Nick Bird & Lee Smith

Yorkshire Tea’s proper language mix-up.

Yorkshire Tea is on a mission to champion 'proper' tea globally. 

And the next stop is Australia. But there was just one small problem: turns out 'proper' doesn’t quite mean the same down under, as it does in Yorkshire.

i.e: in Aus, ‘Proper’ means ‘Stuck-up’ not ‘done right’

So we decided to lean into this mishap and give the impression that in Sydney and Melbourne, some ‘paint happy’ locals decided to take matters into their own hands and put things right.

Christmas 2020 was always going to be tricky. A global pandemic had just turned the world upside down.

Reading the room and creating something that chimed with the public was key.

Resilience was the starting point.

Our Christmas campaign for Amazon showed the unbeatable human spirit and the power of community that we witnessed in 2020.

Demonstrating that with some grit, determination and perseverance, anything is possible.

We pitched and won the Yorkshire Tea account in 2016 and have been creative directors on it since. We are proud to have taken this small, family run Yorkshire brand from 3rd, to No 1 tea brand in the UK.

Everything Yorkshire Tea do is done proper. And we mean everything. It's what makes a proper brew.

The campaign we developed for them takes a peep inside Yorkshire Tea HQ where we see just how deep their passion for doing things proper goes.

The campaign received a Gold IPA effectiveness award in 2019.

And to top it all Yorkshire Tea went from Number Three to take the Number One spot and become the nations favourite brew.

The work continued with an ad to announce Yorkshire Tea’s carbon neutral status.

And in 2020 we developed a social spot to help people get back to the office and enjoy their tea break after lockdown with the help of a proper handy teapot.

Our latest ad has Sir Patrick Stewart delivering a few heartfelt words at Tina’s leaving do.

We've all been there; parched in Pathos, mouth like a sundried flip-flop, with an inferior hotel teabag mocking you from next to the mini kettle.

That's why when it comes to having a proper brew abroad, it's important to take matters into your own hands.

Using the much-loved medium of the Summer Banger we created ‘PACK YER BAGS' - an anthemic mantra to those venturing overseas for their hols.

Since becoming creative leads on Amazon in 2016, year on year, we have produced the global Christmas ad campaign.

2021 was no different, albeit the world was still in an uncertain place. The past 18 months had been challenging for people across the globe, particularly many young adults.

We wanted to tell the story of a young person struggling with the effects of the pandemic.

Communicating the value of kindness over any material gifts, the campaign highlighted how it’s the people around us who make Christmas.

Adele loved the message and provided us with the soundtrack that perfectly mirrored the girl’s story.

We created Amazon’s first global Christmas campaign.

It was a huge task that needed to capture Amazon’s role across different occasions and in markets as diverse the US to Japan. We hit upon the simple idea of heroing Amazon’s iconic packages on their journeys.

Now in its third year, the singing boxes continue to be one of the most successful campaigns that they have run.

We won the brand advertising campaign for Cancer Research UK whilst working at Anomaly. 

From the offset a traditional approach seemed wrong. After talking with cancer patients, nurses and doctors, scripts with actors and analogies all immediately felt a little crass.

We wondered if it was possible to make something that reflected what was happening in these people lives right now.

So that’s exactly what we did. We worked with the makers of ’24 Hours in A&E’  to film and capture a sense of immediacy by sharing the stories of real people going through cancer, the amazing staff treating them and the fantastic scientists working to beat this devastating disease. 

Nothing was scripted. We saw everything. The sad. The shocking. The mundane. The laughter.

The footage was filmed and turned around in very quick time frame.

Over 3 weeks we ran over 180 different digital outdoor posters with daily live updates with Tweets and Facebook posts from patients, doctors and nurses as they gave us a brief glimpse into their daily routines, treatments and fears.

Live radio ads were recorded in consultants rooms where we heard patents being given diagnosis and prognosis.

The campaign was encapsulated with the line ‘Cancer is happening. Right Now’

For Amazon’s Christmas 2022 spot, we worked with Academy Award winning director Taika Waititi, to tell a story about how joy is made.

