Mark Clothier

The world's first album launch, in a taxi

Cleve Cameron wasn’t just my ECD at JWT – he was also an accomplished musician. And he has an album to prove it. One day when he and I got talking about how the hell you even launch an album, we ended up with a rather novel solution.

Never heard of them? Neither had I, but it turns out BIG Cola are no small fry – in fact, they’re the third biggest cola brand in the world. And with designs on moving up the global food chain, they have an appetite for experimenting with new ways of talking to their consumers.

Air New Zealand’s animated character Rico, was famously larger than life. It followed then, that when it came time to kill him off… Rico needed to go out with a bang.

With its thriving film industry, Vancouver is often referred to as `Hollywood North’. Perhaps this is why so many Canadian ads feature celebrity endorsements. The exception to the rule is Ford, who’ve never needed to rely on celebrity endorsements, given they’ve long been number one in Canada. This campaign parodies Canada’s all too common celebrity endorsement car ads. The teaser even subtly pokes fun at another car company who used both Wayne Gretzky and Kiefer Sutherland in their ads.

Who better to offer up tips on how to get more out of Airpoints, than the frequent fliers the airline has long been a sponsor of – the All Blacks. There was just one small problem: whilst the ABs are famous for their ball skills – they’re not exactly renowned for their acting skills. Thus, a cunning plan was required.

The campaign comprised TV, EDMs, and press.

Mateship is one of the core values of Australian society. It’s also the core strategic platform of all XXXX GOLD advertising. Although, in the world of XXXX, mateship loosely translates to Aussie blokes hanging out with their mates, telling bad jokes over a few beers. It seems to be working too, because XXXX Gold is the top selling beer in Australia and the ads were voted Australia’s favourite beer ads in a Roy Morgan study.

This campaign ran exclusively in Australian Surfing Life Magazine. The ads are based on the insight that surfers have a deep-seated hatred of anyone that rides waves on anything other than a traditional surfboard – were talking to you Stand Up Paddle Boarder, Bodyboarder, and Wave Skier.

As part of Auckland Transport’s Happy Endings campaign, this radio ad (which ran when the Pop Up Globe Theatre was in town) puts a new spin on an old Shakespeare classic.

Motorbikes are an integral part of Thai culture: they’re fun, relatively affordable, and easily maneuverable in busy city traffic. But Thailand has one of the highest road accident fatality rates in the world. A large percentage of those fatalities involve motorbikes, and a large percentage of those involve people not wearing helmets. This proactive ambient idea is intended to make motorcyclists think twice about not wearing a helmet. Translated, the line reads `always wear a helmet’. Ideally you would get an actor to ride around wearing the helmet and then film the reactions of motorcyclists who are not wearing helmets.