What are you doing here?
If everything's gone to plan, you're here to find out about the copywriter and current creative director at innocent drinks who goes by the name 'Jacob Denno'. If wires have been crossed and you were hoping to find out about the 18th century woodwind instrument maker from Nuremberg called Jacob Denner, head here instead. Or even better, do both.
Pick your bio:
Hello. I'm Jacob, a copywriter and creative director who fiddles around with words and ideas for a living. I'm currently the creative director at innocent drinks, making sure the work we put into the world sells a few smoothies and pops the odd smile on people's faces. Before innocent, I wrote things for companies like Oliver Bonas, Rude Health and Plymouth College of Art, whilst running an illustrated literary magazine called Popshot. I've also been known to do a fairly accurate impression of a clucking chicken.
Jacob Denno is a copywriter and creative director currently working at healthy drinks company, innocent drinks. Through his command of the English language and his ardour for building brands, he has sold over 45,000 copies of a niche literary magazine, been integral in the transformation of a small design agency into one of London’s top-ranked advertising agencies, and become the custodian of the most famous brand voice in the British isles.
Copywriter and creative director at innocent drinks. Writes words and comes up with ideas in exchange for money. Big fan of putting things in brackets (like this).
Jacob Denno is a poet of the commercial world, a Pied Piper of vocabulary, an architect of thoughts in the cognitive cathedrals of others. He forges weapons of communication from the raging fires of imagination, equipping those who employ him with an artillery of persuasion, originality and authenticity. He is the Shakespeare of storytelling, the Archimedes of invention and, as this piece of writing will attest, the Donald Trump of truth.
'Knock knock.'
'Who's there?'
'Jacob Denno.'
'Jacob Denno who?'
'Jacob Denno who fiddles around with words and ideas for a living, but is yet to write a good knock knock joke.'
Some stuff I've done
(in roughly reverse chronological order)
One of the best writing jobs at innocent is coming up with the little stories on the back of the bottles. Here are just a few I've written over the years.
A small selection of ads I've written about crushed fruit, squeezed fruit and social distancing.
Up until we overhauled it, the innocent website was a strong contender for the worst website on the internet. Working with design agency Shoptalk and hoards of people around innocent, I helped create a new site that looked at home in the 21st century, planning out the site structure and user journey, then writing most of the copy. See it for yourself at innocentdrinks.com
A campaign I worked on for the innocent Big Knit in France. Past campaigns had always focused on how the Big Knit works, but this time round the French team wanted to land the message that the Big Knit helps tackle loneliness in older people. Working with Renée Melo and Romain Hinal, I scripted and art directed this little advert and these posters that ran all over France. The headline on the left translates as "a hat against the snow", the one on the right "a hat against loneliness".
Two silly puns on one coaster. This was for an internal soirée at innocent, where we turned the ground floor of Fruit Towers into a pub called The Royal Oat (innocent made oat milk at the time). If anyone flipped their coaster over, this was the pay-off.
An idea I came up with for Ocean Outdoor’s Crucial Creative Competition back in summer 2020, brought to life by our UK digital team. There was £500,000 of free billboard space up for grabs for creative concepts that would "convey positive or helpful consumer messages" to people venturing back out into the world. Somehow this idea won, taking the top prize from the, er, NHS.
