Guess who just turned 25? (Cue confetti cannon 🎉 )

We started life at the turn of the century in a small office at 15 Greek Street, and somehow – a few name tweaks, a bunch of edits, and a whole lot of coffee later – here we are: SALT.TV, a quarter-century deep into telling stories on screen.

To celebrate, we’re taking a stroll down memory lane. We’ve picked 25 of our favourite pieces of work and we’re sharing them in order from the grainy glory days to the 4K present.

Thanks for being part of the ride. Let’s hit play ➡️

P.S: to any lovely clients whose work didn’t make the cut – please know it’s nothing personal! We adore everything we’ve made (truly), but 25 is a tight list.

 

1. Channel 4 Cricket 1999

Back in 1999, an architect and a photographer came to us with an idea to pitch for Channel 4’s inaugural cricket titles. We were the wild card in the pitch, but the idea was strong, and Mark Sharman, then Head of Sport, saw a spark and took a risk. We were given Mambo No. 5 as the track before it was ever released — and boom, out of nowhere, we had our first significant piece of work to take to market. We’ve always seen this film as the birth of SALT, even though the name hadn’t been registered yet.

 

2. Channel 4’s Clitheroe 2004

In 2004. we received two letters in one day from the same department – one rejection, one commission. A reminder that persistence pays. And you might even recognise a few faces in the early stages of their career.

 

3. AudiClean 2005

Our first direct-to-client opportunity came with Audiclean. The budget was tiny, but we applied everything we’d learned from years of Procter & Gamble projects to make something fun, ridiculous, yet rooted in science. Fun fact: the actress, Alice, is Miranda Hart’s little sister.

 

4. Nokia Signs 2007

Once upon a time Havas’s marketing agency was Euro RSCG KLP, their energetic, entrepreneurial team gave us trust and freedom. With £50K to make three films, Carl Eatson’s idea for Signs stood out as something special — but the budget couldn’t stretch to its global ambition. Our answer was to rip up the rule book. Directing duo Rudolf and Ragnar set off across the UK, the States, and Switzerland in a hire car, a miniDV camera and a car rig and treated the whole thing like a shoe string documentary. Back home, our in-house 3D team added the finishing touches, giving the film a wonderfully authentic feel that got used around the world.

 

5. XBOX Rockband 2007

In 2007, Rockband launched on Xbox, the same year the first RED camera hit the market. We wanted to embrace the new tech and wrote a playful idea set in a Soho record store, where complete strangers jump in and play together. The budget was tight, so casting was mostly friends and family — with producer Tara Barton Campbell stepping in as our leading lady. A film made with typical SALT spirit.

 

6. LG Collection 2009

When stellar creative duo Christian Horsfall and Brian Murray came back to us after our Yahoo! film with a very cheeky idea for LG, we wanted to see how far we could push a £30K budget. Looking back, I’m not sure it would get signed off today — but the lead actor, the owner of our local Korean restaurant, was spotted in the ad by Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster and went on to land a part in one of his films.

 

7. BMW Efficient Dynamics 2012

In 2012, with the Olympics approaching, one of the agencies we worked with was pitching for BMW’s Olympic work. They had a tiny budget for a pitch film but a tonne of ambition. A good friend of SALT’s was an Olympic sprint coach, and we suggested a mini-doc around preparation. With almost no pre-production — and a BMW dropped off by the local dealer — we flew to Aberdeen the night before, shot a day-in-the-life story, and flew back the same evening. The resulting film won the pitch and built huge trust between us and the agency. A perfect example of our Creative Ally manifesto.

 

8. Samsung Scratch Test Drag Race 2012

In the wild-west days of “viral” video, everyone was chasing views. Creative maverick Drew Wolf came to us with £5K and the idea to hire a comedian who could ad-lib a madcap stunt to sell Samsung’s Gorilla Glass. It worked — the film hit 320,000 organic views in just two days. The only problem? Samsung and Apple were in the middle of a copyright battle, and the bigwigs in Korea pulled it from the internet.

 

9. Nick Saint EE 2013

We’d been making case study films for EE, and this one was for Nick Saint at Publicis. Over a pre-Christmas lunch we joked about EE providing a network for Santa. By that afternoon a script was written, and two weeks later we were filming. The film won an EVCOM Gold, was shortlisted at Cannes Lions, and hit 700,000 views in a week.

 

10. Yahoo Farm 2014

Yahoo! Farm was a glorious chance to flex on a brilliant idea. We were shown the script but told there was only budget for a B2B film. Our answer: we’ll make both on the same budget. The farmer we cast was a real farmer, and he became a fixture for the wider campaign, even turning up at trade shows. Looking back more than a decade later, the language and the thinking still feel ahead of their time.

 

11. Football Shirt Friday 2016

Charities often have the power to recruit top-tier talent, and our film for the Bobby Moore Fund’s Football Shirt Friday had it all — Hollywood names, footballing royalty, and even legendary Dragon Duncan Bannatyne. Shot over just two days, it was a continuity minefield, with stars only available in tight windows. Somehow it all came together, and the result was as full of energy as the line-up itself.

