Wavemaker UK has appointed Irin Rahman as its Chief Data and Technology Officer. In her role, Rahman will lead the agency’s application of WPP and GroupM technology and data products and solutions to its clients’ businesses, as well as being responsible for commerce and addressable audience strategies, designed to positively provoke growth for both current and prospective clients. Rahman will work in close collaboration with teams at GroupM Nexus and Choreograph to co-develop and integrate GroupM’s product and data propositions. A highly experienced senior leader, Rahman joins Wavemaker from PHD where she held the position of Chief Data and Technology Officer. With over 10 years of experience working for leading agencies including Publicis and Dentsu International, and in-house at high-profile brands such as Heineken and PhotoBox, Rahman has been the driving force behind setting impactful data-driven marketing and media strategies. She is also adept at leading the most complex programmes across platforms including direct, digital, out-of-home (OOH), integrated and omni-channel.
M&C Saatchi London has announced it has been appointed as lead creative agency for the independent regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), following a competitive pitch process. M&C Saatchi will now collaborate with the FCA on the development and delivery of its flagship integrated consumer protection campaigns, ScamSmart and InvestSmart, with responsibility for strategy, creative development, production, PR and partnership marketing. The activity will focus on helping at-risk loan and investment consumers to steer clear of fraudsters, making them less likely to fall victim to scams. M&C Saatchi London previously worked with the FCA between 2015 and 2019, delivering the award-winning “Arnie” campaign. The FCA is the latest in a raft of new business wins for M&C Saatchi London, which has also picked up new accounts from Dreams, Diageo, UK Finance, Science in Sport and National Grid in the last year.
Opera GX, the browser for gamers, has unveiled an anarchic new campaign starring actor and comedian Eric Andre, “Bury Boring”. The push was developed in partnership with Waste Creative. Opera GX asked Waste to create a disruptive, edgy, impactful campaign to boost brand awareness. The push aims to challenge mainstream gamers to stop using their default browser and download something better: the browser for gamers. To help Opera GX stand out from its competitors, Waste landed on the creative concept of “Bury Boring” – a rallying cry to take on boring browsing behaviour and the other brands in the space. The agency identified comedian and actor Eric Andre, best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the surreal Adult Swim comedy series The Eric Andre Show, as the perfect talent to bring the idea to life and represent the Opera GX brand’s fun and irreverent tone of voice. Andre has a significant following on social media, with 2.7m followers on Instagram alone. A surreal, chaos-infused, horror-inspired two-minute hero film, directed by Dan French, sees Andre confronting people using “boring” browsers, interrupting their boring browsing behaviour and throwing devices in his body bag. The push is running across social channels YouTube, Twitter and TikTok, supported by influencer activity.
Honda Motor Europe has awarded independent creative agency Exposure with a multi-year contract to be its lead ATL agency across Europe, including the UK, for the brand’s automobile business. The pitch, which was run internally by Honda, saw Exposure compete against VCCP and Hakuhodo/Sid Lee to win the task of driving awareness of the brand’s electrification series, in addition to new and updated model launches across the full Honda car range. The account has previously been held by incumbent agency Sid Lee. The debut work – which will span TV, addressable TV, VoD, digital video, digital display, paid social, print and OOH – launches in 2024. Exposure was appointed after demonstrating its automotive expertise and proven track record in delivering high-quality integrated ATL campaigns at scale.
Independent digital growth-marketing agency Growthcurve has been appointed by breathing exercise app Lungy to handle its growth and marketing strategy. Growthcurve will target potential users that need help with anxiety, stress or sleep-related conditions – circumstances that can be improved with Lungy’s interactive daily breathing exercises. Growthcurve’s award-winning studio team will create a series of user acquisition campaigns for social channels in the US and UK including Meta Ads, Google Ads and TikTok Ads. The campaign will expand out to wider mobile networks and across Europe and Asia in due course. Founded by NHS Doctor Luke Hale, Lungy is a mindful breathing app that generates an interactive audio-visual experience for users with every breath. The exciting app combines medical rigour, award-winning visual design and mobile technology to guide users through a series of daily exercises, reacting in real-time with their breathing via the mobile phone’s built-in microphone. Lungy is exploring how to take the app beyond wellness, to support patients who may be impacted with breathing problems such as asthma, COPD and long covid.
