The Brief

Sky needed a line to launch The Portable Door, a genre-bending fantasy that doesn’t behave like one. The film was whimsical, odd, and office-bound, think Harry Potter meets The Office, with a dash of Terry Pratchett.

Our job was to boil that into a tagline that could carry posters, trailers, and digital promos. Something clever, but not cringey. Accessible, but not bland. Tonally aligned to the eccentricity of the world.

The film doesn’t fit neatly into one box. It’s not a traditional fantasy. It’s not quite a comedy. It’s not exactly YA, but not fully adult either. And that’s what made the job more interesting.

The initial brief leaned seasonal, a spring release, Easter holiday timing, family viewing. So the final tagline had to wear multiple hats, commercial enough for Sky’s broad audience, and sharp enough to suggest the film’s offbeat flavour.

Research & Narrative Mapping

We broke the story down to its bones.

What was this film really saying?
What genre expectations did it upend?
What tone did it flirt with, but never fully embrace?

Here’s where we landed.

Audience

• Adults and older teens looking for something charming and unusual

• Families searching for light fantasy fare with a British twist

• Viewers fatigued by epic CGI wizardry and craving something smaller, odder, funnier

Tone

• Quirky but dry. More enchanted filing cabinets than dragons.

• A bureaucratic fantasy that’s visually rich but emotionally understated

• A film about doors, yes, but also disillusionment, corporate power, and finding purpose in chaos

Themes

• Magic, but make it HR-approved

• Hidden worlds in mundane settings

• The absurdity of modern work culture

• Escapism, literally and emotionally

• Curiosity, rebellion, and the slow, weird journey to selfhood

Objectives

• Speak to the tone of the film: whimsical but grounded

• Be broad enough to work across formats (OOH, digital, AV)

• Connect to the "portable door" metaphor without being too literal

• Optionally tie in the Easter release window

• Echo Jim Hensons magic of charm, puppetry, craft. Whimsy with wisdom. Handmade weirdness. Playful on the surface, profound underneath.

Copy Explorations

I explored a few strategic routes,

The Escapism Angle. This centred around the literal and metaphorical idea of escape, from the office, the ordinary, the expected.

• This Easter, reality files for annual leave.

• There’s a door. And it’s not to HR.

• The job is weird. The perks are magical.

• Your commute just got stranger.

• Every job has its secrets. This one has portals.

• Mondays are magic again.

• No experience necessary. Just curiosity.

• Your job just got a lot more magical.

• You had one job. Don’t touch the door.

• This Easter… step into the unexpected.

• This Easter, adventure is just a door away.

• This Easter, the weird gets wonderful.

• A magical mess is waiting... just open the door.

The Door as Metaphor. This focused on the portal motif, possibility, choice, direction.

• Opportunity comes knocking this easter.

• One door. Infinite exits.

• Not all doors lead home.

• When one door closes, open a portal instead.

• When one door shuts, another one gets weird.

• One door closes. Another one starts glowing.

• Every door leads somewhere.

• Not all doors are meant to stay closed.

• The next step is never straight.

• Open carefully.

• Step in. Clock out.

• Open the door to something magical this easter.

• Fantasy just filed in.

The Corporate Satire Route. More ironic and internally referential. Great for niche audiences, but risked alienating the broad demo.

• The fate of the world? Still waiting on approval.

• Your nine-to-five just opened a portal.

• Two interns. One glowing door. Zero training.

• One promotion away from total collapse.

• Adventure looks different with office lighting.

• Office politics. With spells.

• This Easter, reality files for annual leave.

• This Easter, open the door to something… wildly mismanaged.

• Annual leave denied. Time travel approved.

• This Easter, the office is a little... off.

• Welcome to your magical unpaid internship.

• Magic is real. HR is worse.

• Clocks in. Drops out.

• Magic's in the filing cabinet.

• Magic’s been acquired.

• The most powerful force in the universe? Middle management.

• Fantasy meets bureaucracy.

• Now hiring: interns, wizards, and the easily confused.

• Employee of the month: still missing.

• The chosen one is... on probation.

• Monday’s been cancelled. Again.

• Save the world. And maybe your job.

• Where magic meets middle management.

• Fantasy just got a promotion.

We tested these routes internally, analysing how each line might land on a billboard, a homepage tile, or an AV title card. Which would intrigue without overexplaining? Which would spark questions, not just nods?

The Final Line

The client went with a seasonal hook.

This Easter, escape the ordinary.

A broad, open invitation. Short, clean, and tonally safe, but it worked. It carried the idea of portable escapism as both physical and emotional: you’re leaving something behind, entering something else.

It gave the visuals room to breathe. The campaign leaned heavily on design, and this line let the key art lead, while gently setting the frame. Other options explored internal humour and surrealism. Some played harder on the door metaphor. Some tried to get clever with magical bureaucracy. But ultimately, this was the line that made the poster feel like a portal itself.

Was it the boldest line we wrote? No, haha.
But was it the right one for the context, audience, and channel mix? Yup.

The Result

The tagline was used across poster art, Sky’s streaming platform, social teasers, and AV cutdowns. It sat neatly next to glowing doorways, flickering office lights, and swirling springtime magic.

And while the campaign didn’t go viral, the line gave the film a clean entry point. It didn’t try to summarise the whole concept, it let the mystery breathe. It was the invitation, not the explanation.

While the campaign wasn’t award-chasing or headline-grabbing, the line delivered on its job, it made a light, quirky fantasy feel like a cinematic break from the everyday. It hit mass-market appeal without diluting the story’s unique flavour.

• Taglines don’t always need to be witty. Sometimes they need to be anchoring. This one gave the campaign a flexible, durable phrase to build from, and give people something to look forward to.

• It teased tone without overexplaining. There’s magic here, but you’re not being clobbered with it. The simplicity invited curiosity.

• It trusted the art direction. With lush visuals and fantasy motifs in play, the copy could afford to whisper instead of shout.

The film was weird, specific, and hard to summarise, but instead of forcing the weirdness into one sentence, they found a line that gave the campaign breathing room. That’s a strategic decision, not a safe one.

And as a writer, it reminded me that even a soft tagline can carry weight if it’s placed well, timed right, and rooted in concept.

This one didn’t scream. But it opened the door.