Nigel Edginton-amor

I had nothing to do with this video whatsoever. But the song's been a big part of my life since its release in 1979. I can't tell you how many times the opening vocal's been sung to me: hilarious. It's water off a duck's back now. So feel free to join the party.

 Oh, and as well as the namecheck, there's a lyric that's proved prophetically accurate: "Nigel is happy in his work".

This is it: most of my favourite pieces of work over the last few years. I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights but tons of fun making it all.

The streaming TV from Sky. The biggest launch from Sky. The most monumental project I’ve ever worked on. From naming the product colours to writing TOV guidelines. From packaging to retail, help and set-up guides, staff training documents and more (way more), we either wrote or reviewed copy from every area of the Sky business. You’ll find 44 different RTBs (reasons to believe) on the website – all crafted to a strict maximum character count. And headlines from these appeared…everywhere. For the first few months, only two NDA’d writers were assigned to the project. I was one of them. Epic.

Ranger Raptor is the hardcore version of Ford’s best pick-up. Our task was to make some noise around Raptor’s arrival in Europe.

The creative idea: show Raptor intimidating a range of other vehicles into submission, beating them in the very terrain they’re supposedly designed for.

Probably the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever come up with. Well, the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever come up with that was bought by a brave, enthusiastic, and supportive client. And made by a brilliant let’s-make-it-happen, don’t-take-no-for-an-answer, get-shit-done production team. Big shout out to the genius director Loren Colson. Perhaps the one and only time I’ll get 15 caravans into a content film. The one and only time I’ll appear in a content film dressed as a granny too.

Moving into the world of insurance was a monumental diversification for Sky.

And working in tandem with talented copywriter Liam Donnelly, we created a unique tone of voice for this exciting new product. A language that played off Sky’s credentials as an entertainment brand and disrupted the normally boring world of insurance.

God knows how many touchpoints there were across the launch campaign. But this was more than a year’s worth of writing, including a 140-page set of brand guidelines. With Sky Protect swiftly gaining a massive market share, it proved time well spent.

17 May 2021 was a bit of a turning point. Hugs allowed. Responsibly, obviously. So at Sky Creative we made this to celebrate.

As part of our campaign to launch the film. Save the Cinema, we did this. A local press 'thank you' message to the people of the town where the film was shot. Some Welsh copy. A career first for me.

When video doorbell and home security company Ring put their prices up, a…gain, there was public uproar. And as angry customers fumed on X, we seized the opportunity to show the great value alternative: Sky Protect. Shout out to Art Director buddy Richard Benjamin.

How best to communicate the benefits and enjoyment of cruising with DFDS Seaways? Bring them to life via the medium of marine signalling flags, that’s how.

I’ve always loved to help Sky’s internal networks with promotional work for the various initiatives they run. Like Queer in the 80s. A flagship event for the LGTQ+ group.

Hosted by one of Sky’s A-list, gay presenters and featuring some stellar panel guests, this thought-provoking event deserved a poster and email campaign that would compel people to go in person or watch the Livestream.

Beautiful look and feel all down to designer Lucy Roddie.

Juxtaposition is a powerful way to communicate an idea. That’s why, for the Formula 1 start of season campaign, we concepted posters that contrasted the unrestrained speed of F1 cars with the frustrating restrictions faced by urban motorists.

First Great Western Railway blew a ton of money to rebrand themselves as GWR.

But their customers thought the cash should have been invested in more important things, like improving their service.

So when South West Trains wanted to announce a £50 million improvements programme, we had a good-natured dig at GWR, positioning SWT’s upgrades as money well spent – and as a response to customers’ needs. Hence the line: You told us what matters. We’re delivering.

Every poster focused on a single improvement. And every straight fact was given a twist by making a witty comparison with what the money might otherwise have been wasted on.

Ford GT is a beast. It's a 3.5L V6 supercar capable of hitting 347km/h (216mph).



And whilst every modern Ford is packed with technologies, the GT incorporates only those that matter; the ones that enhance the car’s eye-watering performance.



This film lists what GT hasn't got. But who cares about child locks or a heated steering wheel when you're in a car that goes like shit off a chrome shovel?

Mustang isn’t just a car, it’s an icon. So, the launch of any new model is a big deal.

With people avidly searching the internet for news about the car, we knew that online content films were the way forward. And rather than cram all the details about it into a single spot, we created four films, each focussing on specific technologies and capabilities.

