I'm Edu Pou, originally from Barcelona and now living in Tasmania with my wife Demelza and our two kids, Oscar and Axel. I spent years working in advertising around the world before moving into research, and I'm currently in my third year of a PhD at the University of Tasmania. I write books, think about interruption and human behaviour, and love finding unexpected connections between ideas.
Edu Pou had previously worked face-to-face with hundreds of people, and transitioning to fully remote collaboration across large groups was a significant shift. His honest assessment, shared in April 2022, was that the company was still fig
When Edu Pou and his colleagues left their jobs to start something new together, they did not have a fully formed plan. The company was still testing the waters, experimenting, and accepting trial and error as part of the process. What made
In advertising, everything moves very fast, and there is a real temptation to just deliver what is asked within a three-month project cycle and move on. Edu Pou pushes back against that rhythm. He wants to create something that is meaningfu
Edu Pou has spent much of his career close to technology, which means working alongside engineers who see the guts of things, who understand how things actually operate, alongside artists who care about how things look and feel. When you fi
One of Edu Pou's bosses in Amsterdam made a point that stayed with him: advertising usually expects people to fit a role, to write and design like a brand. When you try to mimic a company's voice, the work becomes completely soulless. The a
Edu Pou is honest about advertising's bad press: it tries to sell you things, it interrupts what you're doing, and it gets everywhere. That reputation is deserved. But he puts it in perspective by noting that 95 percent of virtually any dis
Gladwell's article describes how in the early 1950s, dyeing one's hair was largely reserved for actresses and a very narrow slice of society. When L'Oreal launched 'Because You're Worth It', it was a message of female empowerment wrapped in
Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article arguing that capitalism allows people to vote not every four years, but every single time they buy something. With companies now far more exposed, not just through their products but through their behavior,
As of April 2022, MetaCampus was working closely with an artist called Hostile CSSR on its first project, which was planned to launch in November 2022. The team described the project as having a romantic and somewhat naive quality to it, in
The headline that NFTs are polluting has become very mainstream, and there is truth to it: there is a lot of computer power behind all of these technologies. However, the view from inside the space is that this is quickly being fixed. Pollu
MembersMetaCampus is structured as a centralized company at launch, but the roadmap is to eventually become a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). The plan includes a robust program that will distribute ownership and governance to the publ
MetaCampus went public in early April 2022, roughly two to three weeks after being founded in January of that year. It started with a loose idea: to be a company that operates in the metaverse and to find opportunities to bring people on bo
After leaving We Are Social, Edu Pou became fascinated by NFTs and the metaverse, describing himself as 'trapped' by these developments. He points to Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, raising 400 million dollars and being val
After the Samsung VideoSnap campaign, Edu Pou decided to leave We Are Social. He describes his time there with genuine affection, calling it really really exciting, but ultimately he wanted to stop commuting and stay at home in Tasmania, wo
The Samsung Galaxy S21 VideoSnap Challenge, created with We Are Social, was built around a unique TikTok filter that dramatised Samsung's 8K video snap feature, which lets you pull high-resolution stills from moving video. Rather than tryin
Edu Pou uses a quote from Charlie Brooker, the creator of Black Mirror, to frame the uncomfortable reality of user-generated content campaigns. Brooker wrote in The Guardian that TV advertising used to work like this: you sat on your sofa w
Edu Pou reflects that projects which go beyond the ordinary can only happen when you have a client who believes in pushing further than what is expected. In the case of the road-trip film shot during the first COVID lockdown, the client was
When producing large-scale VR experiences that span multiple countries at once, one unavoidable constraint is hardware and software standardisation. Edu Pou explains that for productions running simultaneously in locations as diverse as the
During COVID-19 lockdowns, Edu Pou directed 'The Drive', a four-hour slow TV film for Audi Australia, without ever being on location. The entire direction happened via WhatsApp and Google Meet. Inspired by the slow TV genre (long-form unedi
A personal decision to move to Tasmania turned out to be professionally transformative for Edu Pou. Because he was no longer anchored to a specific city or office culture, he was free to work with whichever collaborators he found most excit
The Toyota Hy Project started from a deceptively simple question: could the sound that vehicles emit actually help the environment rather than harm it? Global research, including studies from Oxford and other prestigious universities, sugge
The Etihad Airways VR project 'Reimagine', starring Nicole Kidman, was the first time an award-winning actor appeared in a 360-degree film. The production recreated a full flight from New York to Abu Dhabi, combining a heist plot with mista
