Set up 2014 , Dice aims to be the “ticketing alternative” for live events, offering a more hassle-free way of nabbing tickets to gigs, comedy nights and concerts. To remind customers of what Dice can do, and to increase brand awareness, its campaign Weirdly Easy showcases how the platform is the smarter way to discover shows.

The campaign was created by Dice Creative Studio, a new in-house content creation unit. Under the direction of ECD Patrick Duffy, it consists of a series of social-first brand films that feature The Fan, a brand mascot that appears in Dice’s logo but this time takes the form of a furry blinking puppet.

The Fan is placed in relatable – though slightly weird – scenarios that emphasise the excitement of landing a ticket to an incredible show. The Fan and the additional felty puppets were created in collaboration with Scale Model Studios, a stop-motion animation studio that has worked with Hot Chip, Deliveroo, BBC and Capri Sun, among others.

“Our goal was to demonstrate that Dice is so easy to use, even a furry puppet can do it,” the brand says. Dice doubles down on this by creating a couple of equally bizarre how-to videos to accompany the puppet-based mayhem.

The films were directed by Hong Kong-based Luke Casey, who has worked with a range of fashion brands and music artists. Adopting a relatively lo-fi and unpolished approach, Dice wanted to separate itself from the corporate world of its competitors and remove the “expected polish of an agency’s output” to create something “a fan could have made”.

This echoes the sentiments expressed in its 2022 rebrand, which hoped to represent music fans and embraced a more DIY-aesthetic, again to offer something different. “We wanted to create a new identity that captured the pure and simple expression of fandom in a way that remains true to the energy and emotion of live events,” Duffy says of the rebrand.

Alongside the six films, the puppets were utilised in several social posts and memes that played into the humorous tone of the films. At the time of launch, a series of OOH ads shot by Elizabeth Renstrom featured The Fan in its bedroom and were displayed in popular gig locations including Camden, Peckham and Clapham. Additionally, illustrators Junwoo Park, Leomi Sadler and Mikey Poster created limited-edition merch that echoed the weird aesthetic.

Tamika Abaka-Wood, cultural anthropologist and a judge for the Annual Awards, explains why the project was picked as a winner:

Credits:
Category: In-house Campaigns
Brand: Dice
Executive Creative Director: Patrick Duffy
Creative Lead: Stewart Walker
Creative Producer: Sam Amponsah
Producer: Anna Butler
Senior Designer: Josh Geoghegan Deo
Midweight Designer: Sally Palmén
Director: Luke Casey
Production Company: Ground Work
Puppetry: Scale Model Studios
Art: Junwoo Park, Leomi Sadler, Mikey Poster
Photography: Elizabeth Renstrom