Stephen Lloyd

Overview

As Axon expanded into key international markets, it became increasingly important for our marketing imagery to reflect the communities we serve across the globe. AI and stock content weren’t able to meet the mark especially when it came to featuring the latest Axon products in culturally relevant and contextually accurate ways.

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Given my experience art directing global campaigns for major brands, I was brought on to lead a localized photo and video initiative that could scale across regions capturing authentic partnerships between public safety agencies and our technology in action.

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Goal

The creative brief centered around a focused vision: Every image needed to capture three essential elements: The local culture, the local agency, and the latest Axon technology. Existing resources could rarely deliver all three. Stock often had either local context or police imagery but never current Axon products. AI wasn't yet reliable for this kind of specific, real-world storytelling. So we needed to build it from scratch, region by region and cover everything from TASER energy devices, to software, to body-worn cameras, and even drones and real-time operations.

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My Role

I led the end-to-end creative production for this global campaign. To start, I created detailed pre-production guides for each region, including visual direction, shot lists, scheduling, and brand context. These documents were shared with our regional marketing partners, who helped source participating agencies.

 

To staff each shoot, I worked with NeedAFixer.com to assemble top-tier local crews — many with backgrounds in documentary, broadcast, and cinematic production like the BBC, NatGeo, and Netflix. These professionals brought a high level of craft and adaptability to every location, helping us move fast without compromising quality.

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Once boots were on the ground, I directed each shoot in person. Travel was tightly coordinated: land the night before, scout locations, and begin shooting at first light. We made the most of every daylight hour, usually capturing 2–3 days’ worth of content before moving on to the next location.

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Post-shoot, I selected around 150 final images per country — curating from thousands — to be sent to our editing partners for final color and cleanup. Within two weeks, these images were in the hands of our global marketing and sales teams.

 

Outcome

Over 12 months I traveled to 9 countries across 3 continents, delivered 1,350+ polished hero images, shot over 72 hours of b-roll, and represented Axon’s products in real-world use by actual public safety professionals.

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These assets were deployed across Axon’s owned channels, used in global campaigns, and supported regional launches in new markets. In many cases, they became the first time international partners saw themselves authentically represented in our creative materials.

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This project proved that high-quality, localized storytelling can scale and that with the right structure in place, global creative doesn’t have to compromise nuance or detail. We now have a replicable playbook for international photo and video production, ready to be deployed wherever it’s needed next.