 

12. UBS Lewis Hamilton 2016

One of our favourite agencies, the purpose-driven shop Don’t Panic, was asked by Freud Communications to make a film for UBS with Lewis Hamilton. We had a 3 man crew and brought along a little girl we’d worked with before to Switzerland. She arrived on set brimming with confidence, disarming the global superstar like Emily Maitlis. It was one of those moments that transcends any planning.

 

13. Jobs CH 2017

Some projects come out of the blue. Our upstairs neighbours were working on a design brief that needed a film component, and we jumped in. We wrote and built the film as a steal-o-matic before ever setting foot in Switzerland, which meant when the job came through, we could move fast. The result was a whirlwind shoot across the cantons on a very tight schedule — proof that preparation pays off.

 

14. GoDaddy 2017

When Nick Collett won this GoDaddy spot for M&C Saatchi, we were told Freddie Flintoff would be flying down from Manchester by helicopter to star in it. A week before the shoot, the powers on high decided it would be cheaper to move production up to Leeds. Cue a mad dash north, where the art department miraculously turned a bare garage into Freddie’s man cave and Nick drew out a brilliant comic performance from a national treasure.

 

15. Co-op Grandad’s Engine 2017

Neame Ingram and Paul Westmoreland were a tour de force of a creative pairing, and we won more awards with them than any other team. Their madcap idea for Co-op Funeralcare involved sourcing an antique steamroller and tearing it up around Sandy, Beds. The film went on to win Gold for Financial Services at the DMAs — a win not just for creativity, but for effectiveness.

 

16. Tate 2018

When Tate Modern asked us to promote their Edward Burne-Jones exhibition, James Henry’s treatment stood out for its fresh interpretation. Exquisitely shot by Shaun Harley Lee, the film drew in a new audience of art lovers on social and opened plenty of doors for us in agency land for its mastery of craft.

 

17. Medicinema 2018

The Joint came to us with an atmospheric idea for MediCinema, the charity that provides cinemas in hospitals to give very sick children an escape. The challenge was how to balance whimsy with a hard-hitting punch at the end. Jonathan Harris cracked it with a brilliant use of programmatic lighting. Simon Pegg offered his voiceover services, but we asked if he’d appear on screen — and he generously said yes. The result was a campaign that ran for five years and won hearts and minds.

 

18. EVE Mattress

M&C Saatchi’s Accelerator were pitching a TVC to their client for the pre-Anthony Joshua fight media slot but the client just couldn’t invisage it. They came to us to ask us to make it at cost – we backed the idea, EVE loved it, it went to air, and we got paid our mark-up.

 

19. Gaviscon 2019

Hotshot creatives from Havas, Elliot White and Will Maxey, came to Nick Collett with an idea that was truly sector-defying — a surreal take on heartburn aimed at a much younger audience than the category had ever targeted. With its 80s aesthetic and offbeat comedy, the film stood apart and gave the brand a totally unique feel. We love it.

 

20. Asics 2019

When Edelman briefed us to create a rocking chair based on the sole of a new running shoe — with just three weeks to deliver in mid-August — it sounded like a tall order. We found a brilliant prop-making house and a genius location at Southbank University. Creatives Bjorn and Thiago were meticulously across every detail, and the film became part of a wider ASICS campaign that won Gold at Cannes in 2020. Bravo Team Edelman.

 

21. EDF Generation Electric 2019

Sustainability has always been at the heart of our production process, so it was a lovely brief from M&C Saatchi Accelerator to celebrate that with EDF. Made six years ago, the film reminds us there’s still a way to go — but it’s great to be on the journey. We even still use the electric scooter we bought for that shoot.

 

22. The Film That Never Aired 2019

Just before Covid, we landed our biggest ever budget. A leading consultancy asked us to create an ad about bringing people together in the workplace. Written and directed by Nono, it was a true team effort, and we poured everything into it. But as the finishing touches went on, the pandemic hit and the world was told to stay apart. The film never aired — yet it remains one of the pieces we are proudest of.

 

23. This is the Moment Korn Ferry 2021

In 2021, DE&I suddenly hit the radar of every corporate in the western hemisphere. At SALT, celebrating diversity isn’t just a campaign line, it’s how we live in our workplace. For Korn Ferry, we commissioned the brilliant poet Desree to capture that spirit in The Moment. We don’t believe this should just be a moment but a tipping point. Let’s not let politics get in the way of what is right and good. Stay Salty.

 

24. VR Made by Many Hands 2023

The Bicester Collection remains our longest-standing relationship. They’ve behaved like a start-up while reinventing the shopping experience worldwide, and their DNA runs through so much of what we do. When we were asked to write and produce this brand film, it tripped off the tongue. Made by Many Hands is more than a title — it’s something all our work should celebrate. AI may change how we do things, but at the heart of it all is the human experience.

 

25. TNT New Obsessions Await

TNT needed a production partner who could amp up the creative and deliver on a lean budget. We had just one week of pre-production to build a complex set fit for a Hollywood star. By jumping in early, we applied our smart production approach to work out how to make the biggest bang for their buck. The result speaks for itself.