W/C 23 NOV · EMAIL
We've got something to send you in January. It's not a calendar. Where should it go?The address check. Cleans the list, catches home workers, gets a first yes.
Carse & Waterman · Winter campaign 2026/27
This is a potato.
Every business starts as one. Don't stay a spud.
In January, a beautiful box lands on 60 carefully chosen desks. Inside is a potato and a QR code. The film it opens explains why, and starts a year-long story about what C&W does: turning plain products into things people understand, remember and act on.
CH 01
Same potato. Different story.
Nobody orders a plain potato. They order chips, a jacket, a roastie. The potato never changed; the presentation did. That's the whole campaign, and it's what we do for a living. Tap through a potato's career.
CH 01 · RAW
Just a potato.
Good idea. Lots of hard work. Loads of potential. From the outside, it looks exactly like every other potato in the sack.
In business terms
A product with no story. People walk past it, not because it's bad, but because nothing tells them why it matters.
Attentionthe box×
Desirethe film + story×
Conversionthe Spud Check
One message all year: most business problems are communication problems. The box earns attention the Duolingo way, the film and characters build desire the Sutherland way, and the offer converts the Hormozi way. Any part at zero and the whole sum is zero.
CH 02
Keep the name. Soften the landing.
"Don't Be a Spud" is short, British and repeatable. On its own, "spud" can also mean "idiot", which is a strange thing to post to a prospect. Each line below has one job.
Every business starts as a potato. Don't stay a spud.
The sign-off
Closes the film, sits on the grow card, ends every post. Turns the jab into an invitation.
Don't Be a Spud
Campaign + hashtag
Punchy and shareable. Always shown near the line above.
What's your potato?
The sales question
Something a prospect can actually answer. It opens every Spud Check.
The Potato Principle
Thought leadership
The talk, the monthly article, the thing Daniel and Gary own on stage.
This is a potato.
Card in the box only
Deadpan and confusing. Perfect for the unboxing, too flat for anything else.
1
One potato joke per piece, maximum. The idea is funny on its own. Stack the puns and it turns into a gimmick, and that's not how we talk.
CH 03
Sixty desks. Chosen properly.
Sixty boxes means every one can be personal. Each goes to someone who could sign off a £10k project, introduce us to someone who can, or help the story travel. Small enough that Daniel and Gary can know every name on the list.
Tier A · Hot
15 boxes
- Past clients, open proposals, warm leads, agency partners
- Potato stamped with their company name
- Personalised film end card
- A handwritten note from Daniel or Gary
Tier B · Target
35 boxes
- Named decision-makers we'd love to work with
- Standard box, unique QR code
- A personal hello once it lands
Tier C · Friends
10 boxes
- Chambers members, university partners, councils, charities, local press, Animation UK
- They amplify. They don't have to buy.
Manufacturing & engineering
Health & safety leads
Universities & research
Small-to-medium agencies
Marketing, comms & HR directors
CH 04 · LATE NOV TO CHRISTMAS
Tease the box. Never the potato.
Four light touches. We never show the inside and we never say the word. The surprise is the whole value, so we don't spend it early. We work in a bank, so the boxes get guarded like it's a heist.
EARLY DEC · THE VAULT
Something's in the vault.Shoot the stacked boxes in The Bank, team on guard, totally deadpan. Enough for 4–6 posts.
DEC · MON / WED / FRI
Weighs about 250g. Older than the printing press.One photo, one dry clue. Invite guesses. Never confirm one.
~18 DEC · LAST POST
It's not a sprout.Our Christmas card line. Then silence until it lands.
No countdown site, ads or press release. They all spend the surprise before the box does.
No full box reveal. Crop it, light it moodily, show corners.
End every clue with an invitation: "A few are going out in January. Want one? Message us." The tease becomes lead capture.
CH 05 · W/C 11 JANUARY 2027
A posh box. A plain potato.
Boxes land Tuesday to Thursday of the second week back, when inboxes have settled and people are planning the year. The contrast is the joke, so the box has to look genuinely expensive.
The box
Rigid, matte, lift-off lid, minimal branding. The iMe brand mark on the lid, eyes glancing sideways, as if he's not sure about this either.
"This is a potato." + QR
The only explanation. The back says "Scan to find out why."
One seed potato
Looks like any potato, but it can be planted in March and harvested in summer. This is what gives us a year-long story.
"Don't open until you've watched the film"
Googly eyes and a name tag. The film asks them to give their potato a personality: the lesson in miniature.
The grow card
"Plant it in March. Some potatoes grow." Planting steps and #DontBeASpud.