After making great strides this year with its first-ever Christmas TV ad, Lovehoney has smashed another milestone with its biggest-ever TV spot. The Christmas TV ad was made in collaboration with creative agency Leith, and features real-life customer reviews of the sexual wellness brand’s products. Now, Lovehoney is continuing to make leaps towards taking sexual wellness mainstream, as it has secured its biggest-ever advertising coup with a spot during Friday’s episode of I’m a Celebrity. It’s the first time that Lovehoney has had a TV advert on ITV1, and will be the biggest programme it has aired in to date. Lovehoney’s media planning and buying agency, The Kite Factory, have been part of driving the brands’ ambition to lead the way in sexual wellness and securing their biggest TV spot to date is an exciting step in the right direction.
Joe Wicks and Nikki Wicks have appointed Joint as the creative agency for their business The Body Coach. The agency has been briefed to develop the first-ever paid advertising campaign for the The Body Coach brand and app. Joe Wicks is a British fitness coach, TV presenter, social media personality and author. He started his fitness career over 11 years ago, handing out flyers for his bootcamps at a park in Richmond. It wasn’t until Joe joined social media and began posting #Leanin15 recipes that his following really started to grow. In 2020, he began “PE with Joe” on YouTube to help kids and families keep moving during the Covid pandemic, reaching millions and changing the lives of people globally. Off the back of this, Joe and Nikki launched The Body Coach app, offering users tailored fitness and nutrition programmes, helping hundreds of thousands of people feel fitter, healthier and happier every day.
CTI Digital, a UK technology, experience and digital marketing agency, is thrilled to announce its recent success in securing a contract with PureGym Personal Training Academy to enhance and optimise its email marketing automation. PureGym Personal Training Academy, the sister company of one of the UK’s largest fitness chains, provides an enhanced online learning experience that helps people with a passion for fitness to be certified personal trainers. The PureGym Personal Training Academy has chosen CTI Digital for its expertise in digital marketing and email automation solutions. The partnership aims to revolutionise PureGym Personal Training Academy’s email marketing strategy to transform the learner journey from initial enquiry to qualifying. CTI Digital has a proven track record in delivering cutting-edge digital solutions, and this collaboration with PureGym Personal Training Academy outlines its commitment to staying at the forefront of digital innovation. The agency will leverage its deep understanding of email marketing automation to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of PureGym Personal Training Academy’s future and existing student engagement.
Specsavers has teamed up with Harry Redknapp to breathe new life into a struggling grassroots football club as part of its earned-first consumer campaign, Specsavers’ Best Worst Team. The high street optical and audiology brand – known for its award-winning reactive social media strategy in the football space – brings back its Best Worst Team campaign following a successful pilot last year with former professional footballer Jimmy Bullard. The activation focuses on investing in an underfunded area of sport that relies heavily on excellent sight and hearing – grassroots football. This year’s supercharged campaign, which is supported by media, launched in July with a call out for entries. Almost 2,000 grassroots teams from across the UK applied. The chosen team, Swansea-based Cwm Albion, was then revealed in November in the first of eight fly-on-the-wall documentary-style episodes – all hosted on Specsavers’ dedicated Best Worst Team Youtube channel. Over the coming months, the team will be taken on a journey-of-a-lifetime with invaluable support by one of the most recognisable and charismatic managers of the Premier League era, Harry Redknapp, and money-can’t-buy experiences usually reserved for only elite players and clubs. The series is being narrated by former England international and Queen of the I’m A Celebrity jungle, Jill Scott MBE, who since retiring, has taken the TV and punditry world by storm. The campaign creative concept was developed by Tangerine, with media strategy and execution by Golin and Freshwater. To elevate it this year, Specsavers is also partnering with Copa 90 – a leading digital football platform. The partnership will help Specsavers build better, more meaningful connections with audiences and take the brand into new, exciting and innovative spaces. As well as hosting the 8 episodes on its own Youtube channel, Copa is also creating bespoke content over the course of the season for its social media followers. The Best Worst Team campaign sees the support of influencers Chunkz and Elz the Witch, who are creating unique content on their YouTube and TikTok channels in order to reach new audiences and encourage more people to follow the team’s journey. Specsavers is also working with Manning Gottlieb to help drive reach and awareness, giving the team some footballing fame and creating buzz and talkability through out of home activations, including giant murals and projections in their hometown and wider Wales.
