Hello This is a book about Holler. It’s a book about our history, our work, our people and our culture. Enjoy.
The Dog on Wheel’s humble abode. Shot from the Holler Film.
Holler Film For ourselves Take a journey through the studio In 2007 we rebranded. Our business had evolved over the years, from what was initially a very small creative studio to a respected and established (and still creative) digital agency that worked for big, sexy brands. As part of the rebrand we wanted to create a Holler film that showcased our work and expressed the personality of the company and of the people that make it all happen. The result was a magical flight through the Holler creative studio, with views of our most celebrated work displayed on different devices.
Panda antics in our Sydney studio.
Movie Rush for Film4.
Movie Rush Film4 Multiplatform movie snacks Channel 4 wanted to create a groundbreaking digital-only film programme to support their dedicated film channel, Film4, and their soon to launch Channel 4 online movie player. We created a short-form programme featuring a range of content punctuated by bold, branded, snappy typographic commentary. The text sits adjacent to the clips so you are not forced to read it nor does it replace film footage. We wanted to create a show which was perfectly fitting for how users consumed content at the time.
We believed that traditional production values and expensive presenters wouldn’t be right for conveying a show on a user’s mobile, for example. We wanted to tap into the way a modern user snacks on content by producing a show specifically for the small screen, aimed at a digital savvy and content hungry audience who want their content either at their desk or on the move. By creating it for the net, mobiles and ipods, the show would perfectly and seamlessly run between different mediums, reflecting precisely the sort of lifestyle choices the modern consumer now makes.
Holler ‘Sports’ Day.
Razorlight Olympics for Universal Music.
Year Dot Channel 4 Education Naked online for all to see Arguably one of our most ambitious projects ever undertaken, Year Dot followed the lives of 15 teenagers during what they hoped would be their life-changing year. Each was prepared to put their lives online, naked for all to see, with the aim of harnessing the power of social networks to find out how far they could use them to help achieve their goals. The teens were regularly filmed, recorded video diaries and posted blogs. Our online audience were able to follow their progress through these blogs and videos and then engaged with them directly, exactly as they would their own MySpace friends, to offer advice and support. A wonderfully transparent and uninhibited online experiment into social media.
Character development for the government.
Mind ‘n’ Seek Department of Health Invisible learning through gaming Despite the continually rising number of cases of mental illness in the UK, young people see discussion around the topic as taboo. The Department of Health wanted to start to combat this growing trend and so created the ‘Mind out for Mental Health’ initiative. They asked us to help drive awareness of the campaign online amongst the target audience. We set about creating a tool to engage and educate teenagers about mental health and unravel the unfounded stigmas attached to it. We created two websites so that we could measure how successful our engagement approach would be against the use of a traditional, HTML, text information site. Both sites held exactly the same information about mental health, the difference being the way it was delivered. The game site was a ten level exploratory game that asked users to answer questions on mental health to progress. Completion of levels was incentivised by free weekly music downloads and the game was supported by a local offline sticker campaign. The site achieved an average user time of 41 minutes as well as recognition in the House of Commons. Perhaps proof that ‘invisible learning’ as a concept can be hugely successful and that the presentation of traditionally ‘boring’ information can be innovative.
Monday is mural day at Holler.
Is it a new DFS advert? Nope, it’s SimonBjarte and Daniel at the Ministry of Sound shoot. Photography: Rettedal
MOS Downloads print campaign for Ministry of Sound.
Bring it On Channel 4 Swashbuckling viral game fun In the summer of 2005 Channel 4 pulled off a major coup by winning the rights to broadcast the Ashes Cricket tour from Sky. It was 20 years since England had won the Ashes on home soil. An exciting young England team was emerging and bets were being taken that they might oust the ageing Aussie competition.
We created a comedic online game that played on the ‘Pom vs Convict’ rivalry. England cricket legend WG Grace would ‘knock’ opponents back to Australia through a series of obstacles. After the second test England victory, the game would quickly become an essential pre-match ritual for all desk-bound fans that would ensure an on pitch victory! The game had over 3.5 million plays.
The Loose Cannons music video: ‘Out for the Night’ Holler puts Fader and Sauce through their paces during a fairly filthy video shoot.
Duck Tennis on Channel4.com. What could be more normal?
Oxford St. Window Display Selfridges & Co Fantastical window display Holler were approached by Selfridges to help drive awareness of their scheduled monthly in-store promotions through digital means, to an audience on the move. We proposed a compelling installation to engage passers by, encouraging them to go inside. We created a motion graphics piece, which described a fantastical journey through the store. The animated movie depicted scenes familiar to any audience whilst arranging them in a narrative that was exciting and contemporary. This ‘attractor movie’ was created with the sole intention of stopping people in their tracks and looking stunning when engaged. As well as just great looking content, we also split the movie into component parts meaning the client would be able to control everything from a simple back-end and decide how to deliver the content each month.
