ExpressVPN – It’s Time To Express

Making digital privacy feel like freedom, not fear.

Working with independent strategy agency The Barber Shop, Blonde developed the creative platform for ExpressVPN’s “It’s Time To Express” campaign, bringing it to life across film, outdoor and gaming.

The Brief

ExpressVPN had a conversion problem that looked like an awareness problem. When people searched for the brand by name, it won. When they searched for a VPN, it was one of many. The challenge was to move up the funnel and become the obvious choice before the question had even been typed.

That meant breaking the category convention. VPN advertising had long looked the same; hoods up, warning screens, red text, hackers lurking in car parks. The message was fear. ExpressVPN wanted the opposite. Something human, not paranoid.

Privacy as confidence. Protection as freedom.

The Idea

“Express yourself” became the creative territory. “Express” became the call to action; one verb, repeated across every format, doing the work of a feature list.

Express with confidence. Express and enjoy an internet without limits. Express at the press of a button.

Within that territory, “Freedom To” and “Freedom From” opened up two ways into the same message, one about what the brand lets you do, the other about what it protects you from. The platform had to carry a 30 second CTV spot for Netflix and Amazon Prime, OOH for roadside and rail alongside gaming assets for their sponsorship of the League of Legends EMEA Championship – stretching across formats without fragmenting. For the UK campaign itself, we led with “Freedom To”, a more positive, enabling expression of what privacy makes possible.

The Work

One creative idea, developed across multiple formats, audiences and markets.

US campaign development. The platform began in the US, where “Freedom To” and “Freedom From” ran as 30 second hero films across social, built for each placement in widescreen, vertical, 4:5 and TikTok formats. Each explored a different expression of the same underlying idea, establishing a creative language that could work across the wider campaign. For the voicover, we developed a bespoke ExpressVPN voice using AI, directed through creative prompting to carry the brand’s tone and personality. The approach gave us full flexibility over script adaptations and set up a voice architecture that could travel with the campaign across markets.

Freedom To

Freedom From

Alongside the hero films, we developed six performance ads, each focused on a specific product benefit; theft protection, gaming performance, shopping safety, ad blocking, streaming access and shopping deals. Designed to communicate quickly, each used the same typographic and motion language as the hero films while giving its individual benefit room to stand out. Like the hero films, they ran across social.

UK connected TV. For the UK launch, we re-cut the “Freedom To” social film, delivering 30 and 20 second versions that ran on Netflix and Amazon Prime. We adjusted key shots to shift the film’s cultural register for a UK audience, and developed a UK specific ExpressVPN voice through the same AI-directed approach we had used on the US work. Netflix and Amazon have their own clearance departments, but we cleared both cuts through Clearcast before submitting them. That meant the ads met the BCAP code, future-proofing them not only for CTV but for VOD and linear TV.

UK outdoor. We developed headlines for the outdoor formats, then designed and produced the campaign across Tube car panels, rail station panels, static and animated roadside placements, and digital screens at Boxpark Wembley for a high-impact digital outdoor placement timed to coincide with Coldplay performing at Wembley Stadium.

Gaming. For the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC), we created “Freedom To Game”, a 30-second film delivered in widescreen and vertical formats and approved by Riot Games. The creative extended the campaign into gaming, bringing ExpressVPN’s sponsorship of Riot Games into a context where the brand could speak directly to its audience.

One system, every format

The campaign had to work at very different scales and speeds, from roadside screens glimpsed in passing to films watched at home, from outdoor placements to mobile feeds.

We built a consistent typographic and motion language across the work, giving each execution the flexibility to suit its format without losing its connection to the wider campaign. The result was a creative platform that could stretch across markets and media while remaining unmistakably ExpressVPN.