July 31, 2025
There has been so much going on since our last update, which we'd like to share with you from insights, inspiring articles and what we’ve been up to.
🎉Pic & Mix Event
We're hosting an event!
🎥 Behind the Scenes
DC Norris
Curwen Print Study Centre
Summer is over
🎨 Featured Project
Dotmatics Summit 2025
✨ A Fresh Perspective in the Studio
Elena's Work Experience Journey
🎞️ A Cut Above the Rest
The British & Irish Lions Reveal - Howdens
🎙️Memory Lanes Podcast
Listings, Lessons and Leaps, Episode 10 with Elizabeth Hunt
🧠 An Interesting Read
Brands Need to Go Beyond Just Showing Up for Women
Join us for a relaxed event of chat, new connections, marketing talks and getting a fresh new headshot.
Pic & Mix is a laid-back event where you can meet like-minded folk, swap ideas or stories, hear from a marketing expert and walk away with a fresh new headshot while you're at it. Think more casual catch-up than a corporate network event with no pitches.
Get your ticket to Pic & Mix here
✨ Smiles in front and behind the scenes. The team at @dcn_ltd really nailed this shoot. 👏
A peek into behind the scenes, whilst capturing fascinating stories at the Curwen Print Study Centre.
It rained for nearly a week straight and Jazz was sad about it – summer is over.
At the Dotmatics Summit 2025, the goal was to capture the energy, insights, and connections that made the day special. From the big stage moments to smaller breakout sessions, speaker testimonials, and candid behind-the-scenes shots, everything was filmed and photographed to give Dotmatics a rich library of content to use across marketing, internal comms, and future events.
🌟 We had the pleasure of welcoming Elena to Define Creative for a work experience placement — and what a week it was!
On Day 1, Elena jumped straight into the world of video production with Jordan, getting a crash course in camera work, editing, shooting styles, and even getting the chance to fly a drone (with supervision, of course!).
Day 2 saw her team up with Matt to begin pre-production on her own behind-the-scenes video. She explored audience targeting, created a content outline, and even got hands-on with some motion graphics work.
Then came Shoot Day 🎬 — Elena joined us on set in London as we filmed two episodes of our Memory Lanes podcast in collaboration with The Oracle Group. She captured the full journey, from loading the van and travelling, to filming behind-the-scenes content on location.
Since Elena aspires to be an actress, we also got her in front of the camera to present the intro to her video — and she nailed it.It’s been a joy having Elena with us. Her energy, creativity, and curiosity were a perfect match for the team.
We’re excited to see where her journey takes her next — and we’ll be cheering her on all the way 🎭🎥✨
🏉 The @britishandirishlions line-up was announced through this fantastic mural in the centre of London. Shot for @howdeninsurance via the brilliant teams at @sassyplus_ and @msqpartners
We joined the Sassy+ team on set in the heart of East London as the squad line up was announced, and with each announcement, the players' names were masterfully painted onto the 44-foot, hand-painted mural.And right on cue, the sun shone through a gap in the buildings and illuminated this work of art… it’s like it was planned 🌇
"We're about to spill the wildest property stories you’ve never heard👀...Think keys through letterboxes and naked walkabouts!
Elizabeth Hunt has built her own sales and lettings agency from the ground up, and trust us, she’s seen everything.We get into what really goes on behind the scenes, why transparency matters, and how she’s learned (and unlearned) her way to the top."
Author Jazz Paramasivan
There’s no doubt you will have seen that the Lionnesses led England to victory for the second time in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025. With the final holding the record for the most watched TV moment this year1, it’s no wonder that brands have been flocking to get involved in the action. This has been a great opportunity for brands to get creative with showing their support through their marketing. But with an increasing popularity in Women’s Football, how have brands stayed relevant with current trends and managed not to fall behind?