Sky Vegas Idents BSkyB Slick arse TV idents
Sky Vegas is an interactive entertainment channel from BSkyB that broadcasts gambling programming, allowing users to interact and play along at home. We were commissioned to create a series of channel
idents that would capture the spirit and glamour of Las Vegas. Referencing gambling imagery from the casino world, the idents set out to induce a feeling of excitement prior to beginning game-play.
Eurostar Ski Eurostar Snow-based desktop app The Eurostar Ski train service takes people to the heart of the French Alps. Our brief was to increase awareness and fill the trains for the winter season. We created a truly immersive experience for the Eurostar Ski brand. Using the tagline ‘Your skiing starts here’, the site used an exploratory environment to allow you to access the Alps from your PC through beautiful animated sequences. It stirred the snow in your soul and got you in the mood for skiing. We established a copywriting tone which gave users the true inside track; every recommendation had been carefully researched and each cunning resort-based tip was vetted by a group of selected ski industry insiders and enthusiasts. Our desktop application was designed to sit on your desktop and alert you when snow had fallen in your favoured resort. It even had a ten day live weather feed and allowed you to navigate your way across the Alps, spying on all the landmarks as though for real. Priceless.
Eurostar Ski ‘Resort Report’ desktop application.
E4 Death Wish digital campaign.
Opposite: Art created with our Canvas Facebook application.
Break the Drought RSVP Online dating, the green way In the summer of 2007, Australia’s largest dating site RSVP approached us to create a promotion that highlighted the country’s 12 year long drought. In an effort to get people to change their daily habits in order to preserve water supplies, we created an RSVP branded website that allowed users to create their own pledge raindrop. As well as educating on how to take water-saving measures, the site featured a live flickr feed as part of each personalised rain drop.
ABN AMRO Commodities website.
Stills from our ABN AMRO Ecomarkets film.
Tom & Ron For ourselves Long live vandalism We like to celebrate our talent. Animated short film ‘Tom & Ron’ showcases the awesome pairing of long standing Holler designers Tom Haswell and Ron Jonzo. This animated urban jungle romp demonstrates the wealth of talent in the Holler creative team, mixing Ron’s illustration skills with Tom’s animation techniques. Tom & Ron is part of a series of ongoing self-initiated projects that feature on the Holler website.
Virgin Shoot Off anyone? Shoot ‘em up for Virgin Holidays.
Opposite: Award winning games by Holler.
Art Rat. Urban art campaign for Samsung Mobile.
Dalston. Holler is born.
Opposite: The season of goodwill – Holler style.
Skins E4 Award smashing teen marketing Channel 4 approached Holler with the task of turning the launch of Skins into an entertainment event for an audience increasingly spending time away from the TV. Instead of trying to interrupt what our audience were interested in, we wanted to become what they were interested in. Our ambition was to blur the distinction between the show and how it was marketed. We approached everything as an opportunity to extend the show experience by investing in interesting ways for fans to meet and get to know the characters before a single episode had aired. We wanted to involve the audience, we invited their opinion and creativity and gave them the tools to spread their enthusiasm.
Traditionally, a TV show is advertised just two weeks before it’s broadcast. With Skins, we identified an opportunity to build a community of fans to help drive positive word of mouth around the show well before it launched. On the day of launch Skins received 1.6 million viewers making it the largest ever audience for an E4 drama. To put this into context, this is a larger audience than Lost or 24 received at launch. Our work on Skins was celebrated with numerous awards including three Gold IPAs.
Our sprawling MySpace design for Skins series 1.
Son Of Dork website for Universal Music.
Opposite: Our planning meetings are an unorthodox affair.
All my heroes are size zeros. Animated blog from The Insiders.
The Insiders Channel 4 Education Twisted cross-platform comedy Teenage careers advice has never been this funny. The Insiders lifted the lid on six real working lives in a transparent and hilarious warts and all comedy drama. With writer Roger Drew (The Mighty Boosh, Moving Wallpaper, 11 O’Clock Show) and in collaboration with Twenty Twenty Television, we set out to do something different with a familiar format. After casting six whistleblowers from different ends of the career spectrum (Actress, Musician, Policeman, Fashion Assistant, Doctor, Teacher) we took ten weeks worth of real blogs and wove them into a fictional comedy plot. The result appealed to teenagers who’re more used to playing Grand Theft Auto (jumping between 1000+ alternate plot lines) than following Hill Street Blues (two stories in two seasons).
We exploded the storyline into multiple parts, fragmenting content across the net and encouraged our audience to seek, find and follow. As part of our marketing, we negotiated placement with MySpace who housed much of the content in return for promotional space across their home page, video communities and comedy areas. We grew the community from a standing start and completed our offering with podcasts, workplace guides and all manner of inventive and involving partnerships. Truly cross platform.
‘What We Do’ film shoot.
The cast of our ‘What We Do’ film let loose in our London studio.
Lukasz builds his self portrait in code....naturally.
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