CASE STUDY • JERSEY
Jersey Then&Now
Where heritage meets digital storytelling
We launched and manage the social media for Jersey Then&Now — a project bringing island history to life through colourised archival photography. Within the first month: over 2,300 followers, more than 180,000 impressions, and a feature in Channel 103. Cultural storytelling meets modern visual technique, transforming forgotten Jersey moments into narratives that resonate today.
How we built Jersey Then&Now
We created and scaled the Jersey Then&Now social media presence from the ground up — turning archival imagery into high-performing digital content through colourisation, restoration and local storytelling. What started as a passion project by founder Michael Ben became one of Jersey's fastest-growing Instagram accounts in its first month.
The brief came from Michael Ben — a Jersey newcomer who fell for the island on his first drive around it. „Jersey is such a special place,” he told us. „The amount of history we have, the beauty. Nowhere else in the world has what we have.” He had a collection of archival photographs, a working knowledge of AI colourisation tools, and zero social media strategy. That is where we came in.
Our job was to build the infrastructure: a posting cadence calibrated to the Jersey audience, caption copywriting that opened conversations instead of closing them, hashtag strategy anchored in local identity (#Jersey, #StHelier, #JerseyHistory, #ChannelIslands), and a visual grid that made every post recognisable as Jersey Then&Now within half a second of seeing it. The content came from Michael. The strategy, execution, and community management came from us.
Then something unexpected happened. Within the first month, the account was growing so fast that Instagram flagged the activity as suspicious and temporarily banned the profile. Michael was, understandably, gutted. But the data told a story no algorithm could misread: 2,300+ new followers, 180,000+ impressions, thousands of comments from islanders who recognised their own grandparents in the photos. The account was rebuilt, the audience came back stronger, and the growth has not stopped since.
The breakthrough came when Channel 103 — Jersey's leading radio station — picked up the story. Their feature „The newly revealed faces and details of Jersey's past” brought the project to every islander with a radio or phone. Suddenly, Jersey Then&Now was not just a social media account — it was part of the island's conversation about its own history. That is the moment a content project becomes a cultural one. And that is the moment a marketing agency knows it did its job.
A Glimpse of Jersey Then&Now
Discover how archival imagery is transformed into vibrant, modern storytelling through colourisation, restoration, and creative direction.
