Making the V&A’s Ludicrously Niche, Ludicrously Broad Campaign

‘If you’re into it, it’s in the V&A.’ The claim of adam&eveDDB’s new campaign for the UK family of museums is easy to understand. It’s about breadth and variety. But the campaign, which spans dynamic OOH, DCO digital display, press and social media (as well as much less conventional media channels – more on that later) soon convinces you of that breadth. 

From bookbinding to pottery, knitting to punk, gaming, history, silverware, football, model making, cycling, AI, Bollywood, golf, animal drawings, calligraphy, cinema, GIFs, glassware, tech, philately, the 1940s, 3D printing, streetwear, tattooing, denim, reggae,  puzzles, horology, hydrangeaceae, sneakers, piano, british tailoring, theatre, acid house to rock and roll, it’s in this campaign. And it’s in the V&A. 

Starting with the data, as ad agencies are wont to do these days, it was clear that people in Britain know the V&A. “But despite that awareness, there is pretty little familiarity,” says planning director Stuart Williams. “So people have heard of it, but they don't really know what the V&A stands for.” That problem was especially pronounced among younger audiences.

That gave Stuart’s team a clear focus for their brief – building familiarity with a younger audience. After research, focus groups and interviews, talking to that audience, adam&eveDDB learned that the key barrier was the perception that museums don't have anything of relevance to them. “They're seen as dusty, fusty institutions that don't have relevance to their everyday life,” says Stuart. “We realised that we could counter that barrier very credibly as the V&A because of the amazing breadth of our collection. So with 2.8 million objects across the V&A, there's going to be something that's relevant for you.” 

Pretty quickly, that got the creatives to that line:  'If you're into it, it's in the V&A.'

Unlike the 'Creativity Unbound' positioning campaign that came out in 2022, which serves as a love letter to the V&A. This new campaign needed to cast its net wide, connecting with all different kinds of people in more of a dialogue. As Stuart puts it, “a much more interactive, discursive campaign.”

The out-of-home part of the campaign alone took the form of 73 executions to prove the diversity of what the V&A offers. “No matter what you're into, there literally is something representing that interest in there for you,” says creative director Mark Shanley. But they weren't just put out anywhere. Each was contextually placed. 

The one about a punk and Dr. Martens was in Camden, the one about Shakespeare was by the National Theatre. The one with the costume from ‘Wicked’ was near where that show was on. “You're going to ‘Wicked’, you're into musical theatre, you don't think that the V&A is a place that has things you like - and then you see an example of it right there in front of you. Actually, yes, it does,” says Mark.

Each execution was based on discussions with curators at the museum about what would best represent each interest at the museum. For Jaki Jo Hannan, head of print production and experiential, who worked as the integrated producer on the campaign, this meant keeping track of the ins and outs of each of these workstreams. She’s the right person for the job though. “This is the kind of perfect brief for me to work on. I'm a neurodiverse person, so actually having hundreds of workstreams all at the same time makes me feel relaxed,” she says. “Other people might not be the perfect match but for my brain, this is really exciting and I have felt very driven and passionate, almost intoxicated, by the whole thing.”

The variety of the work and the collaboration with people who are deeply into their subject areas has been key for Jaki Jo. Not just on the V&A’s side, but with many others. Approvals sprawled all over the place. Every item posed a different challenge, provoking conversations with toy companies, musicians, celebrities. “We've had the opportunity to connect with so many different people through this project and it's been incredibly exciting. Not many brands would allow so much opportunity.”

One of the 73 – the picture of a Millennium Falcon built from Lego – is a good example. What might have felt like a cool idea creatively needed sign off from not only Disney but also Hasbro and Lego.

Then there was the challenge of tailoring each execution to a different audience while maintaining a coherent look for the campaign. And only using existing photographs of objects from the V&A’s archive, which then needed heavy retouching. “It was really important to give them a consistent look and feel and make sure that every single one felt designed for those niche people. So we granularly kerned and moved things by a millimetre and chose a colour to represent each one of those niche people. So then their poster was special for them,” says Jaki Jo. 

That’s a lot. “If this was all we did, we'd be delighted with it,” says Mark. But there was much, much more.

Long copy press ads are a sure-fire way to win the hearts of ad industry wordsmiths like the LBB team, so we’re in love with the print component of the campaign, just as the creative team of Edward Usher and Xander Hart are. “It was a real privilege and a highlight of our career to work on those,” says Xander.

“The V&A has a history of making wonderful press ads. And that was not a thing we took lightly,” says Edward. “So we poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into these.” 

Placed in a fishing, music, tech and football magazine, each of the four executions tells the story of a specific person who's interested in the specific subject that relates to an object in the V&A. “Perhaps the reader of this magazine will recognise something of themselves in it, perhaps they'll just appreciate the nice story but each one sort of posits a character who has fallen in love with that interest group at some point in the past,” says Edward. “They're written in this interesting second-person stream of consciousness language designed to evoke that rush of recollection, of emotion that you get when you see something that really speaks to you in a museum. Amongst the other eclectic things, you might spot the thing that is all about what you're into, and that might give you these recollections.” 

