Matt Harvey's Portfolio

I'm Matt, I'm a freelance creative. I've worked at agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Poke, BMB, Anomaly, WCRS and Uncommon and Lucky Generals. Please contact me here or find me on LinkedIn. 

[matt-harvey]

This site is all a bit 2009...

Please find my new book here:

https://mattharveycreative.com

[matt-harvey]

Hello!

This is my portfolio. You can scroll down it to see my ideas in order of how much I like them. Alternatively, there are links down the side.

I’ll apologise in advance for the standard of my drawing. This is basically the kind of thing you're going to be getting:

 (That picture took me seven and a half hours) 

Hopefully it will be enough to get the idea across but please let me know if anything is unclear.

[matt-harvey]

EE Billboards

I worked on a brief at Saatchi & Saatchi writing posters to announce the arrival of 4G on EE. Here are some of my favourites:

[matt-harvey]

Alan Partridge App

As a little freelance thing on the side, I do some work for a friend who has an iOS development company - coming up with ideas for iPhone apps. We had the opportunity to pitch an idea for an Alan Partridge app to Baby Cow (Steve Coogan's production agency) and the BBC. 

My idea was called Radio Alan. It takes all the clips from the TV show where Alan is talking 'live' on his Mid Morning Matters radio show and plays the sound files interspersed with songs from your iTunes library.

This creates the effect that you're listening to an actual Alan Partridge radio show - with Alan's segues mixed with your music. It sounds a bit like this...

The really cool thing we've been able to do is match up specific sound files to songs. So, whenever Partridge mentions a specific song or artist

(e.g. "Time for a fat slice of Thin Lizzy...")

the app can detect if you have that artist in your iTunes library and will play one of their songs next if you do. Like this:

We released the app at the start of August to coincide with the new Alan Partridge movie. It went to #1 in the iTunes app store for over a week and got  loads of amazing coverage in The Guardian, Sunday Times, Heat Magazine and Huffington Post. And this is what Twitter reckoned:

Also it won a few awards including this Creative Circle Gold which I then manage to break while I was drunk at the ceremony!

[matt-harvey]

The Selfie Robot!

I spent a bit of time on freelance at Poke working on a campaign for EE’s sponsorship of the BAFTA awards.

The brief was to do something that gave all of EE’s customers (not just a couple of lucky competition winners or influencers) the opportunity to experience the glitz and glamour of the red carpet.

I had an idea for a selfie-taking robot that would pose for photos with Hollywood A-listers on the night of the BAFTAS. A screen where the robot’s face is shows photos of HUNDREDS of EE customers in rapid succession. The robot is holding a camera set to burst mode so it captures each individual picture. 

On the night of the BAFTAs, we managed to take thousands of selfies which were then tweeted back to their owners a few seconds later.

[matt-harvey]

Old Spice

I wrote some social content for the Old Spice UK Facebook page when I was at Leo Burnett. These are my favourite bits...

Valentines Day

'The Man Flu'

The Old Spice guy in Scotland 

The Old Spice guy in Wales

The Old Spice guy in Newcastle 

[matt-harvey]

Toyota Yaris Shout Out

I worked on a Social Media campaign for the Toyota Yaris. They has recently run a series of TV ads featuring an animated Hip Hop duo named Gadget and Slick. They would rap about how the plucky little Yaris can help you escape annoying situations that bigger cars can't.

To support this online, we encouraged people to message us on Facebook and Twitter describing the things that they find annoying. Gadget and Slick would then record a personal shout-out video where they defeat this annoyance...through the medium of rap!

For three days and nights a gaggle (is that the right collective noun?) of copywriters were locked in a tiny room with no natural light and made to write the lyrics for these songs. Occasionally they'd feed us pizza.

We managed about 150 films in all. Here are some of the ones I wrote...

[matt-harvey]

Usain Bolt vs You

I worked on a Visa brief at Saatchi's in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. They'd shot a TV ad with Usain Bolt and wanted ideas other for digital/experiential they could do with him.  

My idea was to offer ordinary people the chance to race Usain Bolt over 100m.

We would install a 100m long digital screen in (e.g.) Hyde Park. Alongside it is an Olympic quality running track. You can then run 100m alongside a virtual Usain Bolt.

Your times will be recorded in hundredths of seconds and displayed along with a photo finish on the screen. Microsoft Connect Cameras will capture your race and send you a video to post on your Facebook wall.

Visa Card holders would get priority booking to beat the queues.

Ways to make this idea even cooler

* Offer a £10m reward for anyone who can do the impossible and actually beat Bolt (a Sword in the Stone-esque challenge)

* Invite celebrities, the England Football team, or former sprinters like Linford Christie to try their luck.

* Invite local schools down to do their school sports day there.

* Get this guy to do it (he has the world record for the slowest ever marathon time - 26 days in a giant snail costume) creating the ultimate tortoise v hare contest.

