the work
20 Years of Building the Infrastructure Behind Extraordinary Films
Five case studies. One through-line: creating the systems that let remarkable creative work reach the audiences it deserves.
Five Films. One Community. 32 Million People.
LAIKA Social Strategy
2014 - 2019
LAIKA makes films by hand — twelve frames per second, four to six seconds of footage per week. The studio had extraordinary things to show. The challenge was learning the difference between what the studio found impressive and what an audience found meaningful. The shift was in asking a different question. Not "how do we explain this?" but "how do we let someone discover it?"
32.6M
People reached organically
152,968
Community members built
4.58%
Engagement rate vs
1–3% benchmark
£0
Paid media spend
Zero to £1M. Building LAIKA's Licensing Engine from Scratch.
Consumer Products
2017 - 2019
In 2017 LAIKA had zero consumer products revenue. By 2019 there was a full licensing engine, over 25 global partners, and 150+ products on the market. This is the story of using live events as a real-time R&D laboratory — from the Portland Art Museum to SDCC to Coraline orchestral concerts — and the non-negotiable commitment that made every product a genuine extension of the films.
£1M
DTC revenue built from zero
25+
Global licensees signed
150+
Products to market
3yrs
Zero to full programme
The Operational Architecture Behind Six Award Seasons.
Building Block System
2012 - 2019
Stop-motion produces four seconds of footage per week. The filmmakers are still on stage, frame by frame, while the awards machine is already running. The Building Block System — Distil. Plan. Construct. — was the answer. Pre-planned modular components built alongside production, not salvaged from it. The result was not just faster delivery. It was the ability to pursue the most effective ideas rather than the most achievable ones.
90%
Reduction in content turnaround
48→6h
Delivery cycle improvement
6
Consecutive Oscar-nominated productions
2
Distribution studio campaigns fed simultaneously