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, Ted — 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. 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.
  
  

• OOH & Print
  Executions designed to sit in the real world without blending into it. Taxi wraps, press, out-of-home — each piece carrying the same quiet confidence. Wit over volume. Craft over noise. Trialling doodles throughout the business and narrowing them down to see what brings the most of Ted's quirkiness through.
  
  

• Digital & Social
  The campaign extended into digital and social without losing what made it work. Same irreverence, 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 a smirk on your face.

Project Highlights & Deliverables

• Significant contribution to campaign concept & creative strategy

• Shoot direction & creative oversight

• OOH & print — taxi wraps and press

• Digital & social campaign assets

• Ted Baker's first ever advertising campaign in 30 years

• UK-wide campaign rollout