Future Ballers
iShares ETFs (U.S.)
Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons
iShares ETFs (Global)
The UK's most hated bank
First Direct (UK)
The Personal Mass Medium
YouTube (EMEA)
The Premium Effect
LinkedIn (EMEA)
From Payments to Ad network
Mastercard (Germany)
Mere Mortals
San Francisco Ballet (U.S.)
Love at First Taste
Knorr (Germany & Global)
Soft and Strong
Tempo (Germany)
Winning over financial decision makers and young investors with one campaign
Brand challenge
As slower, long term investments, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) were the epitome of boring.
Consumer insight
Instead of investing long term, millions of young investors risked their life savings in exciting short term gambles like Memestocks. (reddit/wallstreetbets)
Cultural insight
60% of NBA-players go bankrupt due to short-sighted investments, e.g., demanding their salary in unstable Crypto currencies.
Campaign strategy
Let's redefine what it means to invest like a Baller.
Creative Solution
We founded a new kind of team – the iShares Future Ballers. Five NBA rookies stood up against the bankruptcy odds in professional sports and pledged to play the long game with their finances.
Then they taught young investors too.
Through their shared love language: Basketball.
Results
+82% lift in awareness amongst investors and financial decision makers
+1.1B Net New Business
2 Effie Awards and WARC Grand Prix
Helping a 178-year old German brand go viral with young foodies
Brand challenge
Knorr was a stale packaged food brand for families, seen to have artificial taste enhancers - during a fresh food revolution.
Strategic Opportunity
Make the fact that great flavor brings food lovers together relevant to a new generation.
Insight
78% of young foodies believe they will get on better with people who share their tastes.
Campaign strategy
Can your favorite flavors predict who you should date?
Creative Solution
We created an AI-powered Flavor Profiler, then put it to the test.
On real singles.
On a televised dinner date.
After watching, home chefs around the globe took the flavor personality test, and received tailored recipes – made delicious by Knorr.
Results
1.6B Earned impressions
+13% Purchase intent
No1 most viewed ad on YouTube
4 Effies (US, Europe, UK), 2 APG Awards, WARC Grand Prix
Making the ballet relevant in the age of instant entertainment
Brand Challenge
Attending the arts is all about the stories you get to tell - but no one under 60 thought the ballet's stories were worth talking about.
Brand Strength
The Ballet's ancient stories have lasted this long because they contain eternal truths.
Strategic Flip
Turn SF ballet from a stuffy art form into the epicenter of social debate by applying its timeless lessons to modern contexts.
Cultural Insight
Pandora's Box myth was about to launch - just as artists' protests warned that AI was threatening to unleash unknown evils onto humanity.
Creative Solution
We staged a series of attempts by AI to sabotage the ballet’s ‘Mere Mortals’ – making SF Ballet the symbol of irreplaceable human artistry.
Results
Cultural FOMO exploded +85%
Broke 19-year revenue records with under-35s
Achieved with just 25% of industry marketing spend
Sparked largest donation ever secured by a ballet company
2 Effie Awards
Making first direct the UK's most hated bank (by other banks)
Brand Challenge
First Direct Bank wanted to announce they'd topped yet another financial service ranking.
Brand Strength
First Direct is the UK's most loved bank. In this case, this was bad news. After decades of winning the award, people were oblivious to this information. How could we get people to take notice?
Cultural Insight
Because bragging is unlikeable – when people want to brag on their socials, they humblebrag. It's supposed to be more subtle. But often it's so thinly veiled that people see right through it.
Strategic Flip
Turn corporate bragging into social currency by using thinly veiled humblebrags, making First Direct’s success look like an awkward accident. Instead of saying "we were voted the best bank" we publicly apologized to other banks for being their customers' favorite.
Creative Solution
Publicly announce that First Direct is the most hated bank – by other banks. And take out a full page in the newspaper for a public apology to the other banks for being their customers’ favorite.
Results
- Highest-testing financial campaign in Millward Brown’s history.
Winning over financial decision makers
Brand challenge
ETFs were being dismissed by Financial deciders as one-dimensional portfolio basics - just passive vehicles for diversification.
Strategic Flip
If people wrote off ETFs as one-trick ponies, we had to surprise them with just how many tricks they could actually do.
Creative Solution
Enter Eleanor T. Fitzsimmons (E.T.F.) - a precocious child prodigy who's good at just about anything - and who refused to be boxed in. Through her story, we transformed ETFs from simple diversification tools into versatile instruments for everything from Bonds to ESG investing.
Results
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Shifted perception: ETFs from commodity to versatility play
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Increased Consideration +120%
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Persuaded 80% of Financial advisors to use iShares more.
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Generated massive cost savings by creating footage adaptable for retail investors, too
Drove $6B USD in Net New Business for BlackRock
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Won B2B Effie Award
Making an ad platform indispensable in the media mix
Challenge
Advertisers felt YouTube wasn't premium or brand-safe enough to earn a central place on their media plans
Stragtegic flip
We built YouTube’s first B2C2B brand campaign to reset advertiser perception — showing that its creator ecosystem isn’t a risk, it’s a reason to invest.
Idea
Activated across premium trade, cinema, and OOH, editorial to reach media decision-makers in the spaces they respect
Used viewer behaviour data to target media buyers with “personalised” cinema ads — a first-of-its-kind execution
Results
- +24% uplift in advertiser consideration
+11% increase in advertiser spend in key verticals
Campaign model adopted in other EU markets as a blueprint
Showing LinkedIn is worth it
Brand challenge
Advertisers were shifting brand budgets to cheaper, broad-reach platforms.
Strategic Flip
Justify LinkedIn's higher CPMs as a premium environment that delivers outcomes — not by scale, but by influencing high-value decisions in moments that matter.
Creative Solution
Prove LinkedIn environments win on quality:
Produced first-party research to prove that LinkedIn ads are 3x more likely to drive consideration among decision-makers
Activated findings through native content, blog, trade press partnership events and regional roadshows
Built vertical-specific messaging guides for sales to help advertisers calculate relative ROI vs mass-reach platforms
Results
- +21% increase in brand spend from “hold-out” advertisers
- Drove greater use of LinkedIn brand solutions playbook among EMEA agency partners
- Helped unlock incremental budgets from brand teams within performance-led advertisers
Launching a new product for an 80-year old German brand
Brand Challenge
How do you enter a category as a premium product when existing competitors have spent decades building brand memories around the key purchase driver of softness, conveyed by lovable puppies, koalas, bears and other mascots?
Brand Strength
In Germany, Tempo had decades of experience in making the perfect quality facial tissues, just not toilet paper - yet.
Insight
When it comes to toilet paper, softness is nothing without strength.
Creative Solution
We found a creative way to convey the obligatory softness as well as introducing a factor completely ignored by the competition - strength.
And no need for puppies - we got Doc Martens to do the job.
Results
One of the most successful EMEA product launches of the year.
Helping Mastercard transform into an ad platform and win over advertisers
Brand challenge
As physical cards face extinction, Mastercard needed a new business model — one that could compete in a future shaped by digital wallets, fintechs, and data-rich platforms.
Insight
Sitting on billions of permissioned transactions, Mastercard held something far more valuable than a card: a real-time window into what people buy — and the power to turn that into media.
Idea
From payment card to purchase-powered ad platform.
Results
- Successfully launched Mastercard Commerce Media via PR, CRM, events in October 2025
- Cemented the strategic groundwork for Mastercard’s pivot into media — proving that the most powerful media signals don’t come from browsing, but from buying.
- Built credibility via distribution of whitepapers about hyper-relevant topics to advertisers in their verticals, across global and regional teams
