The Ninety-Niners

4 years, 4 pieces of work. No. 4. Dole Tropical Gold Pineapple The Ninety-Niners have just turned four. So I’m sharing four pieces of work I’m proud of. This week it’s our award-winning campaign for Dole. It's the type of loud, funny, disruptive work I love to see. Andrew Blakeley's strategy was brilliantly mischievous - Let’s wind people up by telling them Dole pineapple belongs on a full English. We started with a simple social post, sparking a furious debate that ended up on ITV news! And we even created a fake breakfast cafe where we added Pineapple whether people wanted it or not. All credit to Dole for going for it. You can read more about the campaign here: https://lnkd.in/eQmQerNx

My least woke opinion: brands should make buying stuff more desirable and adverts should help sell more stuff. Whether “underconsumption core” goes beyond virtue signalling or creating an aesthetic on social media and is becoming a “shift” in consumer behaviour & purchase habits is questionable. The trend is urban, liberal and primarily performed by people who haven’t had to make do with less out of necessity. With Halloween now being the UK’s biggest single-use plastic event, and growing year-on-year, it’s hard to believe that people are ready to stop overconsuming. Likewise, UK Christmas spending is forecast to increase this year. There is virtue in encouraging people to buy only what they need. To buy quality over quantity. But this is the preserve of premium brands who are able to command high prices. Those that rely on volume don’t have that luxury. Jigsaw leveraged this with their For Life Not Landfill campaign (The Corner London), but this was still an advert telling people to buy more: that is the job of advertising. Brands exist to make things more desirable to buy. So why should they embrace a trend that amounts to turkeys voting for Christmas? “Sorry, shareholders, sales are down this year because we used our ads to tell people to buy less of our products. It’s very on trend!”. *since writing this, it looks like maybe Jaguar Land Rover have chosen to embrace the underconsumption trend and put people off buying their cars Thanks to Creativebrief for featuring my thoughts. https://lnkd.in/e8ZjYneh

Last Thursday we hosted the The Ninety-Niners for a fantastic Quiz Night fundraiser in support of the incredible Brighter Futures Zambia Together, we had a blast testing our knowledge while raising funds for this amazing charity, which provides life-changing support and education to vulnerable children and young people in Zambia. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us and supported such a great cause!

4 Years, 4 Pieces of Work No. 3 GSMA   The Ninety-Niners have just turned four. So I’m sharing four pieces of work I’m proud of.   So who’s up for a B2B brief for a global organisation, that many of us have never heard of but who need to fight their corner for something that’s vital for billions of people all around the world. Cue our 'For the benefit of billions' campaign for GSMA, an organisation that advocates for the mobile industry to secure its share of spectrum - the digital pipeline that powers your mobile. I’m proud of this campaign because it shows that good strategists and creatives, who immerse themselves completely in a new but fascinating sector, can learn a lot and find a way to make something intangible, compelling. Below is one of the social posts we created, and you can learn more about the campaign https://lnkd.in/eC-eFwzU   Next week, an online campaign intentionally designed to annoy people.

The post-Brexit disconnect between delusional “liberal elites” and the reality for real people was a huge part of why we set up The Ninety-Niners. So it seemed appropriate to look at this latest election through the wider lens of marketing and ask, what did Trump do that brands should learn from? What do you think? What did we miss? Regardless of your political opinions, did you take anything from the success of the Trump campaign? Or the failures of the Harris one?

"Diversity is a great force towards creativity" and "There is no good idea that cannot be improved upon". Two quotes from former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner that felt very relevant last week as Andrew Blakeley and I facilitated the Trade Marketing Academy Hothouse in Manchester for Asahi Europe & International. This was our 4th Hothouse, bringing together the brightest and best talent from across the region to crack a real business problem in a particular market. In sharing their diverse experiences, different points of view and fresh ideas I believe we've made some already great plans even better. It was also an important reminder that creativity is so often inspired by stepping back and looking at a problem from a different perspective. Huge thanks to the brilliant UK team for providing an inspiring place to come together at Man City's Etihad Stadium. And for sharing the wonders of Manchester's night life and British drinking culture! 🍻🍻 (Albert Schloss is a truly remarkable new venue by the way!) Alexandra Lund Jez Manterfield Robbie Whishaw Sarah Caroli (was Buckle) laura dadds Aydn Smith Amy Armstrong Esha Johal And to everyone that gave so much energy, commitment and fresh thinking to our few days together. 🙏 thank you all! Jiri Sevcik DORIN MIHAI Tunde Laurinyecz Kaja Jarmuszewska Stefano Filice Stephan Kardol Marek Grabovský Marius Constantin Marijana Herbut Beckei Takeharu Kawamura Nienke Gundlach David Barrow Iris Weelink Alessia Angelini Zbigniew Smyk And of course the Capability team that have given us the huge privilege of doing this work. Raul Alarcon Pauline Louise Newman Marta Waclawik

4 years, 4 pieces of work. No. 2 Organix type face The Ninety-Niners have just turned four. So I’m sharing four pieces of work I’m proud of. Last week it was an award-winning activation for Lloyds Bank. This week it’s an award-winning type face we created for Organix. The key word on the brief was ‘joyful’ and I think Georgina Martin, our Head of Design, smashed it. It’s been used in comms, on the Organix website, for social content, for activations, and most recently, we blinged it up for our ‘Lil’ Ballers’ campaign. You can see how we’ve brought it to life on our website: https://lnkd.in/eNNT-kC8   Next up will be a B2B campaign for GSMA (the people who help our mobile networks work).

EV sales are growing in the UK, according to fresh data out this week. Which seems like a good opportunity to reshare the headlines from the research we did with real people a couple of months ago. Is EV ownership becoming more normalised? What more should governments and business be doing to convince mainstream drivers? Are you ready to go Electric?

EV sales are growing in the UK, according to fresh data out this week. Which seems like a good opportunity to reshare the headlines from the research we did with real people a couple of months ago. Is EV ownership becoming more normalised? What more should governments and business be doing to convince mainstream drivers? Are you ready to go Electric?

4 years, 4 pieces of work. No. 1 Lloyds Bank activation The Ninety-Niners have just turned four. So I’m sharing four pieces of work I'm proud of, starting with an award-winning activation for Lloyds Bank and Mental Health UK. Taking the insight that 80% of small business owners struggle with their mental health, but only 31% know where to go for help, we created the ‘Stronger mind, stronger business’ campaign. There was an online hub where small business owners could learn how to build mental resilience and look after their mental health. It included written guides, video case studies and a portal where you could book free therapeutic coaching sessions. It was so good to be part of something that helped real people in the real world. Below is the long form film we made to drive people to the hub and you can see more of the content on our website: https://lnkd.in/esdqKnPj Next up will be an award-winning type face for Organix.