Tier A extras: the potato hand-stamped with their company name in food-safe ink, and their name on the film's end card.
Open it
It's a potato. Confusion. A photo to a colleague: "what is this?"
Scan it
The card gives exactly one way out of the confusion.
Watch it
The film explains the potato, and tells them to open the envelope.
Post it
Eyes on, potato named, photo posted with #DontBeASpud. The campaign spreads itself.
Every box gets its own QR code.
Each one opens a personal page (carseandwaterman.com/spud/acme) with the film and a Book your Spud Check button. We'll know who's watched, so we know who to say a proper hello to, and who might just need a gentle reminder the film exists. One shared code would tell us nothing.
CH 06 · THE FILM · 75–90 SECONDS
Every business starts as a potato.
The film is the product demo. If it makes someone feel something about a potato, they'll believe we can do it for their business. It apologises, explains, shows off, and asks for one thing.
00:00–00:08
Hello. You've just been sent a potato. Sorry about that. Stick with us. It's a good potato.
The real potato on the real box, filmed plainly.
00:08–00:20
Every business starts as a potato. A good idea, lots of hard work. And from the outside, it looks exactly like every other potato.
Stop-motion potato lost in a crowd of identical ones.
00:20–00:40
But a potato can be a lot of things. Chips. Dinner. Art. A clock. Give it a face, and suddenly it's somebody. Same potato. Different story.
Fast montage: one potato, five lives.
00:40–00:55
The difference was never the potato. It's how you show it, how you explain it, and whether anyone feels a thing. Nobody stops scrolling for a plain potato.
Split screen: plain potato ignored, transformed potato mobbed.
00:55–01:10
We're Carse & Waterman. For 17 years we've turned potatoes into things people remember, for the BBC, the NHS, the UN and businesses just down the road. Most business problems are communication problems. That's what we fix.
Flashes of real client work, then The Bank.
01:10–01:30
So, open the envelope. Give your potato a face and a name, and post it. Plant it in March. And if you want to know what yours could be, book a Spud Check.
Envelope opens, eyes go on. The iMe mark closes the film.
What the film proves
The film is the pitch. In 90 seconds it does the three things we promise every client, to the person watching it.
UnderstandA baffling object becomes completely clear in under a minute.
RememberThey'll never look at a potato the same way again.
ActEyes on, name it, post it. One small, easy next step.
Three questions to ask your potato
Printed under the film on every landing page. The thing people keep after the laugh.
1
What does your potato look like to a stranger?
Not to you. To someone with three seconds and no context.
2
What's the one thing it should be known for?
If you can't say it in a sentence, nobody else can either.
3
Does anyone feel anything when they see it?
People don't remember information. They remember how something made them feel.
CH 07 · 2027
Receive it. Plant it. Harvest it. Serve it.
Because it's a seed potato, the year writes itself. Four chapters, one message, each told through a different stage of the potato's life, with one real-world moment in each.
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
1 · Starts as a potato
2 · Plant it
3 · Harvest
4 · Serve it up
The Drop
11 Jan
11 Jan
Spud Check afternoons
Time to plant
Potato print workshop
Potato Day
Fri 28 May
Fri 28 May
Harvest + Spud Van
Potato Principle talk
Bonfire Night
Fri 5 Nov
Fri 5 Nov
Spud Awards
JAN – MAR
Every business starts as a potato
The drop, the film, people naming and posting their spuds. Spud Check afternoons at The Bank, with tea and oatcakes.
Lesson: your product isn't the problem. How it's explained might be.
APR – JUN
Plant it
A "time to plant" postcard in mid-March. The Spud Squad launches. A potato printing workshop with Framescape, a nod to Stoke's printed pottery. International Day of Potato content on Fri 28 May.
Lesson: good communication gets planted early. Onboarding, training, first impressions.
JUL – SEP
Harvest
Recipients share what grew. A jacket potato van outside The Bank: free jackets for local businesses, a Chambers "Jacket & Chat", and cardboard Spud Squad cut-outs for photos. In September, the Potato Principle talk.
Lesson: show the results. What did better comms actually return?
OCT – DEC
Serve it up
Bonfire Night jackets on Fri 5 Nov. The Spud Awards for the best transformations of the year. A Christmas roastie finale that hands the audience to the 2028 campaign.
Lesson: presentation is everything.
CH 08 · RECURRING CHARACTERS
Meet the Spud Squad.
Twelve potatoes, each one a communication problem our clients actually have: in sales, in factories, in training rooms, in lecture halls and in communities. Every one is something we fix, so every appearance is quietly a pitch. Recipients will recognise their own business in at least one of them.
