Nothing On? BBC THREE
The Brief: to create a clear, witty campaign which helped to manage BBC THREE viewers’ expectations about the level of broadcast output available on their mobile phones.
The Concept: a streaker in a bowling green, calmly taking his turn while surrounding bowlers play on unperturbed, in a literal demonstration of having nothing on. ‘Nothing On’, conveys its (scant) information simply, eye-catchingly and with its tongue firmly in its cheek.
The Copy:
Nothing on?
We can’t show all our programmes
Come back later for more coverage
Jazz Britannia, BBC FOUR
The Brief: To promote a season of programmes charting the vicissitudes of British Jazz.
The Concept: a nodding dog in the window of a record shop, nodding its head to the changeable beat and fortunes of British jazz history. The promo’s strapline, ‘the ups and downs of British Jazz’, is, of course, a nod to both the dog in the window (a classic British pug), and the nodding head of the stereotypical black polo neck wearing jazz aficionado.
The Copy:
British jazz used to be cool
Then one day, the beat changed
Jazz lost its way
And its audience
It took a while,
But cool has a way of reinventing itself
The ups and downs of British Jazz, a new series, Jazz Britannia, starts next Friday at 9, on BBC FOUR
MR James Ghost Stories, Drama on BBC FOUR
The Brief: To create a spookily atmospheric promo to accompany a season of films inspired by the Victorian maestro of ghost fiction, MR James.
The Concept: a film of an eerily empty house, inhabited by a cat that is and isn’t there, accompanied by a voiceover composed of extracts from MR James’ stories. We chose the Dennis Severs house in Spitalfields as our location, steeped as it is in history and atmosphere. As luck would have it, the owner had a cat. A black cat. It would play a starring role.
The Copy:
The house is too large for a lonely man,
I get an uncomfortable impression when going to my room that there is company of some kind,
But whenever I ceased writing to listen,
The stillness was absolutely unbroken.
A cat slipped between my feet.
There is no cat!
Spine tingling ghost stories from MR James this Christmas
Tomorrow at 10 on BBC FOUR
The Century That Made Us, BBC FOUR
The Brief: to promote a season of films about the eighteenth century, highlighting the modernity of the era and drawing links to the present day.
The Concept: I sourced three evocative eighteenth century quotes that summed up the spirit of the age and reflected back on the programmes being aired, and interspersed them with lines voiced to camera by the programmes’ main presenters.
The Copy:
They challenged the way we saw the world
“Be a philosopher, but amid all your philosophy,
Be still a man”
They broke with tradition and did things their way
“I have attempted a branch of cookery, which no one yet has thought worth their while to write upon”
They studied the universe in minute detail
And they cultivated the art of image
“Starch maketh the gentleman, etiquette the lady.”
18th century trailblazers, leading the way to the Modern Age
The Century That Made Us, a season of programmes, on BBC FOUR
Ariadne Birnberg 