MembersTo promote Netflix's Altered Carbon, a show set in a future where wealthy people transfer their consciousness into new bodies called 'sleeves,' Edu Pou's team created a fitting room experience that let people try on different bodies before
To launch EA Sports FIFA 15, Edu Pou's team wanted to capture the emotional intensity of real football and translate it into a physical artifact. The result was a custom chocolate bar called 'Bitter Sweet: The Taste of Football.' Two versio
Edu Pou makes a point that is easy to overlook when celebrating creative work: for something like the Domino's Pizza Tracker to exist, you need a client with real courage. It was not enough to have a clever idea. Domino's had to change the
The Domino's Pizza Tracker is a progress bar that shows customers exactly where their order is, moving through five stages: Order Placed, Prep, Bake, Box, and Delivery, complete with the pizza maker's name and exact timestamps. Before it ex
A thread running through Edu Pou's account of campaigns like the Coca-Cola Portable Park is that he was not primarily focused on how many more bottles of Coke were sold as a result. His concern was whether the work created something that fe
When Domino's came to Edu Pou's agency looking for advertising, the standard response would have been to develop campaign concepts and compete on creative execution. Instead, Edu Pou chose to reframe what the agency was offering entirely, p
While working in Boulder, Colorado, Edu Pou's agency was pitching for Domino's advertising account. Rather than just developing TV spots like everyone else, Edu Pou and a colleague decided to redefine the way people order and track a pizza
For the Coca-Cola Portable Park campaign, Edu Pou's team spent a significant amount of time engineering a vending machine that could recognise when someone was barefoot and automatically deliver a bottle of Coke. The technical challenge pro
Long before the famous 'Share a Coke' campaign launched in Australia and took the world by storm, Edu Pou and his team created a campaign for Coca-Cola built around the idea that Coke has always been a product meant to be shared. They calle
In 2003, Edu Pou and his team created a campaign for Nike built around a conspiracy theory set in Madrid. Madrid has a famous statue of a bear and a strawberry tree at the centre of the city. The campaign invented a story that lightning str
Edu Pou's first job in advertising was at an interactive digital agency, and he believes that set the pace for everything he did afterward. He graduated around the time the internet was blooming, and entering the industry through a digital
Edu Pou describes his relationship with advertising through a quote from The Godfather: 'Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.' He has been in advertising for over 25 years, but never felt drawn to the commercial side of th
Edu Pou's Placelists project was supported by a launch television commercial as well as a series of content films featuring real people, including pieces titled 'Pia and Leiti' and 'Will and Jake'. This combination of a broadcast launch veh
Among Edu Pou's portfolio pieces is digital product and campaign work for Domino's, specifically the BFD Builder and the Pizza Tracker. These tools represent the intersection of utility and brand engagement, where a functional digital produ
Edu Pou's 'The Legendary Posters' project was a multi-platform creative series that included a trailer, individual story pieces such as 'The one that played fire tennis against Jimmy Connors', and dedicated presences on Tumblr and Instagram
Edu Pou's 'Life Size Messi' campaign extended across multiple touchpoints, including a dedicated mobile site and a perimeter board animation at Camp Nou. Using the stadium's perimeter boards as a creative canvas allowed the campaign to reac
As part of Edu Pou's advertising work, the Coca-Cola 'Roll Out Happiness' campaign featured a portable park concept. This suggests a physical or experiential activation designed to bring a sense of public space and leisure directly to peopl
Edu Pou is a PhD researcher, author, and advertising thinker from Barcelona whose creative portfolio includes a diverse range of projects. His work spans brand campaigns such as Coca-Cola's 'Roll Out Happiness' with a portable park concept,
I'm originally from Barcelona, but I spent years living and working around the world in advertising. That's where I met my wife, Demelza Rafferty, who is originally from Tasmania and is wonderfully talented. We moved to Tasmania because of
I like to be warm but clear. I tend to digress more than I would like to, and I always find references or things that connect to whatever I'm talking about. I love that part of me. Some people might see it as going off track, but for me it'
My best advice comes from Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies: turn your handicaps into your best skill. When you stop trying to cover up the thing you feel insecure about, and instead put it up front so it defines you, something shifts. You sho
As of October 2026, I'm an HDR student at the University of Tasmania and I'm on my third year of my PhD. It's a big shift from working in advertising, but the questions I'm asking now grew directly out of that career. Research gives me the
As of October 2026, I'm in the middle of writing the sequel to my first book. It's called The Lie. The first book was about interruption, and this one continues that thread into new territory. I can't say much more than that yet, but the ti
I wrote a book about interruption and the role that advertising plays in life. What surprised me while writing it was discovering that interruption is a very human thing. It's not the nuisance we usually think it is. That reframe changed ho
Every piece here is something Edu Pou can talk you through, in their own words.