Holiday Gifting Experience
Cogs & Marvel [in-house brand experience]
Role: Creative Director
Executive Creative Director: Jamie Shaw
Director of Photography: Tommy Fitzgerald
Aroma Designer: Mandy Aftel
Art Department: Clara Dudley
Graphic Designers: Jose Quintana, Clara Dudley & Rosie O’Connor
Starring: Cara Christie, David Goulding, Shane Jackson, Johannah McDonald.
Christmas is a challenging period at the best of times, for agencies more than most. How are we going to thank our clients for a year’s business? How do we keep ourselves top of mind for the year to come? How do we show prospective clients what we’re made of?
With the holiday season fast approaching, Cogs & Marvel wanted to impress. Working closely with the visionary Creative Director Jamie Shaw, we devised a multi-sensory unboxing experience that would leave a serious impression.
We enlisted the help of legendary perfumer Mandy Aftel, who has created bespoke personal fragrances for everyone from Madonna to Leonard Cohen. She developed three distinct edible fragrance inspired by the agency’s three homes: Dublin, London, and San Francisco.
We then called on the help of veteran mixologist Ian McCarthy to design three custom cocktails recipes that would further evoke the sense-memory of the places we call home. Working with Mandy’s custom fragrances in hand, we collaborated with Ian to design three flavour profiles to capture the essence of our landscapes; whiskey, brown bread and butter for Dublin; gin, bergamot and Earl Grey for London; and vodka and blood orange for the city by the Bay.
With our fragrances formulated and cocktail elixirs conceived, we set out to tell the sensory story of our landscapes. I worked with longtime collaborator Tommy Fitzgerald to plan a shoot that would take us from the mossy hedgerows of Wicklow’s Sally Gap, to the eucalyptus forests of San Francisco’s Presidio, trying to cinematically represent the olfactory in a way that would truly capture the imagination. Every detail of the piece was carefully considered, right down to clever ‘easter eggs’ seen on napkins, barmats, and matchbooks.
As a final touch, we created a box worthy of its content. Hand-drawn illustrations adorned each custom cocktail recipe, and a purpose-designed box came emblazoned with a QR code that would lead the end user to our video mood piece. Sealed in vintage brown paper and finished with a fragrant sprig of fir, we knew this would take our partners on an experiential journey from the very first touch.
When the holidays rolled around, we were able to gift our audience with something truly unique; they were invited to sit back with three custom cocktails, spritzed with three unique fragrances, and take in a lavishly-produced mood piece that spoke to the places we hold most dear. All that was left to do was raise a glass, and toast the year that lay ahead.