Back in 2023, for the Women’s World Cup, French telco brand Orange went viral with over 15 million views on their campaign video that featured highlights from popular male football players such as Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann only for the video to reveal that they were actually female players from the French Women’s Team. The aim of the video was to challenge stereotypes of women’s football being “uninteresting” or at a “lower standard” to that of men’s - stereotypes that still remain prevalent to women’s football two years later and are likely to stick around for some time. “It sees Orange transform the perception that women’s football lacks skill and excitement into a compelling narrative that showcases the team’s excellence.“2 The campaign was the first of its kind and was applauded for breaking the mould to get people to question their own prejudgement around the sport.
Since then, more and more brands have joined in, as seen this Summer. White Stuff recently produced a beautiful campaign which was a call back to their Swiss heritage with the 1972 Women’s Football team wearing in their home stadium once again. Tesco used receipts to spell out supportive messages to the Lionnesses and used this in their OOH campaign. M&S used the England v Italy game as a chance to show how ‘hungry’ the Lionnesses were by showcasing their olives.
To read more about some of the most powerful ads this year around the Women’s Euros, click here.
While the answer is constantly changing, it looks like a huge mark of success for the brands that launched campaigns around the Women’s Euros was through the way they connected with their audience by using real stories from real people and by showing support to the team. While the term “storytelling” has been thrown around a lot these days when it comes to effective marketing, it goes beyond just showing up to cut through the noise - they need to really speak to their audiences through action. size? are a brilliant example of this who, since 2021, have sponsored Manchester based football team Newground United as well as the AF League.
TheMediaLeader wrote, “Their [female footballers’] stories resonate far beyond the field, striking a chord with audiences across all walks of life and offering brands unique opportunities to forge authentic, emotional connections. But, today, great storytelling alone isn’t enough — it must be delivered in the right moment, on the right screen, with the right creative.”
But as demonstrated by a plethora of brands this year, from Sure to Pepsi MAX, you don’t have to be a sports brand to get involved and be part of the conversation. It’s been a great opportunity for many production teams to harness the power of using more diversity in their ad campaigns, from championing grass root teams to using a more diverse cast such as women and girls from underrepresented backgrounds to inspire the next generation of female footballers.
&Humanity found that “Inclusive advertising leads to a 40% increase in consumer trust and a 25% lift in brand affinity” which we can really see through the campaigns that took place this Summer.
And it doesn’t stop there. For video production teams, this means listening to a wider range of ideas, from junior employees through to the top leaders. It also means having more underrepresented voices at the forefront of campaigns, meaning more diversity in higher roles such as Directors, Producers and Videographers. By utilising these voices in working alongside clients, brands will be able to see the impact this has on overall results, particularly in brand awareness and loyalty.
Take a closer look at Nike’s simple but effective Home Again campaign here.
Despite the massive increase in popularity in the last ten years, there is still a long way to go. Women’s football has faced decades of underfunding among other challenges due to factors such as stereotypes surrounding the sport, from not bringing in enough money to not being as “good” or “interesting” as men’s football, both of which stem as far back as the FA banning female football teams in 1921. The ban on the game was only lifted in 1969, so to see the Lionnesess become the first England team to win a major title on foreign soil? That’s pretty amazing! These have all played parts as to why the sport has been less “relevant” in the advertising and marketing world has only started to see the real power of being part of the action in recent years and I look forward to seeing this only increase in coming years.
1 https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/euro-2025-final-viewing-figures-bbc-itv-england-win-b2797732.html
2 https://www.contagious.com/news-and-views/campaign-of-the-week-orange-employs-digital-fakery-in-support-of-les-bleues
3 https://www.thedrum.com/news/2025/07/25/women-s-euro-2025-the-best-ads-the-tournament
4 https://blog.size.co.uk/2023/03/23/announcing-our-sponsorship-of-the-af-league/
5 https://andhumanity.co/insights/the-ad-industry-is-failing-women-20-statistics-that-highlight-the-truth/
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If you're looking to come along to Pic and Mix get your ticket to Pic & Mix here!
Take a look at a selection of projects we've been working on recently here at the De·fine Creative Studio.
Have a look at our case studies from this month.
Catch-up, coffee and a biscuit? Or five. 🍪 What's not to like!?
Fill out the form below, email us at info@define-creative.co.uk or call us on: 01223 903040
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