The Mumbler
Brilliant at the job. Can't explain it to anyone outside the room.
→ Explainer films that simplify
The Everything Spud
Says fourteen things at once, so nobody remembers one.
→ Message strategy: one thing, done well
The Invisible Spud
Great product. Nobody's ever heard of it.
→ Brand films and social that earn attention
The Beige Spud
Looks identical to every competitor on the shelf.
→ Identity, character and mascot work
The Shouty Spud
All sales, no story. "BUY NOW" on every single post.
→ Storytelling that makes people care first
The Unread Spud
The safety policy everyone signs and nobody reads.
→ H&S animation, LMS and on-site mascots
The Tangled Spud
A product or process so complex that nobody can picture how it works.
→ Product breakdowns, exploded views, process films
The Lost Spud
New starters who spend their first month wondering what's going on.
→ Onboarding and induction films
The Snoozing Spud
Training and lectures that send the room to sleep by slide four.
→ Learning content for teams, schools and universities
The Whisper Spud
The message changes every time it's passed down the company.
→ Internal comms that say it once, clearly, to everyone
The Lonely Spud
Puts on the event, launches the programme, and nobody comes.
→ Engagement tools, workshops and event promotion
The Pitching Spud
A brilliant idea that keeps losing the tender, the funding bid or the investor.
→ Pitch, bid and investor films
A story, not a schedule
A fixed 12-posts-a-month grid gets predictable fast. Instead, the year runs like a series: a few recurring formats people look forward to, some they take part in, and a few that only happen when there's a reason. A post goes out when it has something to say. Roughly two a week, never filler.
The Spud Squad: the series
A running workplace comedy, not one-off skits. The Squad share an office, each chapter has its own storyline, and episodes end on something worth coming back for. When the Lost Spud starts a new job in spring, the whole Squad has to explain the place to them.
WatchSpud Surgery
People send in a real communication problem. We sketch how we'd fix it in 60 seconds. Genuinely useful, and the start of a lot of good conversations.
Take partWhich spud is your business?
A six-question quiz on the website. Your answer is one of the twelve Squad characters, with a shareable result card and a tip for fixing it.
Take partThe window spud
Our own potato, planted in a pot in The Bank's front window, filmed as a time-lapse all year. Locals can watch it grow from the street.
WatchYour spuds
Recipients' named, planted and harvested potatoes, shared and celebrated as they arrive. Never forced onto a schedule.
CelebrateHot potato
When a communication story is in the news, the Squad has a kind, funny take on what went wrong and what would have helped.
ReactThe Potato Principle
A short article from Daniel or Gary: one communication lesson, told plainly.
ReadCardboard Squad
Life-size cut-outs of the characters at the Spud Van, Spud Check afternoons and talks. People take the photos; we share them.
Take part
CH 09 · TURNING SPUDS INTO SALES
The film does the selling.
If the film lands, people will want to talk. If it doesn't, no amount of chasing would fix that, and chasing isn't who we are. So the job after the drop is to make it easy to say hello, and to keep being good company until they're ready. For some that's January. For others it's next autumn.
Boxes delivered
Scanned 70%
Watched to the end 80% of scanners
Posted their potato
Real conversations during 2027
Proposals
Projects won at ~£10k + VAT
Proposed targets to agree with Gary. Scan rates are higher than a cold mailer because every box is chosen and personal. Bar widths are to scale.
Spud Check
30 minutes + a one-page Potato Report
Message Session
Half a day to nail the one message. For people not ready to commission yet.
The Transformation
The film that solves their communication problem, plus the pieces to use it everywhere. This is the sell.
Your own potato
We design a confusing mailer and film for their business.
The offer
The Spud Check
A free 30-minute call or studio visit. We look at one thing they're struggling to communicate, and send back a one-page Potato Report within a week:
- What your potato looks like to a stranger
- The one thing it should be known for
- What we'd do about it, with a rough cost and timeline
"If we can't find one thing worth improving, lunch is on us."
Making £10k feel small
Don't sell the film. Sell the cost of the problem. In a Spud Check, ask "what did this communication problem cost you in 2026?" and work it out together. This is the conversation as a concept, with example numbers.
The problem cost about
£14,000
in 2026
The Transformation is £10,000 + VAT, once. The problem costs that again every year it isn't fixed.
Paying for it, fairly both ways
We make everything up front, so long payment plans put a small studio at risk if a client folds. These options keep it easy for them and safe for us. Nothing is spread beyond 12 months.
Two halves
50% to start, 50% on sign-off, before final files are handed over.
The simple default for most clients.
Pay as it's made
Four equal stages tied to real milestones: start, script, animatic, final. Each stage is paid before the next begins.
