Spec Work

House on Fire (St. John Ambulance)

How do you get people to prepare for a fire that hasn’t happened yet? How many of us have ever bought a fire extinguisher? Modern homes and materials burn far faster than they used to, leaving you less time to get the fire under control before you lose what you can’t replace. A fire extinguisher can stop that from ever happening.

Additionally, we have The House on Fire Gallery, where we will display real-life items recovered from house fires. These items, also showcased in ads, tug on the emotional weight of fire risk: A baby monitor, a photo album, a pet bowl. We’d all prefer not to think of these things, but they are stark reminders that fears can become realities when we’re not prepared for the worst.

The best time to buy a fire extinguisher was yesterday. The second-best time is today.

Be prepared. Fire doesn’t wait.

Seeds of Greatness (Apple Growers of Ontario)

Insight: Apples are everywhere: they’re so familiar they’ve become almost invisible. For something that we treat as basic, apples seem to show up at the start of big ideas.

Idea: Reframe apples as a source of inspiration.

The campaign uses familiar cultural references—Newton, Steve Jobs, The Beatles—to remind people that apples have been involved in some of history’s biggest ideas.

Together, the work makes a humble, everyday fruit a little harder to ignore.

As an extension of the idea that apples have inspired some of history’s biggest thinkers, Thinking Trees brings the campaign into the real world. Simple seats are placed beneath trees in parks, campuses, trails, and sidewalks, each paired with a small plaque and a crate of Ontario apples. We remind people that apples inspired some of history’s biggest ideas, then offer a place to have one of their own.

Polaroid Has Seen It All

For decades, Polaroid has been woven into music, art, and culture—capturing the sixties, seventies, eighties, and everything in between. A picture may tell a thousand words, but the most interesting images are often the ones no one will ever see: the unrepeatable moments, the single exposures, the snapshots that exist only once.

This headline-driven concept imagines the kinds of scenes a Polaroid camera might have witnessed over its long lifetime. Moments lost to time, preserved only in memory—and in that one, irreplaceable photograph.

Polaroid represents nostalgia for moments we were never a part of, because Polaroid has seen it all.

Dullabies by ENDY

When do you actually think about getting a new mattress? When you can’t sleep. A quick web search gives you a million options—but none can deliver a mattress tonight. In the meantime, try Dullabies by Endy, designed to help you get some rest while you wait for your new Endy to arrive.