There’s a fundamental humanity to these stories, so it’s no surprise that they are rooted in first-hand experience. One is based on Edward and his sister, and another is based on a friend of his who’s just become a father, “I'm sort of imagining him in five years’ time taking his kid there,” he says.

Again, these are targeted at niche audiences. “It's fine if most people don't get them because the people they're for love them,” says Mark.

“The V&A is such a great client because they trusted us when we said these will appeal to the people they're supposed to appeal to,” adds Edward. “The V&A clients might not be gamers who were born in '89. But they believed and trusted that the gamers born in '89 will feel that.”

The social campaign took a similarly niche approach. “This is where we go down the rabbit hole of niche executions appearing in more and more places that are appealing to people who are into those things,” says Xander. Together with the V&A, adam&eveDDB started to create bespoke objects that they’re calling “ludicrously targeted”. The making-of process is also filmed and then pushed out on the V&A Instagram channel.

So far they’ve put out one about bookmaking, which has been a huge success, drawing 2.9 million viewers. One is about pottery and another is about knitting. 

But the team at adam&eveDDB have also been doing even more “ludicrously niche” advertising, making objects that are only meant to be found, seen or experienced in a specific place, or even by one specific person. “These are out in the world for people to find,” says Xander, describing a punk’s jacket with the slogan on it that they put on a local punk to wear around Camden Market. The book mentioned before has been left on the shelves of a vintage book shop. Golf balls with the campaign line on have been hit into circulation to be picked up by golfers. A Twitch streamer wore a jacket with the line on it that was coded into ‘Grand Theft Auto Online’. The London Embroidery Studio, who made the banners for Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’ and are working with him again for the new ‘Gladiator’ film, made a banner for the V&A to be used in a battle reenactment. They engraved a 100-year-old silver tankard, found a field that metal detectorists were going to be detecting and buried it there. And someone dug it up and has posted it on metal detecting forums. They had custom football shirts made and people wore them to Premier League games, because the V&A's got some great pieces on football. They even made what Xander guesses may be the smallest ad that's ever been made, measuring at maybe about an inch high, and snuck it into a Warhammer 40,000 battle at a game cafe in South London. They partnered with the cycle shop Rapha and distributed stickers with purchases there. And that’s not even an exhaustive list.

“Everything we're creating is crafted to within an inch of his life,” says Xander. “We've worked with authentic creators all the way through, finding the expert in that field and going to them. Because talking to people about their passions, you don't want to get it wrong.” 

All of those hyper targeted ads contain a call to action, too. Somewhere on each object is a QR code that takes you directly to the V&A collection page with a tailored offering of everything in that category that you're into. 

“The idea is loved by the V&A, and they've taken it through all the levels within the museum,” says Xander. “The staff absolutely love this idea and want to tell the clients 'I'm into this. I love that you've done that' and 'You should do something about this thing’.”

For Mark, as CD, that proves the power of the platform. “Normally we make the advertising and it's out there in the world. But this is completely through the building of this well established institution that we're lucky to get to work with. The line is all through the building.” The staff are even split into Team Cabbage and Team Dog, depending on which badge they make. 

That’s a lot. “You could make 2.8 million executions. We could happily do that for the rest of our careers,” jokes Mark. 

“It feels like we are, sometimes,” says Xander. And there is still much more to come. “We're doing a tattoo one, we're doing a streetwear one, we're doing a puzzle one, a piano one, a rock ‘n’ roll one, an acid house one…” 

The list really goes on and on and on. As it seems this campaign will. “It’s endless and it's incredibly exciting,” says Xander. “It's probably really labour intensive for the amount of people we're going to reach. I'm sure there are other ways to reach mass people. But it's not about reach, it's about impact. It's about targeting people and talking to them one to one. Some of these ads are literally for one person. Which is why we love it.”

The campaign is even helping to build the V&A’s future collection. Partnering with Hope&Glory PR, the V&A has announced the launch of nine new official positions aimed at recruiting niche collectors and enthusiasts to offer their expertise and consultancy to the museum’s team of curators, leading with the creation of a role for one UK Swiftie to bag a position as V&A Taylor Swift superfan advisor. Other roles range from Toby jugs to Crocs, Pokémon cards, Lego, emojis, tufting, gorpcore clothing and drag.

“There are other components of the campaign that are blowing up and being super mainstream,” says Mark. And I think that's what's so exciting about it. There's bits of it that are on the cover of all the papers and on the news, and then there's bits of it that are just for one person who collects watches or is into metal detecting or is rummaging in a charity shop for old books.”