Roy Grace may well be the best ad guy you’ve never heard of. But you’ll recognise some of his Volkswagen ads below, created at DDB between 1965 and 1986. Whereas most creatives will lean towards a particular medium – Roy was as good in print as he was in tv. Many creatives make their names on one, great account, like a Nike or Volkswagen, Roy did great work across everything; from J&B Rare whisky to Alka-Seltzer, from Chanel to SOSRead more
Posts filed in: Creativity
ANOTHER POST ON POSTERS.
Clever-clogs, San Franciscan adman Howard Gossage once said that advertising had a responsibility to society not to pollute our environment. Particularly outdoor, as everybody was exposed to it. I’m sure everyone in marketing at the time nodded sagely in agreement, then got back to polluting. After all, job one is shifting product. Creating a more pleasant trip to the shops is an indulgence. Isn’t it? If you believe dull, ugly ads shift more product. Do they get you to buy?Read more
COPY SAFARI THOUGHTS.
Last week, Vikki Ross asked me to do one of her Copy Safaris. A stroll around London judging advertising in the wild, then posting on Twitter. One of the good things is that you don’t pick and choose, you comment on everything; the good, the bad and the fugly. One of the benefits of having to give an instant take, often on the move, is you can’t overthink it, you react more like the rest of the people on theRead more
PODCAST: Adrian Lyne
In 1969, fourteen years after the first commercial aired in Britain, colour arrived. The bar was raised. Ambitious ads could now go beyond the over-lit, creakily acted black & white output from adland. Ads, well, the good ones, started to look like they could’ve been snipped from a movie. But they were still pretty formal. A couple of years later, a young producer decides he wants to stop producing ads and start shooting them Rather than chase the formal perfection,Read more
WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Paul Burke
My childhood, to put it mildly, was not a middle class one, so I was spared that haughty parental diktat to watch BBC and not ITV. Thames and LWT were our channels of choice which meant that I grew up watching Opportunity Knocks, Benny Hill, Man About the House and The Sweeney. Good job too because watching the commercial break during every episode of On the Buses turned out to be the perfect preparation for my future career. I mustRead more
PODCAST: Dave Brown
When I put these blogs together I build up a file. Work for every client goes into a file, that goes into the appropriate agency file, the agency are numbered so that they come chronologically. It sounds a faff, it is a faff, but the only any way I can do it. Anyway, the last file is generally ‘P.R’ – all the news clippings, interviews and pictures that the individual has accumulated over the years. It helps me get aRead more
Podcast: MICHAEL WOLFF
Leap before you look. That’s written on the back of Michael’s business cards. He prefers instinct over logic; everyone can access to logic, so they all end up in the same place. At Wolff Olins he took a brief to rebrand a paint company, now most would end up with rainbows, peacocks or some colourful iconography. Not Michael. He chose a fox, because ‘the owner reminded me of a wily fox’. When Bowyer’s needed a new logo, Michael went withRead more
PODCAST: HORRY
You can’t advertise a product unless you can get attention. You can’t get attention without standing out. You can’t stand out without being different. You can’t do different if you think the same. If you think different, you’re are different. But, being different is a problem in ad agencies. A BBH Planner once complained ‘the problem with this place is they can’t accommodate black sheep’. Equally, I doubt TBWA embrace disruptive people to create disruptive work. Why hire people who challengeRead more
CHARLES SAATCHI.
He changed British creativity, global advertising and the world of Art. But unlike most big names in our business, Charles Saatchi has a tiny digital footprint, in terms of his advertising career. Only half a dozen photos, only two interviews and just a handful of credits on Saatchi & Saatchi’s creative work. Being slightly delusional, I’ve reached out many times in an attempt to get him to do a podcast – I’d love to pick his brain about those earlyRead more
PODCAST: Cabell Harris
Ad agencies often claim to have no set style, that each campaign is created from scratch, bespoke for every client. It may be true for the mediocre ones, but not the great ones. Nobody used to confuse the work of AMV, BBH and GGT. The same with Wieden, Chiat and Fallon. Today, stick me in front of a tv and I’d fancy my chances at picking the Droga5. Or spotting the Uncommon on a tube platform. Because although ad agenciesRead more
PODCAST: Malcolm Venville
Whoever it’s with, whenever I do these podcasts, personal links seem to turn up along the way. Things I’d forgotten or been unaware of – Paul Weiland was once my landlord, I judged the One Show with Gerry Graf 15 years earlier, David Holmes drew a poster for me 25 years earlier. This isn’t like that, this time it really is personal (isn’t that the Jaws 2 strap line?) Malcolm and I started out together; he’d shoot pictures for free,Read more
PODCAST: R. O. Blechman
That was the first drawing I saw by R. O. Blechman. I loved it instantly. Firstly, it’s a great observation of how companies operate, particularly ad agencies. But also, I was in the ideas business and I’d never seen them represented like that – in different levels from a tiny lightbulb to an enormous chandelier. I also loved the naive style of the drawing. It looked like a note one naughty child would pass to another secretly in class. DrawnRead more
PODCAST: Oli Beale.