[matt-harvey]

#OutTweet Bolt

Can you write a 140-character tweet faster than Usain Bolt can run 100m? Probably not. The World Touch Typing record is 212 words per minute (Barbara Blackburn in 2005) which is about 35 words in 10 seconds. Most people will probably manage about 10.

I had an idea for Visa to run a competition on Twitter to Out-Tweet Bolt.

Entrants log in to Visa’s website via a Twitter plugin. A video shows Bolt breaking the 100m World Record in 9.58s and you have exactly that time to type a tweet. Whatever you’ve written by the time Bolt crosses the finish line will be automatically posted from your account with an #outtweetBolt hashtag.

We can set parameters to stop people cheating – i.e. you won’t be able to just copy and paste text.

The person who can write the longest tweet (with no spelling mistakes) in 9.58 seconds, wins tickets to the Men’s Olympic 100m Final.

[matt-harvey]

B&Q Christmas Campaign

While on freelance at WCRS, me and my old partner Terry created the Christmas 2015 campaign for B&Q. They have the biggest range of christmas trees in the UK that are guaranteed to bring your Christmas to life. The campaign included OOH, press, digital display and social media. 

(NB our original campaign line was “Xmas to Life when they tree gets here” which was subsequently changed to “Find trees to adore in your B&Q Store”)

96 Sheet

 Digital Display

We also produced limited-edition Eye-Baubles that people could buy in B&Q to bring their own christmas tree to life which kicked off a mini social media craze where people shared their living Christmas trees on Instragram. 

[matt-harvey]

Anti-Smoking Social Campaign

Anti-smoking advertising always seems to be about showing people gross pictures of diseased lungs to guilt trip them into quitting. We wanted to try something more positive.  

When they’re about to give up, smokers make a big deal about their last cigarette; one last puff before quitting for good. Why not encourage people to do something more positive with it – something final and cathartic to kick-start the quitting process.

#MyLastCigarette is a social movement (re: The Ice Bucket Challenge) encouraging people to destroy their last fag in a fun, Instagrammable way.

Like this:

A #MyLastCigarette website would offer lots of inspiration on how to destroy your final cigarette - submerging it in custard, feeding it into an electric pencil sharpener etc - as well as showcasing all the best videos people have made themselves. Celebrities would come on board to retweet the best posts. 

The campaign can also go BIG... Groups of quitters could come together to organise mass  #MyLastCigarette events. We could get Lennox Lewis to punch fag packets into smithereens, Prince Harry to run them over with a steam roller, Peter Andre to obliterate them with a flamethrower…   

[matt-harvey]

Pottery!

So I’ve got myself into this slightly weird arrangement where I occasionally write short films about pottery for a man named Keith…

Keith Brymer Jones is a popular ceramic designer whose work is available in places like Habitat, Heals and Barneys NY. He’s also a judge on the BBC2 show The Great Pottery Throwdown where he’s become famous for regularly bursting into tears every time he sees some pottery he likes. He’s also really likes singing. 

With that in mind, I wrote this film for him featuring his celebrity mate Noel Fielding to promote Keith’s new glassware collection.

Previous to that, Keith decided he wanted to make his own version of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep music video… but with pottery! Excitingly, it’s had over 200,000 views on YouTube. Not bad going because, again, pottery… 

[matt-harvey]

Reprieve Charity Film

I made a video for the human rights charity Reprieve to raise awareness of the human rights abuses taking place in Egypt. The idea was to target western tourists visiting luxury Egyptian resorts.

To the exacting standards of a privileged western tourist, these luxury hotels don’t always come up to scratch and review sites like Trip Advisor are filled with posts whining on about the quality of food in the all-you-can-eat buffets or the temperature of the infinity swimming pool.

All the while, just outside their pleasantly-decorated walls, things are happening to the Egyptian people that are ACTUALLY worth complaining about. Like, you know, executions and torture and stuff…

[matt-harvey]

Cash Point Take Down

While I’m waiting for someone to give me a proper job, I’ve been working on a small side project to SINGLE-HANDEDLY BRING DOWN THE GLOBAL BANKING SYSTEM.

 I’m starting with these things:

Cash points that charge you to withdraw your own money are THE WORST. And, according to research, disproportionately affect poorer people.

So I’ve been going around sticking these on them..

Scan the QR code and it opens a Google Map with directions to the nearest free cash point.

Suck on that, THE MAN!

[matt-harvey]

Love Mugs

As a special Valentine's Day treat, the New Business team at Saatchi & Saatchi wanted to send a present to each of our clients letting them know how much we love them.

We also had a load of mugs we needed shot of...

I had the idea of sending each person a personalised mug with a description of just how they liked their tea or coffee written on the side.

We had quite a fun morning putting clandestine phone calls in to various wives, secretaries and butlers to ensure each recipient had a special Valentines surprise.