The Christmas season is usually a time for happiness, but with the backdrop of one of the biggest cost of living crisis of our time, being frugal is something a lot of people are thinking about.

So, our Amazon Christmas campaign tells a story that proves what we all know; with a little ingenuity and thought you can really make Christmas special.

Oh….and the dad became a bit of TikTok hit. #amazon hot dad

pic: Mr Waititi inspecting the set

After a successful pitch, we were awarded the task to relaunch the Co-op. 

While many people were aware of the Co-op as an ethical brand, few realised how far their work and funding actually goes in the local community.

We created a totally fresh relaunch campaign with three magical spots directed by Nicolai Fugslig that showed how buying at the Co-op, ensures some of that money goes directly into funding local good causes.

This was surmised with the new mantra ‘It’s what we do’.

We were creative directors on this account after winning it in a pitch in 2012.

Our challenge; finding something new to say about the harms of smoking to a pretty tough audience.

Mutation was our first ad for the Department of Health and remains their most successful piece of tobacco control advertising to date. News coverage, millions of views online and awards at Cannes, Epica, BTAA, Creative Circle and Epica.

The Toxic Cycle was the new campaign for January 2014. Again it's visceral. The killer fact is how smoking instantly makes your blood thick and dirty. 

On a lighter note, Stoptober was created as the first ever national quit smoking attempt. It's a fully integrated campaign that's been a runaway success that won gold at the IPA Effectivness awards in 2016. Over a quarter of a million people signed up for the 28 day challenge last year and it's helped thousands kick the habit.

We won the pitch for Gocompare by being brutally honest.

"Your ads are really annoying. Acknowledge it. The public will respect you for it"

The client was brave.

We launched a new campaign with faux graffitied posters. The public bought it. The news channels got hold of it. Something was about to happen.

For the next few months we gave The Go Compare Man, the slap, kick and rocket launcher up the bum every member of the British public had been dying to do.

The campaign reached its crescendo with Prof Stephen Hawking and a super-massive black hole.

The public warmed. Tweets of hate turned to Tweets of praise.

Phase two was to soften The Go Compare Man further. It's amazing how a dog in a tuxedo can pull at peoples heart strings. Never fails.

We deliberately wanted to avoid the laddish humour associated with the gambling sector. Instead, we wanted to capture the serious sense of anticipation that is at the heart of sport, gambling and the Betfair brand itself.  

The company has anticipated countless innovations before its rivals and is always coming out with new ways to improve the experience for punters.
Our thinking has meant a complete brand overhaul, across multiple European markets and a totally different kind of campaign for the category.
But it can all be summed up in one word. 

Ready?

With the usual cheeky Virgin tone of voice, we created a campaign that begged the question to drivers 'why on earth would you want to sit in a tailback on the M6, with only a limp Gingsters Scotch egg at the next services to look forward to?'  

Don't Go Zombie was brought to life in posters and print with the help of graphic comic artist Marek Oleksicki. It was also developed into an online game which tapped into the pioneering 'wow' of Google Streetview.

Too sweary for Apple, we helped bring the Modern Toss 'Periodic Table of Swearing' to life with this charming little Andriod App.

Headphones advisable.

Idents for the Dave channel

Every now and then in advertising, you're not selling fizzy drinks or hatchbacks; you're trying to stop someone getting killed. 

It was a privilege to produce work for the Metropolitan Police on two high profile operations; Trident - which focuses on gang gun crime and their Knife Crime control campaigns.

'Follow' and 'Ridiculous' were aimed at a younger audience. School kids who think carrying a knife is the done thing.

We also constructed an exact replica of a standard size UK HM prison cell and put it in the middle of Brixton High St.

The work here got the nod from D&AD, Cannes, Creative Circle, Campaign Big and the Aerials.

A press and poster campaign, illustrated by the Australian collective Rinzen

Here are a few ads we created for Jeep Chrysler whilst working at BBDO.

We've worked on a lot of car brands in our career - Peugeot, Citroen, Mercedes, Subaru.  There's more of our car work in the archive section.