Smirnoff

At the time I was appointed Executive Creative Director at J Walter Thompson the Smirnoff business was unsettled - Diageo were not happy with the agency’s work.

Before I even joined the agency I was reviewing ideas from countless creative teams.

My feeling was that the work the agency was producing was too ‘beer advertising’ and that Smirnoff had lost its unique mysterious tonality.

Together with my business and strategy partners Harry Macauslan, Ryan Lietaer, Giles Hedger and Alison Burns and our clients Andy Fennell and Philip Almond, I oversaw a 4-year campaign that rediscovered this Smirnoff tonality whilst telling the many stories of Smirnoff Vodka’s quality.

This work not only saved the Smirnoff business for JWT but also kicked off a very successful four-year campaign both for the brand and for the agency.

‘Matrioshka’

This was the first of the four big films I creative directed for Smirnoff.

A writer called Jason Berry had written a script about a Russian Doll and also a line ‘Not the Usual’.

I put them together and this was the work that saved the Smirnoff business for J Walter Thompson and kicked off a very successful campaign for the brand.

I told Jason he would always have a job as long as I was ECD of the agency.

‘Matrioshka’ was directed by Ivan Zacharias.

‘Diamond’

The second film in our campaign for Smirnoff.

The challenge was to dramatise the extraordinary filtration process that gives Smirnoff Vodka its purity.

Whenever Anita Davis and Jonathan Budds walked into the room with work I was always excited at what they might have.

They didn’t disappoint.

‘Did you know that there are young women walking around California wearing their dead sugar daddy husbands as earrings?’ they asked.

Traktor told the story brilliantly but we had real trouble landing the music.

Peter Raeburn had originally been unavailable to work on the project but, with time running out, I rang him personally and Pete agreed to work over the weekend.

‘A fifth of Beethoven’ literally transformed the film which continued the success of the campaign for the Smirnoff business and won a Silver Lion at Cannes.

‘Love Triple Distilled’

The third film in our campaign for Smirnoff.

Ian Gabaldoni and Richard Baynham had the idea to ‘triple-distil’ a story so that the story improved at each stage of distillation.

I loved the idea and I love the film.

Director Fredrik Bond, who had treated on the two previous Smirnoff films, nailed it.

‘Sea’

The fourth and final Smirnoff film that I creative directed at J Walter Thompson.

I gave the brief to the entire department and holed up one weekend to review over 80 scripts.

From the moment I read it I loved Adam Griffin’s and Rob Spicer’s idea that after centuries of abuse the oceans of the world rebel and disgorge themselves of all the junk that has been deposited in them over thousands of years.

Danny Kleinman expressed his interest in directing within 24 hours of us sending out the script.

I remember our first chat with Danny.

He said ‘this is a £20 million film and we’ve got to make it for £1 million'.

You can come on the shoot if you like but it’s going to be very dull. 

I’ll travel the world and shoot plate after plate of seas and then we’ll spend three months in post and create the whole thing in CGI.’

Thanks Danny!