The Client’s Challenge

At the height of his 20-year career on the pitch, striker Jason Lee was scoring goals in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest as part of the team that returned to European football and reached the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup. Simultaneously, Jason experienced weekly racist bullying on primetime TV, from comedian David Baddiel who donned Blackface to portray an offensive caricature of Jason, complete with a pineapple on his head to mock Jason’s then-dreadlocked hairstyle. Dealing with the abuse sparked Jason’s passion for fighting discrimination, and after retiring from the game, he started working as a senior EDI executive, supporting and educating players, fighting online abuse and sitting on boards and committees to improve diversity across football. To amplify his message further, Jason was looking to raise his profile so he could take ownership of his story and explore more opportunities to create meaningful change in sport and beyond. 

Our Approach

Jérrard Wayne began by working with Jason to define his messaging, vision and values, quickly establishing that his ultimate goal was to make the world fairer for people from minoritised communities. Using his passion for equality as a foundation, we then explored the most effective way to share this message, laying out a thorough brand strategy to help Jason visualise a clear pathway to realising his goals. The strategy included plans for a podcast, strategic EDI training courses and an authentic personal brand that would support his ambitions to become a leading keynote speaker in the space.

Once the strategy was in place, we defined Jason’s audience by creating user personas to gain a better understanding of who he was trying to reach and how best to position the brand. Then, inspired by Jason’s straightforward approach and commitment to ethics, our designers developed a confident brand identity that echoed Jason’s integrity, candour and style. Using a blend of black-and-white photographs, striking graphics and bold typography we created an attention-grabbing visual language, accenting the monochrome colour palette with pops of red, in a nod to Jason’s connection to the beautiful game.

Understanding honesty and transparency were key to build respect in the EDI space, our strategists crafted a tone of voice that incorporated Jason’s natural mannerisms to keep his comms feeling genuine and accessible. To reflect his approachable personality, our teams opted for relaxed grammar, casual language and relatable phrasing that Jason would use to ensure his messaging was more likely to connect with audiences. We then combined this sleek new brand with an extensive UI/UX process to develop an optimised user-friendly website that would allow Jason’s intended audiences to learn and connect with ease.

The brand strategy we outlined for Jason included several opportunities such as keynote speaking, media products and the launch of his own podcast. Building out the ideas, we developed a podcast premise where Jason could have candid conversations with sport and music’s most interesting people so they could share stories, experiences and plans for uplifting their communities. Jérrard Wayne lead on creative direction, production and promotional strategy as well as assuming responsibility for location scouting, set dressing and booking the most exciting guests. This included guest research, interview prep, launch planning and social media management for the podcast.

Part of our podcast planning included a long-overdue conversation with David Baddiel so Jason could finally address how his abuse impacted him, face-to-face. When Jason was asked to appear in Baddiel’s documentary, Jews Don’t Count, we agreed Jason’s appearance on the condition that Baddiel participated in a more in-depth conversation on Jason’s podcast, AbsoluteLee. To prepare Jason for the long overdue conversation, we organised sessions with a professional mediator to help Jason navigate the sensitive and challenging topic in the most productive way. We then maximised the publicity around the documentary to launch the podcast with an hour-long episode serving as the season premiere.

The Outcome

Jason initially told us he felt he could contribute another decade of energy to help create change in the EDI space, so Jérrard Wayne committed to continue supporting him to do that in avenues that he hasn't previously explored. This has included handling brand management, client representation and negotiation of media opportunities and leveraging the increased interest following the documentary and podcast launch to make his vision more tangible. So far this has resulted in an appearance in Peter Crouch’s upcoming documentary about racism in football and sponsorship for season two of the AbsoluteLee podcast.