Sports Direct / The Frasers Group
Sports Direct – Retail Campaign Photography – Christmas Gift Guide
About Sports Direct / The Frasers Group
Sports Direct is one of the UK’s leading sports retailers, known for bold, impactful marketing and high-energy seasonal campaigns. For their annual Christmas Gift Guide, they required photography for their Christmas marketing activation.
Project Overview
Sports Direct approached us to capture photography collateral for their major Christmas Gift Guide campaign. This required receiving and prepping a large volume of product and several styled set builds to create collateral to be used across website banners, digital marketing, social media and retail channels.
The creative brief called for cold, crisp winter visuals that aligned seamlessly with their existing video campaign. This involved building multiple bespoke set-ups, sourcing props, managing a high volume of product stock, and building several sets in the studio that captured the retro, wintery and Christmas aesthetic.
Objectives
To create a high-impact suite of images for a large-scale Christmas campaign
To deliver winter-themed visual storytelling that complements existing brand video content
To provide efficient on-set workflows enabling real-time approvals
To produce consistent, premium assets suitable for digital platforms and retail marketing
To support a high-volume content requirement with smooth production and clear creative direction
What we achieved
We developed a complete studio production and photography solution, built around:
1. Winter-Themed Creative Studio Production
We designed and constructed multiple winter-inspired sets using artificial snow, cool-toned lighting, and seasonally curated props including a retro room setting, an outdoor concrete roadside and snow covered lawn set. Each set was crafted to reflect the campaign’s brand with a cold, retro wintery aesthetic, bringing the Christmas season to life within the studio.
2. High-Volume Content Capture
With a large number of shots required, we created an efficient workflow that allowed us to capture a significant volume of high quality assets within a tight timeframe. Careful preproduction planning ensured smooth transitions between set-ups and consistent visual output.
3. Real-Time Client Collaboration
Having the Sports Direct marketing team on set enabled instant feedback and live approval, keeping the shoot on schedule and ensuring every image aligned with the brand’s creative vision.
This collaborative approach also opened the door to producing additional brand-led content that went beyond the original brief.
Creative Approach
Our creative direction was guided by the overarching winter theme, resulting in visuals that were:
This allowed us to deliver an aesthetic that felt seasonal, impactful, and unmistakably aligned with Sports Direct’s bold brand identity.
Outcome & Results
This project was fully end-to-end, managed by our team from initial concept support through to the final delivery. This included prop sourcing, bespoke set builds, prepping a large volume of stock, on-set production, and all editing and retouching, ensuring a smooth, efficient workflow from start to finish.
The final imagery delivered:
Sports Direct were thrilled with the results, and the project showcased the value of a close client-studio partnership when delivering large-scale, time-sensitive retail campaigns.
Project Gallery
Looking to Bring Your Seasonal Campaigns to Life?
Whether you need high-volume e-commerce content or a fully styled creative campaign, our team specialises in studio production, concept development, and multi-channel imagery that drives commercial results.