Emma began her career at BBH as a graduate trainee before being poached by Mark Boyd, Head of Branded Content, to work on a host of non-traditional, culture first projects including Burberry's "Art of the Trench", a transatlantic trans-media project for LG and a series of factual entertainment formats with Atomized TV. From there she went on to join the creative department where she had a lot of fun making 60” spots and picked up a Silver Kinsale for the Missing People film.

She went on to bring back a heap of attitude to GHD, creatively directing two global campaigns with Liz Gilmore, before joining Pulse Films as a Creative Lead where she worked on all sorts of branded, cultural propositions including a digital platform for the Arts Council, a documentary shorts series for Virgin Atlantic/4oD as well as initiating a women’s film platform before they became de rigeour.

Emma loves storytelling, photography, film and writing and, right now, writing about herself in the third person. She especially enjoys working across luxury where she can flex a more artistic sensibility, or issue based projects that make people think differently, be it for the climate crisis or cultural reckoning, a charitable cause or challenging norms. 

Recent work include a new global platform for Bulgari “Magnificence never ends,” followed by a suite of campaigns for the brand including “Serpenti - Infinite Tales”; “Diva’s Dream” with BZero1 set for release later this year. Before that, she brought more emotion to Pandora with their 2023 Valentine’s campaign “Love makes no sense unless you’re in love” and upp’d the fashion ante for Tesco F&F’s A/W 21 campaign.

Emma uniquely straddles both Art Direction and Copywriting alongside a strategic background she developed at BBH. She has been recognised for her work with three nominations from the Royal Academy for her photography and drawing as well as picking up a Portrait of Britain Prize for art direction on a campaign about Londoners for VCCP (photographer: Dylan Collard) and a Kinsale for the Missing People film to name a few.

Not following a prescribed path, Emma also worked as a producer on independent British film London Unplugged, a portmanteau feature about the city made on a shoestring that hit the big screen in January 2019. Continuing her work in film, Emma recently completed a short course at the NFTS in Script Development & Pitching Drama with Peter Ansorge (former head of C4 and BBC Drama) and is currently working on a script. Finally, she ended the year with a nomination for YunoJuno's Freelancer of the Year.

For projects and commissions, please email Emma at emmiecastagno@me.com

A few words from some of the lovely people I have worked with:

“Emmie is an amazing combination of being super creative and incredibly strategic. She's highly visual, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of artists/photographers/directors and can also convey emotion beautifully through her use of language. She's passionate about doing the best work possible and as a strategist, I couldn't have hoped for a better creative partner working on F&F.” Sara Beech, Strategy Director, ODD

"Emma is a fantastic creative mind, able to articulate her ideas beautifully with a huge vision. She's a strategic thinker with brilliant platform knowledge, capable of adapting her ideas to work in any media from traditional to digital. And, she's a gem of a person to go with it. She was a delight to work with at VaynerMedia and I'm sure she will be an asset to any creative team." Chris Rush, Associate Creative Director, VaynerMedia

"Emma was an absolute inspiration. Working with her from the start on Missing people, developing the script together was almost like writing a feature. I think her emotional intelligence, sensitivity and acute attention to detail comes across very clearly in the final spot, it is very much her piece. She understands the importance of casting and overall process of film very well, which lead to a very exciting and collaborative shoot. She's the most instinctive and precise creative I've worked with in years and look forward to working on many more projects together.” Ben Strebel, Director

“Emma is a unique combination of talent, knowledge, passion, creativity, and eloquence. And she combines it all with an exacting eye for visuals, and an enviable network of film and imagemaker collaborators, peers and partners. She's one of them herself: her photography has been featured at the RA Summer Show, a film she produced received a four star review from the Times, and her charcoal sketches would be at home at the Chelsea Arts Club. If you're lucky enough to work alongside Emma, I suggest that you do!” Jon Kallus, ECD & Founder of Fate vs Future

“Great conceptual ability, always positive and the team found Emma a joy to work with. She's an asset to any creative department.” Vaughan Townsend, Creative Director, Ogilvy

“Emma is an extremely talented creative with a very strong ability for narrative that deliver stories out of the ordinary. 
We worked on 3 campaigns together for print and film purposes. Each time she was able to bring together a platform of possibilities that was letting us able to explore and deliver the best answer for the projects.  On the human level, Emma is great fun to work with, light-hearted but well focus. Can not wait for the next project” Damien De Blinkk, Photographer & Director

“I was photographer for a commercial job when Emma worked as art director at VCCP, London. The client was Barratt London. Emma was great to work with! She gave very helpful instructions, great at art directing and at the same time letting me get plenty of space to make photographs. Emma has great knowledge of photography and obviously AD'ing. We worked long hours over a period of two weeks and it was a pleasure to work with Emma.” Tomter, Photographer 

"Wouldn't hesitate to recommend Emma - smart, articulate and extremely plugged in on luxury, fashion, beauty and cultural trends. I happily made her client facing as she's creative AND a safe pair of hands for important presentations and in gently interrogating client briefs to get to the crux of what they want/need. She worked on luxury project of Button's for Pernod Ricard and her knowledge of the drinks industry was also incredibly helpful."  Sara Jensen, CEO, Button PR

© Emma Castagno 2022.