A Christmas decoration with a prosthetic leg to raise money for wounded veterans.
THE IDEA
BACKGROUND
Back in the heady days of 2016, we were looking to make a career move and had a few preliminary chats with a few different agencies, but Adam&Eve was the move we wanted most. We had a book crit with one of the Creative Directors and he told us that the agency wants to hire that team. A team that’s using creativity and initiative to do interesting things outside of their 9-5, that the industry is talking about.
So, we set ourselves a challenge to become that team in 10 days. We scurried away to the pub and after a pint or two of Stella, we had an idea. With Christmas soon approaching, we decided to put a twist on the humble nutcracker doll, to raise money for veterans who had lost limbs in conflict. Simple enough? No.
MAKING THE HEROES
We were soon faced with the enormity of the challenge. We had to create CAD designs, 3D print a model to create a mold, find a manufacturer who would cast them in metal, then we had to hand paint every single model – although we didn’t actually hand paint them all, we also found a man in Hatton Gardens to gold plate a bunch.
Alongside all that fiddly stuff, we had to build a brand, a website, find a charity, start the PR-ing, then the selling.
We hand painted one half, and 18K Gold plated the other half.
People seemed to love them...
It also got some nice publicity...
THE RESULT
By some Christmas miracle, we were ready to launch on the 9th day, and sold out on the 10th – raising a £2.5k for the charity. Which sounds low, but remember we did this all ourselves and had no agency funding or backing so shut up.
We got mentions in Campaign as well as some other industry rags. And our efforts didn’t go unnoticed and we managed to nab a meeting with Adam&Eve legend, Rick Brim – who loved the project, and even said it was his favourite thing he saw that year. The meeting went super well, with Rick saying he would speak to his financial director to iron out the details, but then we never heard back.
We did hear later down the line that their CDs were using us as an example to university students of how to get a job at Adam&Eve - which we guess is a win...right?