SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

THG Studios has partnered with Cowshed on a new brand campaign, Gloriously Untamed, supporting the British wellness brand’s relaunch and image reset.

Centred on Cowshed’s Somerset origins, the campaign presents the brand as less polished and more rooted in everyday indulgence. It marks a fresh push for the business, founded at Babington House in 1998, with the message that wellness should feel pleasurable rather than tightly managed.

Shot in the English countryside, the campaign draws on Cowshed’s long-running “champagne flutes and muddy boots” idea to frame a mix of calm and disorder. Styling features products and clothing from British names including Damson Madder, Oliver Bonas and Marks & Spencer, while the visual direction leans on countryside imagery and domestic rituals.

The work combined a physical shoot with limited use of artificial intelligence in post-production and content creation. Alongside the campaign imagery and film, THG Studios also produced eCommerce photography for Cowshed’s updated product range.

The relaunch comes as beauty and wellness brands face growing pressure to stand out in a crowded market, where many have adopted clinical design cues and language around optimisation. Cowshed is seeking to differentiate itself by emphasising scent, British provenance and a more relaxed tone.

That positioning sits at the heart of the campaign. The brand describes its refresh as “fragrance-first” and “design-led”, with revised formulas, stronger scent profiles and new botanical packaging intended to support the wider repositioning.

Creative direction

Rob Sanderson, group creative director at THG Studios, said the brief called for a tone that reflected the brand’s origins and personality rather than the conventions of the wider category.

“Cowshed is a brand with real soul, and that required an approach that matched its honesty. In a world of wellness brands increasingly governed by rigid rules and an overly clinical pressure to be perfect, we aimed to re-energise Cowshed with some of the creative, offbeat energy that made the original Soho House parent brand so disruptive in the 90s.”

“‘Gloriously Untamed’ became our mantra, expressing a sense of luxury without reverence and indulgence without apology. Drink champagne in the bath if you want to, get your boots muddy and jump in a river if you feel like it. If it feels good, do it. In Cowshed’s world, we embrace the Great British weather, we break the rules with style, and we live life on our own terms. Above all, we do it with a grounded sense of fun and freedom, because pleasure shouldn’t need permission.”

The campaign also reflects a broader effort by THG Studios to show how its in-house creative, strategy and production teams can work together on brand repositioning projects. The studio is part of THG’s wider commerce services business and has been expanding work across advertising, content production and online retail assets.

For Cowshed, the relaunch is as much about restoring brand identity as it is about changing packaging or campaign imagery. The business was established within the Soho House orbit and built a following around bath, body and home fragrance products shaped by a recognisably British mix of rural references and urban lifestyle cues.

Its latest reset aims to bring those references back to the foreground. The updated brand expression is intended to feel human, sensory and irreverent, with one foot in the city and the other in the countryside.

Brand reset

Kat Kerrigan, Senior Brand Manager at Cowshed, said the relaunch was designed to reintroduce the brand with more confidence while preserving its original character.

“With Gloriously Untamed, we wanted to reintroduce Cowshed with the character it was born with: British, sensory, irreverent and deeply pleasurable. Cowshed has always stood for wellness that feels human rather than prescriptive – fragrance-led, beautifully made and grounded, with one foot in the city and the other in the countryside. This relaunch brings that spirit back with more confidence and more design, from elevated formulas and bolder visual codes to a campaign that lets the brand be a little wild again. THG Studios understood that immediately. Their world-class studio team, strong production craft and thoughtful use of AI helped us create something unmistakably Cowshed: premium, playful, modern and proudly British.”

THG Studios said the work was produced across its UK creative spaces as well as on location. It has positioned its production infrastructure as a differentiator for consumer brands looking to combine campaign work with online retail imagery and film.

Cowshed’s relaunch reflects a wider pattern in beauty and personal care, with established labels revisiting heritage and tone as they compete with digitally native brands and changing consumer tastes. Rather than chase a clinical or highly perfected aesthetic, this campaign leans on British humour, countryside references and a less regimented view of wellness.

Cowshed also used THG Studios for eCommerce photography to create what it described as a more cohesive expression for the refreshed range.

BT has signed a five-year contract with BAE Systems to provide secure connectivity services across the defence group’s global network in 40 countries.

The deal includes an option to extend for up to three years. BT will support BAE Systems’ UK and international operations through its wider network infrastructure.

BAE Systems’ network spans multiple markets and supports staff working in specialist environments. The agreement focuses on secure connectivity for a business operating in defence and related industrial activities.

BT said the work will support access to digital tools and more flexible working across BAE Systems teams. It also linked the contract to demand from organisations in sectors including defence, manufacturing and critical national infrastructure for dependable communications and security services.

The contract follows BT’s launch of a sovereign platform for organisations working in sensitive national roles or facing changing regulatory requirements. That wider push has focused on services for customers that need communications systems built around tighter security and operational controls.

Contract scope

For BAE Systems, the agreement is part of a broader effort to reshape its digital environment. The work is tied to its digital transformation programme and to improving operational efficiency across the business.

