Launched in 2017, VOXI is Vodafone’s attempt to appeal to the social media generation. The mobile network is targeted exclusively at the under-30s age group, and includes unlimited use of social apps – regardless of your data allowance – as part of its offering.

For its latest campaign, VOXI has commissioned illustrator and animator James Papper to direct a series of animated videos to be used across its social platforms.

Taking inspiration from the tagline ‘Endless social media without eating your data’, the videos add a humorous twist to the network’s social-focused offering through the medium of food.

As an under-30 himself, Papper started out by thinking about the kind of things he and friends would generally find funny and share with each other.

“There can be a difference in taste between someone that’s 29 years-old and someone that’s 18 years-old so that was something we had to bear in mind, however,” he says. “There were times when we’d make something, and we’d be sat around laughing, but we had to look at it from the perspective of someone ten years younger and figure out how we could broaden things a little.”

As well as directing the videos, Papper has also created the designs for three of them himself. These include one animated by Jac Clinch that sees a conveyer belt of social media app icons plated up like sushi, an emoji-covered pasta-making scene animated by Dane Winn, and amusing take on our addiction to ‘the scroll’, which has been animated by Campbell Hartley. A fourth video designed and animated by Julian Glander features battery farm eggs hatching various Snapchat and Twitter icons.

While it was important to reflect the visual language of social media, Papper was also conscious of avoiding the out-of-touch clichés often used by brands trying to tap into the millennial market.

“I think there are too many brands at the moment that are trying to lazily appropriate internet and meme culture,” he says. “Brands like these come off looking like that creepy 35-year-old that still lives in halls and parties with freshers. There’s no better way to turn young people away from your brand than by doing that.”

See more of Papper’s work here