“Hello Dave, We’ve not met before. I’m an ad creative too. I felt compelled to write and tell you how much I’m enjoying your blog. I’ve learnt loads. (Now I’ve started writing this email I feel a bit silly!) Anyway, keep pumping your stuff from the loft out into the ether. It’s wonderful. Thanks, Oli.” I got that email in 2013. I wondered where this charming young man went to college or was on placement, so I googled him: ‘PartnerRead more
PODCAST: STEVE HARRISON.
When I started out, lunch with my old writer Sean would end with ‘Right, let’s shift some product’. It was irony, of course. It’s rare for creatives talk like that. If you’d have asked me at that time about the performance of one of my ads, I’d have given you a ton of awards data, but nothing on sales. To be fair, awards won are what creatives are salaried on, not units sold. And if you’ve ever sat on anRead more
FASHION MUST-HAVES FOR THE COMING SEASON: 4. A RIBBON.
It doesn’t have to be a ribbon. Could be anything really – a pattern, shape, lemon, hedgehog, just something visual associated with your brand. It’s beyond a logo. It should run through your communications like the name of a seaside town through a stick of rock. Not appearing alongside it, but informing what ‘it’ is. Why? It increases your chances of your messages being remembered as yours. The boffins at the Ehrenburg Institute call them ‘Distinctive Assets’. The bottle saysRead more
Another post about radio advertising. (Sorry.)
There may even be another one, along with Paul Burke I’m trying to track down the 100 best radio ads. (If you have any send them in.) But onto this one, one of the surprising joys of doing this blog is unexpected things that turn upon my doorstep. Proofs, agency brochures, old DVDs, all manner of ephemera. (Or ‘crap’ as my wife calls it.). It’s lead me to post blogs on David Abbott’s BT Pitch, Fallon McElligott’s Rolling Stone campaignRead more
PODCAST: RICK SITTIG
Many of you won’t recognise that name. You won’t find it attached to tweets his latest ‘hot’ campaign, or next to a picture of his latest lunch; he doesn’t do social media. You won’t find his agency in any new business tables; they only handle three clients at a time, so tend to have long client relationships. You won’t find their scripts in any production companies; they direct them in-house. This is because, when, 23 years ago, the goal forRead more
PODCAST: RORY SUTHERLA…
That’s not a mistake, it’s my attempt to graphically warn you that this podcast ends abruptly. The idea was that I’d grill Rory on some of the issues facing our business today. He is easily one of the most thoughtful, smartest guys in our business, just check out some of his quotes below if you don’t believe me. But rather than ask softball questions that were too broad, I thought it’d be more interesting to make it binary. Forcing aRead more
PODCAST: Gary Goldsmith
Pick up any New York Art Directors Club Annual from the sixties and you can feel the heat coming off the pages. The Writers are using words previously confined to conversation, the Art Directors are trying to find new ways to present the information (‘Creating new pages’ as Helmut Krone put it.) Then, the seventies. A whole different story; the experimentation and energy appear to have dried up. True, there are still lots of good thoughts and lines, but inRead more
PODCAST: Trevor Beattie.
‘Recorded any new podcasts lately?’ I get asked this a few times every week. The askees range from college attendees to retired adman. As I pick the people I interview, they seem as famous as The Beatles to me, but they’re often unknown to the askees. After offering up a name and watching a blank expression appear, I reach for a quick handle, something from culture that I think they’ll know. Occasionally it’s an ad fact; ‘Set Up Fallon beforeRead more