards - a Broadcast Award for the Best Use of New Media (beating Big Brother to second place). My last project for Carlton, a website for ITV’s Starfinder (a reality show for kids), picked up a BAFTA Interactive award for best TV/Film website.
SENIOR ONLINE DESIGNER | FORWARD SLASH
My main task was to create engaging and compelling online advertising that stood apart from other advertising in the industry sector.
SENIOR ART DIRECTOR | PUBLICIS CAPE TOWN
As part of a senior team I was responsible for some of South Africa’s largest brands, Pro-Nutro and Viceroy Brandy amongst others. Working in all areas of advertising from BTL promotions to television and print, I later became involved in trying to set up a web design department with the aim of developing ATL concepts online.
ART DIRECTOR | FCB CAPE TOWN
At this creatively driven agency I produced innovative thinking for brand leaders such as Gordons Gin, Bacardi, Hard Rock Cafe Rothmans cigarettes, Vodacom and Sun Air.
I believe creative advertising is effective advertising.
An ECD once told me that the most important thing to have in your portfolio was effective work - this surprised me, it seemed to indicate that he believed there was a distinction between what is creative and what is effective.
Clearly this attitude stems from people's mis-understanding of the word creative. I get the distinct impression that many people in our industry believe "creative" implies whacky, quirky, off-brief, endulgent, irrelevant and so on. In some ways this is not a surprise, as the word creative has so many meanings and uses, for example it's possible to construct a sentence like this: The creatives in creative create creative creative.
So what does "creative" mean? Well firstly, it has absolutely nothing to do with "fairy-dust" (a past colleague's definition). It simply means relevant and unexpected. A communication has to be on-brief, on-brand and on-target (relevant). However, for it to be truly effective, it also has to be unexpected. It needs to be able to cut-through all the clutter and noise, and it won't do that by being the same, it needs to be different. In fact, the more unexpected the greater the impact.
I also highly value single-mindedness and craft excellence. A great idea, however relevant and unexpected, will benefit massively from being single-minded. Consumers are time poor, with the attention span of a gold fish, therefore the more focussed and single-minded your communication is, the more likely they will "get it". In the same way, poor "craft" can ruin what otherwise might be great work, so there are no excuses for bad design, poor interaction and weak copy.
My work and opinion can occasionally be found
in the press. Here's some recent articles.
Click on the links below and then use the cursor to drag the image around.
I have won over 40 industry accolades - most of
them at international level. Here's the complete list.
2010
ISP AWARDS
Gold | Cokezone.co.uk | Digital Promotions – Multi-platform
Gold | Cokezone.co.uk | Long Term Relationship Marketing
MARKETING WEEK ENGAGE AWARDS
Finalist | Cokezone.co.uk | CRM/Loyalty
2009
DMA AWARDS
Silver | Lurpak - Saturday is breakfast day | Art Direction
(Bronze | Lurpak - Saturday is breakfast day | Copy)
2008
CANNES LIONS
Finalist | Merecedes-Benz - Bend | Rich media banner
NEW YORK FESTIVALS
Finalist | Mazda - Close-up | Rich media banners
NMA CAMPAIGN OF THE MONTH
January Winner | Mercedes-Benz - Bend
2007
ONE SHOW INTERACTIVE
Merit | Mazda - Cones | Interactive banner
NEW YORK FESTIVALS
Bronze | Mazda - Cones | Rich media banners
NET IMPERATIVES AWARD
Winner | Mazda - Run Sakata | Best use of email
2006
ONE SHOW INTERACTIVE
Silver | NSPCC - Punchbag | Single banner
Merit | NSPCC - Help us stop it | Campaign banner
NEW YORK FESTIVALS
Bronze | NSPCC - Help us stop it | Philanthropic appeals
Finalist | NSPCC - Help us stop it | Use of rich media
LONDON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
Finalist | Mazda - Cones | Interactive banner
IAB CREATIVE SHOWCASE
March Runner-up | smart - How smart are you?
CREATIVE REVIEW ANNUAL
In-book | NSPCC - Help us stop it | Online advertising
INTERNET ADVERTISING COMPETITION
Best of Industry Winner | NSPCC - Help us stop it
2005
CANNES LIONS
Bronze | Dulux - Escape | Rich media banner
ONE SHOW INTERACTIVE
Merit | Dulux - Colour Chemistry | Campaign banner
NEW YORK FESTIVALS
Silver | Dulux - Colour Chemistry | Campaign banner
D&AD
In-book | Dulux - Colour Chemistry | Online advertising campaign
IAB CREATIVE SHOWCASE
Grand Prix Award | NSPCC - Help us stop it
July Winner | NSPCC - Help us stop it
CREATIVE REVIEW ANNUAL
Best in-book | Dulux - Colour Chemistry | Online advertising
CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE
Top Ten Online Camapigns of 2005 | NSPCC - Help us stop it
INTERNET ADVERTISING COMPETITION
Best of Industry Winner | Dulux - Colour Chemistry
2004
IAB CREATIVE SHOWCASE
December Runner-up | BT - Success
Winner | Dulux - Colour Chemistry
BAFTA INTERACTIVE AWARDS
Winner | Carlton - Starfinder | Best TV/film website
2003
CANNES LIONS
Finalist | The Hospital website | Corporate information website
ONE SHOW INTERACTIVE
Merit | Mother City Tours - This Way | Single banner
NEW YORK FESTIVALS
Finalist | The Hospital website | Corporate information website
LONDON INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
Finalist | The Hospital website | Corprate information website
LOERIE ADVERTISING AWARDS
Finalist | Scott Bedford - Neil Armstrong’s Boots | Self-promotion
2002
CANNES LIONS
Finalist | Mother City Tours - This Way | Single banner
LOERIE ADVERTISING AWARDS
Finalist | Mother City Tours - This Way | Beyond the banner
2001
BROADCAST AWARD
Winner | Global e-missions | Best use of new media
LOERIE ADVERTISING AWARDS
Finalist | Scott Bedford - Bubble Mechanics | Self-promotion
Finalist | Forward Slash - Christmas card | Self-promotion
1998
LOERIE ADVERTISING AWARDS
Finalist | Freedom of Speech Trust - Star | non-profit print