TED'S FIRST ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

30 years in the making

Thirty years. No advertising. Then this. Contributing significantly to the concept and leading across production, I helped Ted Baker enter advertising for the first time — without making it feel like they had. A UK-wide campaign across OOH, print, digital and social, built around one clear idea: stay Ted,
stay strange, don't take it too seriously.

Key Objectives

Disrupt Advertising

Year

2018

Industry

Fashion

Touch Points

Concept & Execution

The Challenge

For 30 years, Ted Baker didn't advertise. Not once. The brand let the product, the personality and the stores do the talking and it worked. So when the decision was finally made to change that, the brief wasn't just about making an ad. It was about making an ad that didn't feel like one. The challenge: enter advertising for the first time without becoming an advertising brand. Stay Ted. Stay strange. Don't take it too seriously.

Our Approach

The creative idea had to carry everything that makes Ted Baker, Ted Baker. The wit, the warmth, the refusal to be ordinary. A first campaign that felt less like a debut and more like Ted had simply decided to show up somewhere new, on its own terms.

Campaign Concept & Creative Strategy
Significantly contributed to finding the central idea. One that could introduce Ted Baker to advertising without making it feel like Ted Baker had joined advertising. The answer was in the tension: high-end fashion photography undermined by hand-drawn doodles. Considered, expensive, beautifully lit. Then scribbled on. Irreverent where others are earnest. A concept that took the brief seriously without ever taking itself seriously, and one that gave the campaign an instantly recognisable visual signature that was unmistakably, unapologetically Ted.

Shoot Direction
Supported the creative direction on shoot. Overseeing composition, tone and styling to ensure every frame had the premium editorial quality the doodle idea needed to land. A deliberate decision to pull back the saturation, letting the photography feel cold, considered and high-fashion. The kind of imagery you'd find in a glossy double page spread. The juxtaposition was the whole point: the more restrained and elevated the photography, the funnier and more subversive the doodles on top of it felt. Not a fashion shoot that happened to be an ad. An ad that happened to feel like Ted Baker had always made them.

OOH & Print
Taxi wraps, press, out-of-home. Each execution built around the same quiet confidence. Wit over volume. Craft over noise. The kind of work that makes you look twice not because it's shouting, but because it isn't. Doodles trialled and crafted throughout the business for a full range of personality.

Digital & Social
The same irreverence, the same craft. Adapted for the channel, never diluted by it.

Outcome

Ted Baker's first ever advertising campaign. And it didn't look like one. Delivered across OOH, print, digital and social in the UK, the work stayed true to everything that makes the brand extraordinary. Proof that you can step into advertising for the first time and make it feel like you've been doing it your whole life. Just quietly, in the corner, with better taste than everyone else.