May 2017 - March 2020

Campaign website www.caseforchange.com

Audience - Consumers (mainly Millennials) & Industry Influencers (CEO, Governments, Regulators)

Objective - Positively impact the perception of the mobile industry by showcasing the human impact mobile operator initiatives are having, through powerful storytelling.

Impact - 60 stories, 35 films, 34 countries, representing 38 operators, content reaching over 350 million people, with 42 million video views, coordinating over 200 people…starting with just an idea.

——————————

The power of mobile technology is changing our world for the better and transforming lives in so many different ways.

#CaseForChange is a campaign dedicated to telling these stories, inspired by the mobile industry's ambition to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The campaign promotes the direct, positive impact that mobile operators have on the lives of billions of people, framed in the name of the SDGs.

Through social media, this campaign empowers millennial consumers to support mobile operators in their ambition to accelerate and scale the impact connectivity is having on the SDGs.

This campaign is a great example of how the seed of an idea is brought to life and has resulted in being one of the most rewarding and successful projects of my career.

Climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced and the mobile industry has a big part to play in fighting this global crisis.

The mobile sector is taking collaborative action to be fully transparent about the industry’s own climate emissions and have developed an industry-wide climate action roadmap, to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement.

I had a great opportunity to bring this narrative to life through this Climate campaign creating bespoke content to highlight the commitment and efforts already being made.

The launch of this campaign was at UNGA in Sept 2019 and continued in MWC Los Angeles in Oct 2019.

The entire process of story-boarding, creating, filming, editing and post-production was so much fun to do.

Through paid and organic media on LinkedIn and Twitter, plus event activity, this campaign reached over 6 million senior executives at some of the biggest international organisations and governments in the world, with over 2 million content views.

See the whole campaign at www.gsma.com/climate

A suite of assets to drip feed through LinkedIn targeting key influencers (Directors and above, across 27 key markets at some of the world's largest organisations) to shift perception of the impact mobile is having.

Strategically curated assets to showcase how lives are being transformed by connectivity initiatives across the world impacting on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The assets are carefully worded and built using #CaseForChange footage and spread over 6 weeks were distributed using both organic and paid media to drive awareness, video views, clicks and engagements.

In total there were 30 assets created in 1:1 format all with footage re-purposed from the #CaseForChange campaign making these assets new and without the uses of stock footage.

Here are just a few of the assets created.

Feb 2016

Audience - B2B audiences, event attendees, social media followers and GSMA stakeholders

Objective - Disrupt the format of event seminars and present a technology in an engaging, inspirational way.

Impact - Described as "the best piece of marketing the GSMA has done to date" by the GSMA Chief Strategy Officer. Presented across multiple platforms, including live performances at Mobile World Congress.

—————————

Ever get to take your hobbies to work?

The goal was to create an engaging way to present a new technology to a business audience. Corporate videos and animations were swamping conferences, so we set about finding an alternative.

I love TED talks and spoken word poetry, so I looked at how we could merge the performance style with a business platform.

Having found the right talent in Marshall D Jones, we created a piece that explains the context, issues and solution, starting with the show's theme, "Mobile is everything", and ending with the new product: Mobile Connect.

Not only did we film this piece in LA for social and digital, we also staged a live performance at the opening of the seminar. It brought a real, tangible shift in the atmosphere of the room.

This campaign is definitely on my highlights list.

Feb 2018

Audience - Government ministers, C-level leaders from international institutions, event attendees, journalists and GSMA stakeholders

Objective - Immerse people with power and influence in the worlds they can change, and show them the impact connectivity is having in transforming the lives of millions globally.

Impact - A standout initiative at the GSMA, creating an innovative, high-impact experience through company-wide collaboration. Over 500 target attendees at Mobile World Congress, including leaders from the World Bank, United Nations Foundation, UNICEF and World Food Programme.

The experience was then translated into a virtual reality demonstration and showcased at regional events, including the United Nations General Assembly SDG Zone in New York.

—————————

When it comes to events and one-to-one engagement, marketers are continuously looking for the next best way to connect with people and get their key messages across. Presentations turned into demos, and over the last few years the rise of touchscreens and virtual reality (VR) headsets has enabled people to get closer to the action.

Having been to exhibitions across the world over the last few years, I'm still impressed by the level of innovation and use of technology to engage attendees. Huge ultra-high-definition screens, interactive spaces, dancing water features, compelling creative and 4D roller-coaster rides are giving people overwhelmingly impressive moments.

Over the last couple of years I have been working on projects involving VR headsets and 360 cameras. The technology and associated software are getting better with each iteration. The days of low-resolution, rough footage where you can see the stitches and need your imagination to fill in the gaps are behind us. The Samsung Gear 360 alone has made it possible for small filmmakers to capture live footage and put people into any environment. It still takes skill to hide the tripod and match up the seams, but that's more for the trained eye than Joe Public.

