Steven Northover

• Section One: Spec Advertisment Campaigns -
• Section Two: Works in Progress

Section One: Spec Advertisment Campaigns -

IKEA Insight: Homes aren’t pristine showrooms — they’re messy, lived-in, and constantly evolving. Idea: Contrast IKEA’s perfect showroom image with the reality of everyday life by unleashing chaos into a pristine space — only to reveal that this chaos is exactly what their furniture is built for. Why it works: By celebrating imperfection rather than idealising perfection, the campaign makes IKEA feel more human, relatable, and honest. A pristine showroom, silent, save the gentle ‘tick tock' of a row of clocks, analogue and digital all show the time as 09:59. The ticking slows, then stops, before clicking over to 10:00.Suddenly, the serenity is ‘broken'’ by a wave of unruly shoppers, who run through the furniture, over and under. Beds are jumped on, walls are written on, and food is cooked and burnt in the faux-kitchens.The camera zooms into the eye of one of the people, before zooming out again, the chaos is gone and instead, they're still looking at the kitchen top. Tagline: Glorious Chaos

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Type: Spec Campaign Insight: People don’t quit language learning because it’s hard — they stop because they feel guilty for falling out of routine. Idea: Turn that guilt into a darkly humorous narrative where Duo the Owl becomes an ever-present, slightly unsettling figure who follows you when you skip lessons. Why it works: It exaggerates a familiar feeling (guilt) into something memorable and funny, while reinforcing Duolingo’s core behaviour: short, daily lessons you shouldn’t ignore. He…follows you. Every day, at the same time, in the same place….you see him. On the phone, waiting for the bus - he's there. He needs you…yearns for you. And all you try to do is ignore him, hoping that he'll get the hint. You'll see him… later - probably never. Instead, he sends his friends, who tell you how sad he is, how not talking to him is making him worried…even angry. You don't want to make him angry… After all, it's just a fifteen-minute lesson in German…

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Brand: Spotify Type: Spec CampaignInsight: Music isn’t just listened to — it’s lived through memory Idea: “It’s not the music. It’s you.” Music is the link that connects you to your core - finding your new favourite song, musician, or remembering that band you've not listened to since you were a teenager, is the treasure that feeds you. It's also that one commute track you listen to on the way to work. The one that takes you back to that most perfect of evenings with your mates. That's what we've always been about: finding those moments, from standing in a field with 200,000 other people, down to the song you played when your first boyfriend broke up with you. Because it's not about the music. It's you.

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Section Two: Works in Progress

My main passion is creative writing: scripts, short stories, and novels. I'm a bog proponent of fiction being used as a mirrow to how society works. As such, the vast majority of creative work is based around identity, politics, and discovery. I'm very much a child of Star Trek, so there is often a sheen of Utopianism in what I write, but it is deliberately only on the surface level. I do beleieve, that on the long term things will get better, however humans will always remain the same, and my stories reflect that.

The Bunker (An idea from a friend of mine, it acts as a sort of counterweight to the BBC's Threads film from 1984. The premise being that, due to a cyber attack, a local government section believes a nuclear war is imminent, although the community 'above ground' carries on regarldess. It's an examination of the pointlessness of 'futire planning' of nuclear war, the toothless bureaucracy of local government, and the main characters need to do the 'right thing')