Creativity killing phrases. We’ve all heard them. So we created this Little Book of Banned to list the worst offenders.

The aim: to get people nodding their heads in recognition, make a stand and help make them a thing of the past.

Word’s spreading because the book’s had over nine thousand views on Linked In.

Time to Talk day is a national event run by Mind. The aim is to get people talking more openly about mental health, particularly in the workplace. Sky hosted their own special event and I wrote the promotional posters. Big shout out to awesome designer and typographer Ruggero Gualdesi for the stunning art direction.

TV spots create buzz about the launch of a new car. But people want to know a lot more about it before they'll book a test drive, let alone buy one.

That's where product films come in. Published on YouTube and Ford web pages, they not only show sexy shots of the car, they highlight some of its key features too.

A series of cut-downs and 'How to...' videos showcase individual features and technologies, and show how to use them. That's a lot of films, which is why these are just a snapshot.

There are countless ways Ford technology can help people go further. The brief was to communicate these technologies and signal Ford’s confident new brand positioning with ads that were more conversational than ever before.

There's an easy way to protect pedestrians and cyclists in built-up areas: drive more slowly. That's the simple message road safety charity Brake wanted to communicate.

Hence the campaign ‘GO 20’ which ran during the UK's National Road Safety Week and supported the charity's PR and lobbying activity.

Texting whilst driving is a killer.

Determined to help do something about it, we came up with an idea and pitched it to road safety charity Brake. We then worked with award-winning photographer James Day and talked JCDecaux (Europe's largest out-of-home advertising company) into donating close to £10 million worth of advertising space: 20 key digital billboard sites across greater London.



The campaign drove a huge increase in numbers of press and public visitors to Brake's website, made several UK TV news reports and appeared prominently on global sites including Trend Hunter, Huffington Post and Yahoo.

Content Haus is a full-service production company that creates content films for Ford of Europe. Two of their cameramen had qualified as professional drone pilots. So the agency wanted to advertise this new aspect of their service to a handful of key clients.



Because the target audience was small, the budget was too. Still, necessity is the mother of invention.

FordPass is an app that makes owning a Ford easier than ever. It makes life simpler, too. This short promo shows how.

Combine the FordPass app with the FordPass Connect Modem and you’ve got a range of advanced (and useful) features. Bottom line, the tech helps you stay seamlessly connected.

VARTA is one of the world’s leading vehicle battery manufacturers and our brief was to confidently remind the world about it: 'world' being trade and retail buyers.



As the company makes batteries for everything from cars to motor homes, we wrote the line It all starts with VARTA and used it to theme an entire campaign.



By showing energy flowing through different vehicles we dramatized the power of VARTA batteries and created a striking visual that makes their technology (and brand) look premium, high-tech and, actually, quite sexy.

The Fiesta ST is a pocket rocket. This email was designed to bring the car's performance and key features to life by putting the reader in the driving seat. It climaxed with a call to action that proved a magnet to thousands of hot-hatch fans across Europe.

Let HSBC help you plan for the future. And when you retire, you’ll look back on all the other things you’re glad you did (like writing these ads).

The aim with this campaign was to make saving for retirement look smart. We also set out to create posters that would be a visual, written and strategic world away from the usual financial services ads.



I wrote ‘Are you contributing to the fund for your liberation?’ as a campaign line. And we brought that theme to life with a look and feel inspired by civil rights posters.

Live Cash and Right Track are HSBC ‘yoof’ accounts. To encourage these young customers to shift their accounts online, the bank offered a 10% discount on cool stuff from brands like Roxy, Vans, Oakley...



The ‘kids’ wouldn’t want anyone else to get their hands on these deals, particularly their parents. To help avoid that, the mailings were designed to be destructible: one was perforated for shredding, the other was edible.

A tactical poster designed to help flog barbecues over the summer.

The Kuga Titanium+ is Ford's top-of-the-range SUV. That's why the ads needed to be classy, sophisticated and upmarket, both in appearance and tone. 'Premium' was the word repeated most during the creative briefing.

The brief was to communicate the substance inherent in a Transit. From design and technology, to engineering and build quality, Ford puts more in. Which is why the customer gets more out. And this is the DM pack that supported the integrated campaign.


There were digital executions too.

The Ford Galaxy campaign theme was based around the line The Luxury of Space. The car itself has seven spacious seats. Hence dramatising the fact by creating a ticket pack for an imaginary theatre show: those seven tickets being (naturally) the best seats in the house.

