Bartle Bogle Hegarty opened its doors in 1982. Eight years later, Campaign voted them the agency of the decade. Why? Their work was considered, intelligent, and, in a decade often referred to as style-obsessed, BBH was the most style-obsessed. But they also had something few agencies have today; swagger. They had the confidence, or is it arrogance? to cut their own path. Refusing to do creative pitches, turning down business and making challenging creative calls few agencies would make. ForRead more
PODCAST: Barbara Nokes (Pt. 1)
During my first year in advertising, a shiny new book turned up at the agency (Brooks Legon Bloomfield). Weirdly, some in the creative department referred to it as ‘the bible’. It’s actual name was The Designers & Art Directors Annual. I was told it showed the best advertising and design from the U.K. Although, also at this point, the U.K. arguably produced the best advertising and design on the planet. This was the 1986 version. The advertising featured was judgedRead more
BOB LEVENSON by Tom Yobage.
Sometimes people ask me where on earth I find all the work for these posts. To me, that’s the easy part. And although it’s sometimes time consuming, there’s a finite amount of places I have to check out. Like doing a big jigsaw. The difficult bit is this bit. What to say about it? Sometimes I have nothing to say. Putting ‘Check out these bangers!’ before a hundred ads seems lazy. But what if I didn’t know the person. NeverRead more
PODCAST: Derek Day Pt. 2.
To hear Derek tell it, his career was totally unplanned. One impetuous decision after the next. Leading to endless mistakes. Exhibit A: Quitting the best agency in the country to go on holiday with his girlfriend. (CDP) To me, it looks as meticulously pre-planned as any of the plots in the ‘Ocean’s’ films. STEP 1: Work for the best agencies in town: (CDP, BMP and DDB). STEP 2: A reconnaissance trip to the States (Smith/Greenland). STEP 3: Create financial securityRead more
PODCAST: Derek Day Pt. 1.
Being one, I’m very aware of my fellow double d’s out there in advertising. Dave Droga – met once, gave him a lift after judging D&AD together. Donny Deutsch – never met, seen him on Morning Joe though. David Denton – did a few ads with him at BMP, did Cointreau ‘Ice melts’, amongst many others. Don Draper – never met, seems cool. And Derek Day – less known than the first three, but well worth checking out. I’d hearRead more
PODCAST: JOHN WEBSTER #2. John & Research – Sarah Carter
You can count the number of Creatives who embrace research on one finger. The rest of us desperately try to fight it with lines like ‘you can’t research original ideas’, ‘the group gets lead by its most vocal member’, ‘the public can only judge finished ads, not research material’, and on and on. Good arguments. But the argument against is better – John Webster. Once delivered, it’s hard for us sceptics to know where to go. He loves research. HeRead more
PODCAST: JOHN WEBSTER & IDEAS – Dave Trott
British advertising may have had more successful businessmen. More accomplished creative directors. Bigger award winners. But never a better Creative. No one has more ideas living in British people’s heads than John Webster. They didn’t gatecrash either – they were invited in. Singing and dancing their way past the barriers and into the national consciousness. One big, happy conga line; Smash Martians, Cresta Bear, Honey Monster, John Smith’s Arkwright, the Prize Guys, the Humphreys, and on and on. Born acrossRead more
YE OLDE HARRODS CAMPAIGN.
