My name is Henry McDowell.
Creative Content Manager with 7+ years’ experience delivering high-impact campaigns for major brands across both consumer & corporate audiences. Specialising in strategy, video production & audience growth,
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M&S Food Launches in Coles
The Brief
One of the UK's favourite Food brands is launching down under for the first time. Create a social-first campaign to communicate this new wholesale partnership that's both engaging for consumers, and tells the story of M&S' transformations strategy, to double the size of the Food business by 2030.
Creative & Strategy
As an Australian in the UK, my response to brief was that we had to understand Australian culture and utilise that in the creative. For the teaser trailer (left), I came up with the idea of utilising a green screen to put British icon Percy Pig in famous Australian landmarks, from Bondi Beach in Sydney, to the MCG in Melbourne, to the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns. This went viral, with 477k impressions on the M&S corporate Instagram, which only had 10k followers at the time.
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We then followed up with a corporate reporter-style video filmed with the Team at Coles (right). We looked to hit our core corporate strategy points by highlighting the volume of Percy Pigs sold to date, and also doubled down on hitting key points of Australian culture with the great debate at the end... lollies or sweets?
M&S Food launches in Coles
1 Year Guarantee on M&S Kidswear
The Brief
Kids are messy! M&S Fashion is so confident in their quality, that they have now got a one year guarantee on all kidswear so that if they get dirty, you won't pay. This campaign needs to both highlight the quality of the clothing, as well as linking it to M&S' strategy of Net Zero by 2030. This must also be relevant for customers & colleagues alike.
Creative & Strategy
The biggest creative challenge was to find a way to include the proof-points about quality without it feeling forced. My idea was to have one of the in-house designers to "interview" some kids about the different ways they get themselves dirty on a daily basis. We could then intertwine these answers with messaging on how M&S' kidswear is so durable.
This came with its own challenges, as working with kids requires a lot of patience, however with clever directing (and some bribery with snacks) we managed to create a light hearted, fun campaign while still getting across our core messages.
Eat Well Play Well in Partnership with
The Home Nations Football Teams
The Brief
As part of M&S' partnership with the English, Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish football teams, they put on big television advertising campaigns to encourage customers to eat healthy through their Eat Well brand. The problem is that this made for TV content does not perform well on social media. The brief is to create a content plan to get this message across in a social-first way.
Creative & Strategy
This was an on-going campaign over multiple years, requiring constant innovation, being on-trend and thinking "what will people watch on their phone while waiting for the bus?"
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One example of this is a social-first video we shot with M&S Ambassador and England legend Ian Wright (Wrighty) on the set of the wider TV campaign shoot. Wrighty is known for doing his blind rankings on socials, so we thought why not do the same thing with Eat Well products! This is a great example of successful celebrity & partnerships marketing - knowing the audience and making something memorable... even if I did stich Wrighty up by giving him his favourite product last!
This example was filmed in about 10 minutes between takes, showing that successful content is all about the idea, not time and equipment.
Make Percy Pig & Colin the Caterpillar Cultural Icons
The Brief
To turn the two biggest M&S Owned Brands, Percy Pig & Colin the Caterpillar, into cultural icons exceeding the confectionary & cakes which they are based on.
Creative & Strategy
An on-going campaign, having to constantly jump on trends and cultural moments to raise the relevance of the Percy Pig & Colin the Caterpillar.
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One example of this is the UK launch of the Wicked movie (left) - we already had a partnership in place with Universal to sell Wicked-branded clothing, so we got the all clear to create our own rendition of the iconic scene 'Defying Gravity.' This resonated with audiences, reaching a staggering 1.3m views on Instagram alone.
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Another example is tying into the 2024 Paris Olympics with the "M&S Games" (not bad seeing as we didn't have the rights). This got over 800k views, which I believe was mostly down to Colin's break dancing at the end.
M&S Food launches in Coles
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