Touch Grass

The challenge

Ordnance Survey is one of the most recognised names in Britain, and most people under thirty couldn't tell you it makes an app. The audience was ageing out.

OS Maps needed to matter to people more likely to explore TikTok than the countryside: an audience that doesn't listen to brands, listens to people, and can spot a brand trying too hard immediately.

The idea

Turn the internet's favourite insult into an actual invitation.

Go touch grass was already everywhere online, used to tell someone to log off and rejoin the real world. Nobody had to explain it. So rather than argue with it, we agreed with it, and took the people who live on the internet outside to prove the point.

The work

Two years, two groups of creators, and the second one is the reason the first was worth doing.

2025, the Brecon Beacons. The Touch Grass Weekender, with Arthur TV, BurntChip and Zac Alsop.

The casting was the strategy. Not three creators with big numbers. A friendship group with a recognisable dynamic. The one with all the gear and the knowledge, the one there for a laugh who holds it together, and the one looking for shortcuts. You know those three people. Probably from your own group chat.

Ten short-form episodes, built as a proper quest: get to the campsite, find the waterfall, make it to the pub. I directed the shoots, shot the photography, and directed the edits.

The bit I'd point at is the last one. The two best-performing episodes were the least scripted, the creators just walking and talking, or messing about in a river. That only works if someone is there the whole time thinking wider than the ten episodes: catching the B-roll, spotting the moment that becomes a cutdown, knowing which thirty seconds will carry vertical. Loose on camera needs tight behind it.

We also got the rights to post on the creators' own channels this time, so it travelled well beyond OS's feeds.

2024, the South Downs. Jack Joseph, Cole Anderson-James and Charley Marlowe, on a London-accessible weekend of cycling, camping, campfires and problem-solving, each paired with an OS brand champion who actually knew what they were doing outdoors. A three-part YouTube series with social cutdowns. It was the first thing OS had ever made like it.

The results

The campaign won Best Marketing Campaign (Small) at the UK Agency Awards.

The quieter result matters as much: 2024 was a first for OS, and proving it worked is what unlocked 2025, the Trig Challenge, and everything the brand has done in that space since.