As part of its ongoing strategy to tap into the culture and lives its audience is living through their phones, Three Mobile wanted an idea around the FIFA 2018 World Cup, ideally backing the buzz around the England team.

Problem: unless you are working with an official brand partner of FIFA or the FA that has paid tens of millions for usage rights, you can't mention the words 'World Cup', or 'The England football team' or even 'Three Lions' without a lawyer threatening to take you and your client to the cleaners.

'You've already got Three in your name. Why don't you just use the visual language your audience is communicating in and stick three lions emojis next to it? And they can't bloody touch you!'

So, that's exactly we did. During the course of the 2018 World Cup over 40 of Three's most prominent high street stores rebranded in key cities all over England.

Three liked the idea so much they rolled it out again for the Women's World Cup in 2020.

(And yes, it has always bugged me that for launch photo, someone booked FOUR former England Lions rather than three. FML, as they say)