Smaller bites for tighter cash flow.
The year plan
Monthly payments over up to 12 months, about £833 + VAT a month on £10k. The work is planned as a year of pieces and released as it's paid for: script and look first, then the main film, then cutdowns and social pieces through the year.
For clients who need it spread. We're never owed for work they already have.
The rule: we're never more than one stage out of pocket, and final files go out once they're paid for. Fair to them, and it keeps the studio safe.
Staying in touch, not following up
After something this clever, a hard sell would undo it. Every touch across the year gives them something: a laugh, an invitation, something useful. The door stays open, and when they're ready, they know where we are.
WEEK 1
A human hello
A short personal note from Daniel or Gary: "Hope your potato arrived in one piece." No link, no ask.
Gives: a person behind the boxWEEK 2
Celebrate their spud
If they post their potato, we cheer it on publicly. If they haven't watched yet, one friendly line in case the potato's still a mystery, with the film. Then nothing more.
Gives: a moment in the spotlightFEB
An invitation, not a meeting
Spud Check afternoons at The Bank. Tea, oatcakes, a look round the vault. Come with a problem or just come for the tea.
Gives: a reason to visitMAR
"Time to plant"
A postcard with planting tips. Pure fun, and a reminder two months after the box.
Gives: a smile on a TuesdayJUL
Harvest and the Spud Van
An invitation to a free jacket potato and a catch-up outside The Bank.
Gives: lunchMONTHLY
The Potato Principle
One useful communication lesson a month, for anyone who opted in. Easy to unsubscribe.
Gives: something usefulWHENEVER
They're ready
Maybe January, maybe October. They message us, and the conversation starts from a year of goodwill instead of a cold pitch.
Gives: a studio they already trustNever "just following up"
No more than one personal message a month
Every touch gives something
A quiet no is fine. They stay on the invite list.
CH 10 · BUDGET
One project pays for the year.
Planned cash spend for 60 boxes and the year around them. The film and the Squad are digital and made in house, so they're studio time, not cash. Protect them in the schedule like a paying job.
Cash total
£2,400
One Transformation at £10,000 + VAT covers it four times over
CH 11 · WHAT COULD GO WRONG
Mostly manageable. One isn't optional.
A great box, then silence
The biggest risk by a distance. Not a hard sell, just a human hello. Block w/c 11 and 18 January in the diary before Christmas so Daniel and Gary can write every note themselves.
The potato rots, sprouts or smells
January cold helps. Firm, dry seed potatoes, packed within 48 hours, posted Monday to Wednesday only. Breathable packing.
"Spud" reads as an insult
Always pair it with "Every business starts as a potato." The card in the box stays neutral.
Mailroom suspicion
Clear branding on the outer packaging, and the November email means they're expecting something.
Sending abroad
Keep the drop to Great Britain. Plant-health rules make seed potatoes into Northern Ireland and the EU complicated.
Trademarks
A potato with a face, never a named toy brand. No Mr. Potato Head in the film or copy.
Tracking and data
Mention QR tracking in the privacy notice, add an easy opt-out to every email, and check details with whoever handles data compliance.
Client work eats the film
Give it a schedule and a producer like any paying job.
77DAYS TO DISPATCH
CH 12 · NOW TO THE DROP
Order the boxes by the end of November.
The box is the long-lead item, and Christmas eats two weeks, so the film needs to be in animation by early December.
Lock it in NOV
- w/c 2 NovAgree concept, name and line with Gary. Agree tiers and targets.
- w/c 2 NovStart the Tier A, B and C list with named decision-makers.
- w/c 9 NovPackaging quotes and a sample box. Draft the script.
- w/c 16 NovLock the script, start the animatic, plan the QR pages.
- w/c 23 NovAddress-check email. Sign off and order the boxes.
Tease and make DEC
- Early DecVault shoot at The Bank. Clue posts start Mon/Wed/Fri.
- DecemberAnimate the film. Design the first Spud Squad characters.
- Before breakBlock time for w/c 11 and 18 Jan to write the hello notes.
- ~18 Dec"It's not a sprout." Last post and Christmas card.
The drop JAN
- w/c 4 JanFinal film and cutdowns. Pages live and tested. Buy seed potatoes. Pack.
- 11–13 JanDispatch.
- From 13 JanHello notes go out. Reveal posts go live.
- End JanFirst numbers review.
Every business starts as a potato.
This could be the most talked-about thing Carse & Waterman has ever put through a letterbox. Really, really looking forward to seeing people's faces when they open it.
Prepared for Daniel Waterman and Gary Carse · 26 October 2026
