Creative Corner: AMV BBDO's uncomfortable but necessary live tracker, AI confidence sessions, and lozenges for the England team

Some of the best work this week really understood exactly who it was talking to.

England's World Cup run keeps giving marketers a reason to move fast (although given the semi-final result, it’s dwindling fast), but this week's standouts prove that speed isn't the only currency worth having. Empathy, timing and a genuine understanding of your audience matter just as much.

This week we look at a genuinely uncomfortable piece of data-led creative from AMV BBDO and Good Eggs, Currys and Dame Prue Leith teaming up to make older generations feel less afraid of AI, and Jakemans proving that sometimes the best reactive PR is also the simplest.

Here's what caught my eye this week.

AMV BBDO and Good Eggs turn football's biggest blind spot into a stat you can't ignore

Football throws up so very many numbers each week: expected goals, possession stats, distance covered. AMV BBDO and creative collective Good Eggs have added one nobody wants to see rise: xV, or “Expected Violence”.

Working with domestic abuse charities I Choose Freedom and Leeds Women's Aid, the pair have built a live tracker that models how the likelihood of domestic abuse shifts throughout an England match, drawing on betting odds, social sentiment and academic research into the link between major tournaments and rises in abuse at home. 

Win or lose, the number moves; it's a deeply uncomfortable creation, and that's precisely the point.

Rather than simply presenting the number and moving on, the platform gives anyone watching four concrete things they can actually do: check in on someone they're worried about, find support for themselves, spread awareness, or donate. It turns a passive, grim statistic into an active prompt, sitting right where fans' attention already is: alongside the live match feed.

Following a strong trial run during England's quarter-final, the tracker was also live for the semi-final. It's a clever creative that borrows the language of one obsession - football stats - to force a conversation about something far more sobering.

Currys and Dame Prue Leith serve up AI with a side of reassurance in 'OAIP Generation'

Not every important campaign needs to be a spectacle, and this is a good example of why. Currys has partnered with Dame Prue Leith to launch free AI Confidence Sessions, aimed squarely at over-65s who are curious about AI but frightened of being scammed by it. Given what I have seen in the comments on Tiktok and Instagram videos, AI literacy and AI competence is incredibly important and it’s only going to be more difficult to be vigilant in or around it.

The insight is a strong: research commissioned for the campaign found the vast majority of older Brits are worried about AI-enabled scams, with real financial losses to back up that fear. Leith, who's admitted to avoiding AI herself until recently, is a smart choice of face. She's not a tech influencer performing enthusiasm, she's a familiar, trusted figure admitting she was nervous too, which makes the message land as reassurance.

The sessions themselves, running in stores and through charity partner Independent Age, are unglamorous by design: practical, in-person, jargon-free help for people who don't want to feel patronised. It won't win many awards for originality of idea, but it solves a genuine problem for a genuinely underserved audience, and that counts for a lot.

Jakemans has the remedy for England's croakiest captain

Lastly, a quick and dirty example of reactive PR by Speed Communications.

After England's captain gave a distinctly hoarse post-match interview this week, Lincolnshire lozenge brand Jakemans spotted its moment and didn't waste it. And anecdotally, this was something which really did (kind of) speak to me, having lost my voice over the weekend.

The brand whipped up a one-off "ROAR RELIEF" pack, a bespoke cherry-flavoured edition designed to endure 90 minutes of shouting, roaring and screeching on the pitch and dispatched it straight to the England camp, with a fresh stash of lozenges for the rest of the squad to see them through the celebrations still to come. It was supplemented with a few punchy stats about how the nation’s voices are impacted from singing and celebrating.

There's no elaborate production, just a brand with an obvious product fit, spotting a genuinely funny cultural moment and turning it around in days. Just someone at Jakemans watching the interview and thinking, "he needs a Jakemans." Job done by lunchtime, probably.

That's it for this week's Creative Corner! Back in a couple of weeks after a little summer break...

If you've spotted something brilliant, or you've been working on a campaign you're proud of, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line at emily.barnes@fanclubpr.com