Halfway through this post, I considered abandoning it. It was referencing things that seemed so detached from today. Like I was recounting tales of life in the court of Louis XIV. The time, energy and hard cash given to creating a single press ad looks so excessive. Obviously times have changed, digital has eaten their lunch, breakfast and dinner. Smaller audiences mean smaller budgets. Some of ads below went into The Sunday Times Magazine in 1996, at that time, inRead more
PODCAST: Yvonne Chalkley
If you’ve ever wondered how reliant creatives are on their producers, count how many are married to them. Lots. Including me, my two creative partners at Campbell Doyle Dye and dozens of friends. Psychologists say we seek qualities in a partner we don’t have ourselves. To create more complete children. So right brainers, who come up with the theories, need left brainers to help turn them into reality. Yvonne Chalkley has turned more crazy, impossible, can’t-be-done theories into reality thanRead more
PODCAST: Steve Hudson
Imagine a day where you don’t own a computer, and you lose your phone just after breakfast. We used to live like that. Every damn day. With virtually no access to information. Researching how to be better at your job wasn’t a thing. Advertising people didn’t do podcasts or post articles about their work. True, there were books, but not many. Aside from awards annuals, the main two were ‘Ogilvy On Advertising’ and ‘Bill Bernbach’s Book’. Occasionally you’d photocopy an article fromRead more
PODCAST: MARTIN JONES ON PITCHING
Creating is different to managing. Creators try to break rules, managers set them. Creators look inward, managers look outward. Creators are introverts, managers are extroverts. Not 100%, but most, AMV/BBDO once Myers Briggs tested their creative department. The results came back – fifty people were rated ‘I’ (introvert), one was ‘E’ – the creative boss (Peter Souter). I’s are ‘more likely to be successful in careers like writing, science and art’. Makes sense. “I’s are predominantly concerned with their own thoughts andRead more
PODCAST: JOHN LLOYD
Whatever happened to funny ads? Have clients stopped buying them or are agencies not writing them? They used to dominate the ad breaks. Humour was the first tool you reached for after being handed a brief. Why? Well, as that Poppins women says ‘A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down’. Actually…did they dominate ad breaks? Maybe I’ve slipped on my rose-tinted specs again? I reach for an old D&AD Annual. Randomly, I pick up 1991’s. 34 tv andRead more
CONVERSATIONS WITH JIM RISWOLD
Feb 13, 2024, 12:39 PM (Twitter) Hi Dave, I’m a huge fan of your podcast and your work before that. I was wondering if you’d be interested in interviewing Jim Riswold? – Kash Sree Feb 13, 2024, 12:52PM. 100%-definitely, absolutely-yes-please Kash. Dx Feb 13, 2024, 12:59 PM (Twitter) I know you have a lot of the greats on your podcast and I honestly believe that Jim is one of them, though not as well-known as he deserves to be. InRead more
PODCAST: NICK COHEN
“A lot of people on your podcast became creatives by accident.” Someone messaged me this last week (after listening to four of them back-to-back). I got me thinking; why do creatives become creatives? I’d divide them into two groups. The Lifestyle Brigade™ – attracted by the trappings. (Nothing wrong with that – it’s why most people go to work.) And the Expressionists™ – attracted by putting a bit of themselves out into the world. A point of view, an observation,Read more
PODCAST: Alfredo Marcantonio
So far, I’m about eighty podcasts in.If someone tells me they listen, they usually follow up with ‘that Frank Lowe one’s great’ (or ‘sick’, depending on their age).I always ask why, but never get a clear answer.They just like it.It was enjoyable to record too, but I left wondering whyhe’d barely mentioned Lowe Howard-Spink.As if he’d only ever worked at CDP.Which was a shame, CDP had been amazing, but they weren’t my era.Lowe’s was.By the time I’d snuck into advertisingRead more
PODCAST: Paul Feldwick
I used to like Teslas, I nearly bought one. Not any more. Obviously it’s still a great product, but it’s an Elon Musk company. And his purchase of Twitter, and subsequent flooding of my feed with his thoughts has put me off him. I choose not to give my money to a multi billionaire who whines everyday about how unfair the world is. I want best product for the least amount of money, but who I buy it from countsRead more
PODCAST: Michael Johnson
A muffin company wants to make more money. It’s hard to increase their current customers weekly muffin intake – so they need add some new ones. To flip muffin fans who aren’t choosing theirs, they need to tell them about their company or muffins that will get them to try one. And tell them in a way that gets their attention. But the first thing they need to do is choose who to speak to. An ad agency? A designRead more
BLOGCAST: Graham Watson #2
I met Graham 33 years ago. My partner and I desperately wanted to work at BBH. At the end of a book crit, Graham gave us a brief and told us to come back the following week. We left excited. Maybe this test was our way in? The following Thursday we lugged a stack of ideas back to Graham detailing how we’d make Bama Thermal insoles the season’s must have for fashionistas. (Bama Thermal insoles? is there a less BBHRead more
BLOG/CAST: Graham Watson #1
In the style-obsessed 80s, no agency was more obsessed than BBH. Everything that came out of the place reeked of it. Including the staff. Their men’s toilets were stocked with tubs of hair gel (What? It was the eighties!) Their AAR reel, a tool for agencies for clients to compile pitch lists, didn’t follow the template the rest of the industry did (pasty faced public schoolboys using big words, diagrams interspersed with clips from their ads). BBH’s simply showed endingRead more
PODCAST: Mary Warlick
I’ve just finished watching ‘Coco Chanel Unbuttoned’. Not only did I discover Coco wasn’t her real name (Gabrielle), I discovered her philosophy. Pre-Coco, high end fashion used the finest, most expensive materials, like silk, lace and satin – a visual display of one’s wealth. Coco chose instead, the basic materials she’d grown up with, poor and in an orphanage. Like jersey, previously used to make men’s underwear, she used it to make dresses. She did the same with the tough,Read more