Episode 81 - Helen Rhodes

Behind The Billboard

Visuals: https://getbehindthebillboard.com/episode-81-helen-rhodes

Episode #81 features Helen Rhodes, ECD at BBH.

We’ve been asking Helen to come on the show for ages, so we’re super chuffed she came on, not just for the stories behind her incredible portfolio of work, but also because we devoured her gift of cinnamon buns which were sensational.

The campaign for Stranger Things was enough for a whole episode - how the project came to be, the craft that went into making the fake 80’s posters and the secret pop-up experiences. Listen out for our chat on the smell of the slime in an underground corridor and whether it was authentic enough. Not a conversation we ever thought we’d have!

Then there’s this year’s most talked about campaign, Burger King’s ‘Bundles of joy’. We discussed how the work came to be part of the ‘foodfillment’ platform and the furore it created online and in the national press. And how it’s true ;-)

Then there’s the iconic BBC work - setting billboards on fire for Perfect Planet, and eerie shadows for the award-winning monster Dracula.

To top it off, a few weeks ago the Tesco ‘Icons’ campaign was launched, which has just been voted Campaign’s OOH campaign of the year. And rightly so. It’s a belter.

We covered Helen’s formative years working with Matt Lever (episode #67) and their rise to fame which eventually took them to W+K in the States.

At end of the show we chatted about tips to make great work, which Helen dedicated to ex-Watford College tutor Tony Cullingham. Helen talked with incredible fondness for TC, about his time at the BARN in BBH (still going strong) and she offered up some pearls of wisdom Tony would give students as they went off out into the creative world.

Thanks Helen for the buns and the billboards and remembering Tony.