Hi, my name is Theo, I'm a creative, record collector, and Mongolian throat singer (in training). While I love creating campaigns of all styles, my favourites are the wacky ones with witty copy and innovative stunts.
Culture Courses
W/ Caden McGinnes
For my 2026 D&AD New Blood submission, I worked on a brief for language learning app, Duolingo. The brief was to target 16-24 year-olds, getting them to see Duolingo as a force for good as it provides free learning to over 125 million monthly learners.
Our response to the brief was created to celebrate this fact. Gen Z want opportunities to apply their Duolingo language skills. With 51% of Gen Z learning more efficiently when applying their knowledge, we decided to make Duolingo a far more interactive platform to compete with other apps on the market.
We created 'culture courses', designed to keep Gen Z users engaged by creating activities where they can apply their language skills. An example would be teaching users how to translate and write their own Japanese Haiku. We would also update the visuals for each course, making them more culturally relevant, and therefore, more immersive. As part of the launch of these new features we would organise a stunt where Duolingo's mascots teach the public some of the culture courses in-person. For example, French painting in Paris and Ancient Greek playwriting in Athens. The stunts would be turned into social media content to generate further awareness.
Buy Your Moment
DEPT. set a brief for EBay Live, a video live-stream auction site. The brief specified getting young adults, who are active online shoppers and sellers, to choose EBay Live, by building excitement and awareness around the platform.
EBay's primary platform has been used to sell the weird and wacky; from Justin Timberlake's half-eaten French toast, to an imaginary friend. To attract new users to eBay live, I utilised the novelty feeling inspired by the wacky items listed on eBay's platform. The one-off nature of this campaign would also suit the 'Fear of Missing Out' factor that attracts consumers to the live-stream format.
The Buy Your Moment campaign's primary activation was a series of charity auctions on eBay Live that sold once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
Some of these opportunities included:
- afternoon tea with national treasure, Miriam Margolyes, raising money for a charity of her choice.
- A cocktail course with a top mixologist, with a custom cocktail tailored to you, raising money for Alcohol Change UK.
- The right to name the newest litter of puppies at Battersea dogs & cats home
Each auction would be promoted on social media before the event and would explain the charities the livestreams will fund-raise for:
- A skit written by and starring Miriam Margolyes, followed by a brief explanation of her chosen charity.
- A tutorial on how to make a perfect old fashioned, followed by representative from Alcohol Change explaining the charities work.
- An introduction to the litter/ the story of how they came into the care of Battersea Cats & Dogs
Digital billboards would also announce the livestreams. A live countdown would help drive excitement for the streams as passers set alarms and calendar updates to avoid missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
W/ Caden McGinnes
The Spreadable Relationship
Cheeky Communications set a brief for American peanut butter brand, Skippy. The brief was to encourage 25-35 year-olds try Skippy and build brand awareness. We decided to utilise Skippy's American brand, taking the iconic American PB&J, and making it suitable for a British market.
The Special Relationship is a phrase coined by Winston Churchill to describe the political alliance between the UK & USA. In this campaign, we likened this bond to the one that peanut butter and jam share. This brought us neatly to our campaign line: The Spreadable Relationship. For the duration of this campaign, Skippy would partner with the iconically British, Hartley's jam, to encourage Britain to give PB&Js a chance.
The content of this campaign would be headed by a stunt: a pop-up in Trafalgar Square selling the ultimate PB&Js. OOH print ads & social media statics, showcasing the best of British and American, would announce 'The Spreadable Relationship'. A joint, in-store point of sale display for Skippy & Hartley's would entice shoppers with a promotion, a jar of Skippy & a jar of Hartley's for just £3. By making both jars cheaper, regular Hartley's customers would try a jar of Skippy, to buy their jam at a discounted price. A Declaration of Dependance would feature on the side of the POS stand and also be posted to social media to build further brand awareness.
Fade-Free Festival
For Creative Conscience 2026, I wanted to tackle hearing loss. As a musician, it's standard practice to wear earplugs in the rehearsal room to limit the effects of long-term hearing loss, and I had always wondered why people never took the same precautions in other loud environments, music festivals and night clubs, for example. Working from the insight that 63% of concert goers don't wear ear protection to gigs, my aim was to get frequent concert goers, who are unaware of the dangers that gigs can pose to their hearing, to use ear protection at music festivals by showcasing effective methods of hearing loss.
The core idea was to launch Fade-Free music festival, a festival optimised for listening comfort and minimising the risk of hearing loss. The line-up would include musicians who have spoken publicly about their experiences with loss of hearing and tinnitus:
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Coldplay
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AC/DC
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Metalica
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Eric Clapton
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Sting
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Grimes
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Annie Lennox
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Pete Townsend
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Phil Collins
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Alter Bridge
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Moby
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Will.I.Am
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Lulu
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The Foo Fighters
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Deadmau5
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Neil Young
OOH billboards would announce the line-up. Visuals would be the artists' most iconic albums fading to black as a subtle warning of the effects of hearing loss. The posters would also announce the dates which would coincide with Deaf Awareness Week 2027.
To accompany the OOH, the festival would send the artists re-HEAR-sal care packages. The packages would be designed to help the artists practice safely. They would include moulded earplugs, a clip-on decibel meter to regulate noise within the studio, rubber drumstick tip covers to soften the loudest instrument in the room, custom brass and woodwind mouthpieces to reduce damage caused by loud brass sections, and a guitar pedal that regulates decibels and automatically adjusts to a safe level.
Artists would be prompted to post about these kits on social media, further promoting the festival and also giving fans, who may also be musicians, a chance to purchace a care package for themselves.
As part of the festival, every stage would be laid out in such a way that the main standing area would be limited to 80-85 decibels. Between the stage and the main standing area would be a louder area, however, festival goers must show proper ear protection to access this area.
Dotted around the festival grounds would be earplug tents where festival goers can buy customised ear protection moulded to their ears for maximised protection.
