Creative Direction Across Five Regions
Brought consistency and regional nuance to a fast-moving, multi-market retainer.
2023-2026 | ROCK AGENCY | RETAINER
Swann Security sits across the security, surveillance and consumer electronics space. I owned all the creative output across five regions to support Rock Agency's digital marketing team.
Role
PAID ADS, CREATIVE DIRECTION, STRATEGY, BRANDING, UX/UI DESIGN
Challenge
Managing the differences of five regions: AU, US, EU, UK, CA. Messaging had to shift heavily by region. Aggressive in the US, relaxed in the EU, somewhere in the middle for AU. There was no budget for lifestyle shoots, and housing imagery rarely translated across markets.
The brand itself was inconsistent, having passed through many hands with no global guidelines, and some regions were underperforming.
Turnarounds were often tight, since sale products and discounts weren't confirmed until the last minute. The business also liked running two-week sale periods back to back, so ads barely cleared the learning stage before being switched off, limiting optimisation.
Approach
Given the volume and pace of the work, I templated as much as I reasonably could, which helped with both efficiency and consistency, while still building in A/B variations for regional testing.
Tone and messaging were localised for each region including language translation for EU markets, and smaller details like US vs AU/UK spelling. The overall look and feel stayed consistent, while what changed underneath varied: sometimes just copy, sometimes a lifestyle image, sometimes only a discount or camera model. Animated versions of the approved static assets became a regular part of testing too, and consistently performed well.
Process
Most campaigns started with two or three concepts presented to Swann's Head of Global Marketing, along with their AU and US teams. Generally at least one concept would build on proven success and one pushed further creatively.
On campaigns built around broader objectives rather than a straight sale, I had more creative freedom, and these often performed well enough to be extended past their original end date. Once a concept was chosen, I rolled it out into every required size, adjusting copy, camera or lifestyle imagery per region, then exported and organised everything for the digital marketing team. I also aligned assets with eDM and website strategy, offering guidance across both. Due to the fast moving nature of digital marketing, updates to the brand guidelines were built as we went allowing us to really test what did and didn't work across website, marketing and packaging.
Final Design
The project delivered a templated creative system spanning static, animated and video ad formats, rolled out across Meta and Google PMax in five regions, alongside bespoke product landing pages. A refreshed brand and a set of global guidelines kept future work consistent regardless of who was producing it.
Achievements
The brand work brought genuine consistency in tone, messaging and overall look across every region, a real shift after years of different hands shaping it without shared guidelines.
Objective-led campaigns that gave me more creative freedom often performed well enough to be extended past their original timeline.
Black Friday 2024 saw revenue grow 47% year on year, and 4.47M impressions across paid platforms. Purchases increase 52% year on year from us taking on Swann's digital marketing.
BF 2024 REVENUE YOY
PURCHASES YOY