Convincing Mazda MX-5 owners to switch from their beloved sports car to a new one is like trying to get a teenager out of bed on a school day.



So I took inspiration from motor racing where, as you improve your driving skills, you progress up through different series. 
This simple pack tells people their experience of driving an MX-5 qualified them to upgrade to the new one. And gave them the license to prove it.



This was the most successful pack Mazda UK had ever produced.

The aim of these packs was to drive traffic to MasterFit centres. There, ageing Vauxhall cars could receive all the care and attention they deserved, post warranties expiring.



As well as promoting the repairs service, we pointed out that booking a vehicle ‘health-check’ might well prevent things going wrong in future. Rattles are perhaps the most obvious and infuriating sign that something’s broken or failing on a car. That’s why the two packs included some loose components that ‘rattled’ to dramatise the point.

A Jaguar XJ is packed with technology and a DM campaign aimed to dramatise the significance and quality of every component (no matter how small).



This pack tells the ‘story’ of a simple microchip. And yes, the chip’s the real thing.

The brief: produce some collateral to advertise a car insurance prize draw at a motor-show. The solution: make A1 sized posters out of genuine car body steel plate, spray them professionally with genuine car paint and apply vinyl lettering for headlines and copy.



Then, to simulate the prang you'd be glad to have covered by free insurance, we dented each one with a 4lb club hammer.

Sky’s LGBT+ @ Network invited a panel of trans guests to be interviewed by a famous gay Sky presenter. The brief was to draw people to the event and encourage them to ask the guests anything. The idea was to myth bust. Hence the ridiculous headlines on our posters. On the day, the audience asked tons of questions. All more sensible than our own. Big thanks to the legend Richard Benjamin for the classy design/art direction.

Back in the day, The National Advertising Benevolent Society held an annual fundraising event, Battle of the Bands.

Agencies formed bands. They entered the competition and a ticket buying audience decided the winner on the night by clapping and cheering rather than booing.

We created the promotional posters.

And without any favouritism being shown in return, my band came second one year, then won it the next. Now that's rock and roll.

Two Weeks To Live is a Sky original comedy series starring Maisie Williams. I wrote tons of campaign lines before we settled on the one shown here (it’s a real challenge to communicate the essence of a show in just a few words). Brilliant art director/designer/photographer Graham Joy created the key art.

Mugs. Unlikely you’ll ever find them on a media plan. And, let’s be honest, they’re not quite up there with a 48-sheet, 6-sheet, or DPS in a broadsheet. But it’s still a space you can put an idea on. So when I heard we were getting some new agency crockery, I wrote some lines to print on them. It was a lot of fun. And people obviously liked the mugs because a lot went missing within days of them arriving. Stolen from Sky Creative? Yes.

This England is a six-part drama about Boris Johnson’s first turbulent months as Prime Minster. Not a comedy then. On the other hand, the launch presented an opportunity to create a promo that was a bit more light-hearted. Reason being, it was targeted at staff working across the Sky campus. Designed in the style of an official polling card, I took the type of copy you’d find on one and gave it a twist. Oh, and this was a proactive piece. Not a ‘real’ brief. Sometimes the best sort.

Ian Redpath and Jeremy Chopra are the two TfL Customer Service Assistants behind All on the Board. And these now famous guys write the inspiring, uplifting, thought provoking white board messages you see at Tube stations. Check ‘em out on Insta.

Sky’s wellbeing network invited the duo in to talk about their initiative. Their personal challenges with mental health too. So working with Lead Designer, Carlos Thunm, we created a poster and email to promote the event.

I knew Ian and Jeremy would see the work. So, no pressure.

A big sigh of relief when they enthusiastically approved of the copy.

This little video was shot as part of a series called Out of Office. The aim of the initiative was to show what people did outside work and share how those hobbies, interests or sports helped with their mental health. And practising karate certainly helps with mine. “Kiai!” (as we shout).

No, not a section of a show hosted by Alan Partridge. Or the name of an amateur dramatics group made up of people in their ‘autumn’ years. Or type of boiled sweets that taste remarkably like Werther’s Originals and are sold from a jar in a quaint little shop in Whitstable.

These are just some pieces of work I look back on with fondness and a certain degree of pride.

NIO Cocktails is a fast-growing, ready-to-sip premium cocktail brand. I joined a small but growing in-house agency on FTC to advise on brand tone of voice, as well as to write comms including advertising, social and a lot of emails like these.