Behind the lens with ATTIK’s Simon Needham

As the co-founder of global creative agency ATTIK, and the creative director for ATTIK U.S., Simon Needham has already made an impressive impact on the marketing industry. ATTIK recently published NoiseFive, the latest of its self-guided, experimental, collectible design publications, and with each passing day, Simon continues to innovate alongside the world’s premier marketers — and the extremely talented artisans and craftspeople working with or within ATTIK on its latest campaigns. In 2002, ATTIK had already been around for 16 years, and was already very well known worldwide for its breakthrough, brand-focused graphic design work crossing all media platforms. That year, Simon and his colleagues landed the Scion account from Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) USA, and the resulting campaign continues to provide a great testament to innovation.

In the words of TMS USA’s President Jim Lentz, ATTIK is a leader in experimental platforms that define the creative world of our future, and ATTIK’s work for Scion, “breaks new ground in non-traditional thinking and urges us all to look at life differently.”

“Unlike most agencies,” said Shilo co-founder and creative director Jose Sebastian Gomez in a recent interview with Film and Video Magazine, “creative director Simon Needham of ATTIK takes a much more active role in conceptualizing the creative and the direction of the spot. Because of ATTIK’s level of involvement, we feel the final film benefits from all the love and turns out even better in the end.”

Simon has been very hands-on with every piece of creative content that ATTIK has created for Scion since 2002, and the brand’s “Fable of the Deviants,” “Declaration,” “xD Explosion” and “xB Splicer” cinema/broadcast ads are just some of the campaign spots where he either directed or co-directed alongside one of the global advertising industry’s most prestigious creative production companies. Worth noting, throughout this time, Simon and his ATTIK colleagues have also produced in-theater/broadcast campaigns, print ads, award-winning websites, banner campaigns, interactive billboards, guerilla marketing elements and non-traditional marketing stunts which have produced very successful results for a “Who’s Who” of high profile brands. For example, a 2008 assignment from Toyota Motor Sales USA for the Lexus IS F involved Simon directing a set of six :15 ads to cinematically showcase the vehicle’s most thrilling attributes by taking full advantage of the big-screen environments and movie theater surround-sound capabilities. According to results published in Brandweek in 2008, nearly 60% of those who saw the ads expressed interest in the new model.

As Simon Needham and ATTIK continue their artistic arc, breaking new ground in and beyond the automotive industry, the results are certain to be spectacular.