01
TURN REJECTION INTO ATTITUDE
Instead of pretending the audience liked advertising, the campaign agreed with them and used that tension as the creative engine.
CASE STUDY – SLAYER ENERGY
HOW DO YOU
ADVERTISE TO PEOPLE
WHO HATE ADS?
Slayer Energy is a South African challenger brand with an audience that rejects conventional advertising.
I developed a speculative campaign around that contradiction – turning the audience’s anti-advertising attitude into the idea itself. The client loved the work, and the response from everyone who saw it was overwhelmingly positive.
SPEC PROJECT
Created as speculative work
CLIENT LOVED IT
Strong reaction from the Slayer team
HYPE-FREE HIT
One BIG IDEA across every execution
THE CHALLENGE
SELL THE DRINK.
WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE AN AD.
Slayer Energy’s audience is independent, community-led and deeply sceptical of hype. They are into gaming, music, extreme sports and street culture, and they can spot conventional marketing a mile away.
That creates an interesting problem: how do you build a campaign for a brand whose audience actively dislikes being sold to?
The answer was not to disguise the advertising. It was to call advertising out with them.
The thing that looked like the problem became the idea. ->
THE BIG IDEA
SAY WHAT THE
AUDIENCE IS THINKING.
THE HYPE-FREE HIT.
I created and wrote “The Hype-Free Hit” as the central campaign line. The platform let Slayer reject the usual energy-drink hype while still selling the product. Anti-advertising headlines became the campaign’s voice, turning scepticism into attitude and attitude into memorability.
THE THINKING
DON’T FIGHT
THE AUDIENCE.
The work is built around the community’s worldview rather than asking them to accept a traditional brand voice.
02
SOUND LIKE THE COMMUNITY
The tone is direct, street-smart and irreverent, making the work feel closer to the culture around the brand than to a marketing department.
03
MAKE EVERY EXECUTION HIT
Bold colour, product-first layouts and punchy lines keep the idea unmistakable across billboards, posters and social.
THE WORK
ANTI-ADVERTISING.
VERY ADVERTISING.
The campaign uses the conventions of high-impact outdoor while verbally rejecting the category’s usual hype. That contradiction is the point.
THE RESPONSE
THE IDEA
LANDED.
01
The client loved the work
The speculative route was received extremely positively by the Slayer team.
02
Strong reaction from people who saw it
The campaign consistently generated enthusiastic feedback for its attitude, simplicity and fit with the brand.
03
A clear demonstration of the strategic idea
The work shows how an audience objection can become the organising principle of a distinctive campaign platform.
WHAT I DID
FROM CONTRADICTION
TO CAMPAIGN.
STRATEGY
Turned the audience’s rejection of advertising into the central creative opportunity.
BIG IDEA
Created “The Hype-Free Hit” as the campaign platform and central creative idea.
COPY
Wrote “The Hype-Free Hit” and developed the wider anti-advertising headline system around it.
ART DIRECTION
Created the bold outdoor visual system and product-led execution style.
Slayer Energy was a speculative creative project created by Mip Phillips. The work was shown to the client, who loved the route, and it also received a very strong reaction from people who saw it. The campaign is presented here as a demonstration of the strategic and creative thinking developed for the brand.
NEXT
GOT A BRAND
THAT NEEDS
AN ATTITUDE?
Bring me the audience tension, the brand problem or the brief nobody has cracked yet. I can turn it into a BIG IDEA and build the work around it.