What We Did

118 118 has been part of the fabric of British life for more than a decade. We inherited the iconic running boys in 2012. People were getting a bit bored with the break bumpers for films on ITV.

We developed a campaign of brand new idents. Harnessing the medium we inserted the boys into a series of old films and they answered a whole load of phone calls in a helpful but ridiculous way. The complaints stopped, everyone loved the new idents and we topped them up with new ones every year since.

Then 118 118 needed a TV ad. They put it out to pitch. We don’t pitch but we did say, if they didn’t find what they needed they knew where we were. They came back to us and we made some suggestions, we developed a new strategy and we wrote and shot some commercials.

In fact they asked us to handle all their business from that point. The new campaign helped 118 118 buck the trend of falling directory enquiries, we used TV and bus-sides to push our message,- Why wait for the internet on your mobile? Call 118 118 instead. In 2014 we helped 118 118 launch a brand new product, 118 118 MONEY. A loan company that caters for all those people who need a few thousand for a couple of years. Reasonable rates (not ridiculous APRs like the pay-day loans) and they’ll lend money even if your credit rating is a bit shaky.

It’s a service that hundreds of thousands of people really need. We know that because hundreds of thousands of people applied.