Large industrial and defence groups have been reviewing network resilience, security and access to digital systems as more operations rely on connected tools across different sites and countries. In that context, communications contracts are increasingly being tied to broader technology change programmes rather than treated as stand-alone telecoms arrangements.

BT presented the contract as part of its long-running work with organisations that run complex, security-sensitive operations. It said its experience in managing large networks and secure services helped underpin the arrangement with BAE Systems.

Chris Sims set out BT’s view of the network’s role in the partnership.

“Networks are mission-critical to BAE Systems. This partnership is about getting those foundations exactly right, and we have decades of experience delivering secure, complex connectivity for critical organisations that need absolute reliability. By combining our resilient networks with advanced security services, we’re giving BAE Systems a platform they can depend on to support the UK’s security, now and into the future,” said Chris Sims, chief commercial officer, BT Business.

Digital shift

BAE Systems described the contract as part of a wider change to its internal digital estate. Partners will play a central role in helping reshape how staff access systems and work across the organisation.

That reflects a broader trend among large defence and manufacturing businesses, where network design is increasingly tied to productivity, security oversight and the rollout of digital tools across dispersed operations. Companies in those sectors often need to balance tighter controls with demands for easier access to systems in varied working environments.

Dr Mary Haigh outlined BAE Systems’ position on that transition.

“We’re taking a significant step in our transformation of the Digital ecosystem to deliver a secure, insight-led digitally enabled working environment to power operational excellence across BAE Systems. Our partners will play a critical role by unlocking greater agility, pace and innovation across our business,” said Dr Mary Haigh, director digital delivery, BAE Systems.

The CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre at the University of Southampton has published research on the UK silicon photonics sector, arguing that stronger domestic scale-up infrastructure could boost growth and support sovereign technology development.

A survey of 100 UK-based decision-makers found broad support for expanding domestic manufacturing and prototyping capacity in silicon photonics, which integrates optical components onto silicon chips. It also identified trade barriers and reliance on overseas manufacturing as constraints on growth.

The findings show that 76% of respondents believe better UK scale-up infrastructure would accelerate company growth. Nearly a third, 32%, said high tariff costs were creating barriers to developing silicon photonics prototypes.

Economic analysis by CORNERSTONE researchers suggests a domestic pilot line could add GBP £2.9 billion to the UK economy by 2040 and create about 2,850 jobs. The analysis also links a pilot line to stronger domestic positions in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.

Domestic demand

The study portrays a sector with strong UK ambition but uneven industrial support. Some 77% of respondents said they are developing or deploying silicon photonics in the UK, or plan to do so, while 64% said they already manufacture abroad or expect to in future.

That split highlights a gap between research and commercial production. More UK fabrication and process support would help retain a larger share of value that currently flows overseas, the study argues.

Two-thirds of respondents, 67%, said they were confident in the UK’s ability to benefit from the silicon photonics opportunity. CORNERSTONE set that against wider expectations for growth in photonics, with the broader UK sector forecast to generate annual output of more than GBP £20 billion.

Silicon photonics has attracted growing attention for its potential use in data centres, optical networks, artificial intelligence systems and quantum technologies. It has also become part of a wider debate over how the UK can build strategic capacity in advanced semiconductor-related industries.

Case for pilot line

A central finding was industry support for a UK pilot line, which would give companies access to mid-stage production support between laboratory work and full commercial manufacturing. In the survey, 74% said such a facility would accelerate innovation and 79% said it would significantly strengthen the UK’s sovereign technology position.

Respondents said a pilot line would also improve quality, speed time to market and reduce reliance on overseas foundries. The responses point to a practical concern among companies that can design and test products but have limited local options when they need to scale production.

The findings align with recent calls for a national photonics roadmap and investment in silicon photonics infrastructure. They also come as international interest in the field rises, including major private investment in the US.

Professor Graham Reed, Director of CORNERSTONE, said: “Global investment in SiPh is accelerating – we’ve seen the scale of ambition from the US, with major federal and private commitments including NVIDIA’s flagship $6bn investments. The UK has the talent, the expertise, and the market opportunity to make substantial gains in the sector, and CORNERSTONE’s market research demonstrates significant demand for domestic pilot line capabilities.”

The research suggests UK companies want to keep more of their development and production activity at home if the industrial base can support it. For policymakers, that frames silicon photonics as both an economic opportunity and a resilience issue.

CORNERSTONE is an open-access silicon photonics prototyping foundry hosted at the University of Southampton, with partners including the University of Glasgow and the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Since 2014, it has fabricated more than 900 photonic integrated circuit designs for more than 125 organisations across 26 countries.

Callum Littlejohns, Deputy Director at CORNERSTONE, said: “2024 projections from Future Markets puts the global SiPh market at least $46.5B by 2035 as demand from AI infrastructure, data centres, and quantum technologies accelerate. Commercialising products is the only way to get a slice of the pie. The case for support from the UK government is straightforward. A domestic pilot line is the logical next step to help companies scale their silicon photonics chips, translating directly into jobs, export revenue, and long-term technological sovereign capability.”