Fast and Fun — Showcasing Ultrafast Speeds
The client's brief was simple yet ambitious: how do we showcase our Ultrafast Broadband speeds using these globally recognized yellow characters? Under the Art Direction of James Fairburn and in collaboration with Copywriter Scott Vaux-Nobes, we realized early on that a graphical and literal approach was key. The concept was to blow the Minions away — taking inspiration from the hero TV commercial, we depicted the Minions being propelled by an invisible G-force, illustrating the power of Sky's Broadband speeds. This was visually represented through a vibrant aura featuring Sky's iconic rainbow colours.
Combining brand equity with playfulness
From a graphic design perspective, this project posed unique challenges. Given that the client's brand is already well-known to the British audience, these ads needed to be instantly recognizable. A key strategy was incorporating ample white space and maintaining a simple colour palette, focusing on the brand's hero colours. Collaborating with Illumination — the studio behind the Minions — was particularly rewarding as we worked together to capture the best poses of the characters, ensuring that our vision aligned with the campaign's creative direction.
The hero lockup served as a red thread across all touch-points. Utilizing Sky's brand toolkit, I developed graphical elements to communicate the idea of speed, crafting a unique typographic style that complemented Illumination's stunning renders of the Minions. The result was a series of simple yet striking OOH and digital executions.
Minion madness and innovative OOH advertising
As part of this campaign, we pushed the limits of out-of-home advertising by creating billboards that visually extended beyond their borders, integrating characters into adjacent brand ads. Notable examples included a playful hijack of a dummy Westfield fashion ad, where a Minion's dungarees humorously landed on a model's face, and another execution where the dungarees were depicted landing in a nearby bush outside the shopping centre.
Other special builds included the Clapham Colossus billboard and unique locations like the Two Towers in Canary Wharf.