Before we had this thing we had books. There were few about advertising. Aside from the awards annuals, there was one by Jerry Della Femina, but it didn’t have any pictures. One by David Ogilvy, but he wasn’t exactly popular at the time. George Lois had a giant square one, which was good. Then there was Bill Bernbach’s Book. Different league. The gold standard. Our bible. Virtually all creatives owned a copy. We didn’t know who’d done ads as thereRead more
Month: July 2021
WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Dan Watts.
As a kid I loved anything that was ‘wrong’. Funny stuff. Dark stuff. Magical stuff. The stuff I wasn’t allowed to watch. Stuff that did something fuzzy to your brain. I’d pick the London Dungeon for a family day out. I’d ask for Viz over the Beano. Anything that was naughty and went against the grain. Anything that stuck in your head for all the wrong reasons. It’s of no surprise then that nearly all the ads I liked beforeRead more
WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Lynsey Atkin.
“It relies on me finding people who aren’t afraid to be honest and not too worried about looking cool.” This is what Dave said to me when asking if I’d like to gather together some of my favourite adverts from that distant yet golden time before I knew anyone had ‘favourite adverts’. Well Dave, you got me. Honest? Deeply uncool? Two of my top personality traits, seeing as we’re dealing in preferences here. As someone who spent their formative yearsRead more
RORY SUTHERLAND: PART 2.
Finally! Not exactly hot on the heels of Part 1 – it’s been eighteen months. I wonder whether the fresh-faced, pre-pandemic Rory would’ve answered those questions in the same way today? The last eighteen months have probably changed us a bit. Just a reminder, the questions I asked back then were built around the idea of a new agency, as these are, like ‘how would you hire?’, ‘what kind of atmosphere would you want?’ etc. But rather than ask themRead more
WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – George Tannenbaum.
I grew up in an advertising household. My father was a copywriter at a large, mediocre agency called Kenyon & Eckhardt. He lays claim to having written Brylcreme’s US slogan, “A little dab’ll do ya.” Later he rose to Chairman of that agency. Accordingly, even at a very young age, we paid attention to TV commercials. We watched them and often commented on them. My father also did work for Nabisco, now the horribly named “Mondelez.” Way back in blackRead more