So you now have the ability to create great 360 content that you can put in a headset and have someone completely immersed in your videos and messages. Walking the halls of these events, I began to realise that lots of money was being spent on compelling content, but as the price of headsets came down they started popping up on every other stand. Which one do I stop and engage with? The next challenge for event marketers became clear: how do you get people inside your headset?

And what about those who won't put a headset on? Well, this was the challenge posed to me in the run-up to Mobile World Congress 2018. One part of the event is specifically targeted at government ministers, mobile industry executives, policymakers and many more VIPs. This group is not in the habit of putting on headsets. There are security risks, and the worry of losing face or being made to look foolish.

I reached out to some of my creative peers to find out how others were approaching this challenge, and was guided towards 360 immersive experiences. These are dome-like structures where large groups of people can be completely immersed in a journey. With 360 video you can transport people to parts of the world they have never been to, tell extremely powerful stories by placing them at the heart of the issue, and subtly command their attention for a short period of time. It's almost impossible to take your eyes off the screen, as you feel like you're in the space.

We built a team to focus on the creative story, the production and the logistics. We shaped the story we wanted to tell, briefed out the visuals, and filmed in remote parts of Pakistan and a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. We added voiceovers and graphics to the early drafts and created a journey that groups of people could experience together.

This last point is the difference. Putting someone in a headset gives them an individual experience; they witness it and don't really vocalise their feelings once it's done. When you take people through a shared experience together, they can connect and discuss the moments they captured and how it made them feel. Regardless of what is going on in the outside world, you all escape to another world together and witness something you weren't expecting. Making people who can drive change feel something, rather than just hear or see it, is a powerful marketing tool, and I hope to see more of it in the coming years.

March 2019

Audience - Social media followers, GSMA stakeholders, partner agencies, peers

Objective - To showcase how using secondary content from film productions, alongside the right music track can create a compelling story and inspire others to think bigger when planning their productions.

Impact - Showcased to the Extended Leadership Team, resulted in 3 story boarding workshops with peer programmes and strong social media reactions.

——————————

I love editing, and as part of the #CaseForChange campaign I found hours of incredible drone footage that hadn't been used.

I made this film with that footage and chose "Rise Up" as it's one of my all-time favourite songs. This edit shows how the right music, the right words and strong visuals together can add an extra dimension to a story and fill it with emotion.

Jan 2015

Audience - Global B2B audiences

Objective - Bring the potential of a new technology to life through a compelling brand identity.

Impact - Reached hundreds of target organisations through a multi-channel, offline and digital campaign utilising an emotive, striking and effective suite of brand images and videos.

——————————

I joined the Mobile Connect programme when all that existed was some technology and a logo. As with most products, the tech team had identified an authentication product and the sales team identified they could meet the demands of their customers. With that confidence we were tasked to evolve the brand and support a scale strategy.

The challenge was to connect a product, a piece of software to the human frustration of too many passwords and present a world where your phone is the portal to all your services, securely and efficiently.

Working with an expert brand agency, we created a brand image that incorporated a person interacting with their phone shielded by the icon of the brand. For the first year we utilised one hero image at events, within videos, across digital and social.

Based on the feedback and connection this image had, the way in which it stood out alongside other industry imagery, we were driven to create our own bespoke brand imagery and shoot a suite of images that could be used globally and in different formats from extremely large billboards to mobile.

By commissioning our own images we gained creative control, unrestricted, exclusive use, the ability to share distinctive images for promotion, and the flexibility to capture and develop motion assets to express the composition dynamically.

This project was also really fun - analysing the science behind why images connect, deconstructing those parts and re-constructing. We also shot in Barcelona at sun rise and sunset to capture the most natural light - waiting for the perfect 15 minutes in a day shone a light on the lengths one must go to get the perfect shot.

@RayRaySays started about 18 months ago when Rayan (my eldest son) and I were having short conversations which I captured on my phone. I shared it with our families and it brought them so much joy.

As films and editing are what I get paid to do I decided to mix my work and my passion and we started creating these little videos.

They were for us, for our family, to see him, to remember him, to have jokes (and frustrations) whilst filming and for me to watch him on my long commute to work whilst editing.

Over time they have become the centre of conversations everywhere we go and across the world as friends and family are getting BIG FEELS from our little RayRay. There is no plan or agenda and we'll do them as long as we have the time and he has the desire.

Here are just some of my favourites. The rest can be found on Instagram @RayRaySays

May 2016

Mobile Connect, a digital identity authentication solution scaled at an enormous pace and we were tasked at framing the opportunity of that scale for businesses.

Acting as a ‘door-opening’ technique for partnerships and implementation this video shows influential industry experts framing the importance and opportunity of having a community of over a billion users.

A multi-location shoot and edited in-house.