On a gloriously sunny April 9th, the sold-out Student Day 2025 at Leopardstown Racecourse saw thousands of students descend for a day of racing, music, and high-energy activations. Among the biggest draws of the day was the Domino’s Pizza stand, which remained packed from the first race to the final furlong.

The highlight of the day was a high-stakes promotion that kept the crowd’s ears glued to the speakers: whenever the iconic Domino’s yodel echoed over the racecourse PA system, it signaled a frenzy of free pizza giveaways. The activation perfectly captured the electric atmosphere of the event, ensuring that while not everyone backed a winner on the track, everyone had a chance to win at the Domino’s stand.

I designed the stand artwork for this project, creating a high-impact visual presence that stood out in the crowded festival environment.

For the 2022 Euros, Paddy Power offered fans without the tickets to the game the opportunity to watch tournament matches from their fantastic fanzones in London and Newcastle. The ambition for the brand was to become the most talked-about brand during the tournament, and we achieved this by hosting thousands of supporters in two amazing venues.

I was responsible for the initial business case for the events as well as the design of all branded assets across the sites including venue design, artwork, merchandise and social assets.

The fanzones were an overwhelming success resulting in sold out days throughout the tournament and thousands of happy customers. In terms of delivery, the fanzones generated more than 1,500 pieces of earned media coverage, hundreds of thousands of views of social media content and a 7% share of voice against all “official” Euros brands.

The fanzones resulted in a blueprint for future fan-attended events in racing, which Paddy Power has followed ever since.

Following the break to sport created by the Covid crisis, Paddy Power wanted to create the World’s first live sporting event, following the relaxation of social distancing.  

Featuring an epic cast of professional golfers (Tommy Fleetwood, Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley, Carly Booth and Andrew “Beef” Johnston) and a staggering array of celebrities from the world of Sport and TV (Harry Kane, Piers Morgan, Andrew Flintoff, Jamie Redknapp, Peter Crouch and Jose Mourinho) this one-day golf tournament was broadcast live on SkySports and TalkSport Radio as well as streamed live on Paddy Power’s social channels.

My role within the event was the complete branding of the site and the TV coverage.  Logo design, artwork, straplines, digital displays.

Paddy Power wanted to draw attention to the fact that despite 2 million people being at risk of gambling addiction in the UK, 59% of football clubs are sponsored by gambling brands. 

Despite being a betting and gaming operator, Paddy Power could see the absurdity of the situation – and wanted to challenge it. We decided to take a stand and help reform the industry.

How? By doing the unexpected.

Stage one of our campaign saw us outdoing – and outbranding – our competition. We launched a new kit for Huddersfield Town that featured an over-the-top, hen-do style design. There was an immediate outrage by both fans and press with commentators claiming it signaled “the death of football”.

Although some smelled a rat, and suggested it was a stunt, the mood changed when the Football Association got involved. Suddenly this was serious.

Or was it? The decision was made to play along and let everyone sweat for 48 hours.

Then the real kit was revealed. Completely unsponsored. This coincided with the launch of #saveourshirt online, on TV and in print. People started questioning their roles in promoting brands they had no affinity with – while paying for the pleasure of wearing their logos emblazoned across their chests.

Not putting the Paddy Power logo on shirts got far more publicity than if we had. That move effectively returned Huddersfield Town’s sacred shirts to their rightful owners – the fans. Before long other fans were calling on their clubs to save their shirts.

By playing with convention the campaign reached

• 743 M media impressions,
• 13.2 M interactions
• Shirt demand increased by 1904%

I’m immensely proud to have been involved in the award-winning campaign from the genesis of the idea through to completion.  I helped with creative strategy, design work, club liaison work and activations.  

I was even personally cited as part of Huddersfield’s £50,000 FA Charge!

Following my appointment as Head of Sponsorship for the UK & Ireland, I took over the responsibility for branding all of Paddy Power’s racing properties, including our flagship events at Cheltenham, Punchestown, Leopardstown and York Racecourses.

My role was to identify and deliver eye-catching branding opportunities around the racecourse and to maximise the ROI on our sponsorship investment.

I helped design the creative for these events, as well as supplying print-ready artwork and overseeing the installation of these assets at the course.

In addition, I was responsible for activations at the events too, including promotional giveaways, merchandising and stunts – including managing our flagship underpants hot air balloon!

Following the runaway success of the award-winning 2018 Paddy Power Champions League of Darts, for the second year of our sponsorship, the venue moved to Leicester, but once again we entertained thousands of darts fanatics at our event.

Once again, I was asked to lead on the event, overseeing all aspects of the tournament from event design, branding, lighting, activation spaces, player access, merchandise, and stage design.

Over 10,000 ticket holders attended the event across the two days, and once again we treated fans to the opportunity to play a leg of darts against 5-time World Champion, Raymond van Barneveld, both at the event and in-store at PP’s Leicester betting shop too. We used a state-of-the-art beverage printing machine to let people buy a pint with their favourite player’s face “printed” on to the foam on their drinks. We offered £100,000 to the crowd for a 9-dart finish and we even teamed up with Northern Irish star Daryl Gurney to raise more than £10,000 for charity, when he agreed to have his head shaved by Paddy, live on BBC TV.

Once again it was an incredible event with 4m views of live coverage broadcast across terrestrial and on-demand digital services. We achieved 11.2m views of social content, and we celebrated Michael van Gerwen’s victory with a completely unique wrestling belt trophy!

In 2018 the decision was made that Paddy Power would move into the traditional sports sponsorship space for the first time, when we worked with the PDC to sponsor the Champions League of Darts.

Without a existing sponsorship team within the company I was asked to lead on the event, overseeing all aspects of the tournament from event design, activation spaces, player access, merchandise, and event stage design.

The event required an enormous amount of planning and logistics, including working closely with the venue, the rights holders, the players and TV and Radio broadcasters.   In total the event delivered over 4 millions viewers on BBC across 12 hours of live coverage.  Over 10,000 ticket holders were entertained at the event.

Within our activation spaces we offered fans the chance to play 5-time World Champion Raymond van Barneveld, we handed out over 20,000 pieces of merchandise, we gave lucky fans the chance to sit in our “Best Seats in the House” and we offered the crowd the chance to win the largest collective cash prize in the history of sport – with our £50,000 offer for a 9-dart-finish going straight to the crowd instead of the player!

The event was a huge success for us internally too, with views of our social content filmed with the player exceeding 5.6m views.

The event remains one of my proudest achievements to date, and we were fortunate to be awarded the prestigious FMBE Gold Award for the most effective Sponsorship Activation at the 2019 Field Marketing Brand Awards.

For the 2022 Cheltenham Festival, Paddy Power offered Irish Racing fans, unable to travel to the UK, the opportunity to watch the Cheltenham Festival from their fantastic fanzone in The Camden Pub in Dublin. 

I was responsible for the initial business case for the events as well as the design of all branded assets across the sites including venue design, artwork, merchandise and social assets.

The fanzone was an overwhelming success resulting in a sold out event and thousands of happy customers. 

The fanzones resulted in a blueprint for future fan-attended events in racing, which Paddy Power has followed ever since.