Jacko Stephens

South Western Railway is one of the biggest train operators in the UK, connecting the South Coast to the heart of London.

After lockdown their customers were working from home more often and not using the train for social activities.

I was tasked by St Luke’s, the agency pitching for the account, to come up with a big campaign idea.

I’ve always loved a brand icon, so decided to create a pair of SWR commuter birds. One a pigeon, who could represent all things city, the other a seagull, who could do the same but for the coast. Through their onboard conversations we could gently remind people of the great things that they are missing out on if they stay cooped up indoors. The beauty of a brand icon is that you can use it everywhere, from TV and posters, through to online and even when you book a ticket.

The campaign improved all brand metrics, even value for money (despite an increase in fares). SWR’s brand loyalty scores (NPS) rose by +20pts amongst commuters aware of the campaign, making it the highest it had been for 5 years.

Most importantly, this translated to the bottom line: 6 months after the campaign’s launch, econometrics showed that it delivered an ROI of £3.50 and £4.79 in incremental revenue.

The lager category was suffering from an image problem at the time. It was seen as ‘blokey’ and a bit old fashioned. It was also loosing market share to craft ales, whose sales were booming. So Camden wanted to reposition Hells lager with an iconic campaign that was inclusive, fun and welcoming. We created a simple brand mnemonic with the artist Stevie Gee which said hello to country. With a relatively small spend, brand awareness rose by 62% and they sold an extra 350k pints.

After years of losing market share to fancy foreign dressings, Heinz Salad Cream was in danger of being de-listed. With a do or die attitude, our client allowed us to try something different. So we took it out of the salad dressing market all together and suggested new uses for it on, well, any food. To see more work go to top left and hover over the word work.

At the start of 2017 the Canadian Government wanted to rush through a bill introducing plain packaging on all cigarettes sold there. We were tasked with raising awareness of the potential downsides to this legislation. After our print and digital campaign ran, the bill was withdrawn and will now be debated in parliament. 

With no operational changes at HMRC, we created a campaign using 'the theatre of the mind' to deter tax evation. Our beady eyes were seen in press, on posters, phone boxes, banners and even cash point screens.

Gordons had been losing market share to own label gins for years. We wanted to remind people that it's worth paying a bit more for the taste of Gordons, by using an uncompromising chef who happened to share the same name as the brand.

Probably the campaign we're most proud of as It ran for over 18 years.  It appeared in schools, on TV, online and even on childrens clothing. Just goes to show that a little charm can be an effective tactic when talking to children.

To link Littlewoods with football, we thought we would show real supporters. Not the crap ones you usually get on TV. And because they were so cheap to make we made 96 of them, so they always felt fresh. Our only regret is not turnng them into a TV series and calling it Gogglebox. 

It's an myth that a pint of the black stuff tastes better in Ireland. The truth is, it's all brewed in the same place. Dublin. To put the record straight we produced this campaign of posters. The extra clever bit was to pick the most popular pub names in Britain and send them all a free poster, with the name of their pub on it. Many landlords had them framed in their pub and you can still see some of them on their walls today. So they're still delivering their message at point of sale with no media spend.

With Valentine's Day falling on a Sunday this year, the COOP wanted to promote ideas for romantic breakfasts in bed. Who better to front the campaign than the charismatic french guru of love, Mr Fred Sirieix?

Coop's agency asked us to find a new way of promoting their Halloween offering. We wanted to do more than just push their costumes and pumkins, every shop does that. Instead we suggested some scary recipes that parents could create with their children. Turning produce that the COOP already sold into Halloween food, like American hotdogs into severed fingers. Wohahahaha.

As a way to get more people watching their documentaries, the BBC toyed with the idea of re-catagorising them. Instead of doing it by subject, they would do it by type. In depth, populist and controversial. We were tasked with writting a campaign to launch the initiative. They loved the work but for some reason went off the whole idea so they never ran. 

Rocket fuel make very strong coffee but only had a very small budget. It's agency tasked us with coming up with a disruptive idea that would put it on the map. Rather than pitch it against other coffee brands, we decided to take market share from energy drinks like Red Bull. After all, why have wings when you can have rockets? Watch this space...

Part of an online campaign to encourage smaller companies to embrace changes in office technology.

The Branston client wanted to extend the brand with a range of three new pickles. Our job was to launch them communicating Branstons unique tang. We thought a large dollop of British eccentricity was the best way to do it.

This campaign launched Gameboy Advance across Europe. The client was fantastic and understood that you don't have to show your target audience, when trying to appeal to them.

The brief was to announce the return of Ice Road Truckers on a limited budget. Using footage from the series, we decided to create a bit of extra stand out with a playful, and just about legal, campaign line.

We weren't allowed to call Kettle 'hand made' because they're sliced by machines. So we dug a little deeper and found out that after they're sliced by machines, they're fried by hand. Others crisps are not. So we called them 'The hand cooked chip'. Different words, same out take.

After many years of anti drink driving adverts, research had taught our client that people feared disfigurement more than they did death. We exaggerated this insight by making the disfigurement seem deliberate.

Heinz needed to steal market share from own label baby foods. We thought that the best way to do this was to hero their organic range and play on the emotional desire within parents to give their babies the very best.

This was a fun way to satirise our feckless prime minister. Like the best political posters of the past, I took a negative truth about him and exaggerated it. Turns out Boris’s truth is that he lies. So I launched a range of dog poo bags and called them Boris Bags because they are full of the same thing.

Landor and Fitch wanted to launch a De’Longhi coffee lounge in Sydney. ‘What’s a coffee lounge?’, I hear you say. Well, it’s a place where the public can explore all things coffee. From their own personal flavour profiles, to recipes that might appeal to them. I was tasked with writing copy for the in store interactive screens. A blend of information, functionality and De’Longhi’s unique personality.

Together with Gramercy Park Studios, I helped Microsoft to create their latest product, PowerApps. A new way for people to build their own business apps using their exsisting Microsoft suite of products. I helped to distill, explain and set the right tone for the App.

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/