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
Posts tagged: #Adrian Flowers
INTERVIEW: Sir Alan Parker.
Sir Alan, where did you grow up? I grew up in Islington. Ours were the first council flats built after the war and I moved in aged about three or four. Ironically, the flats overlooked the street where my Dad was born and brought up. (My Grandad was the local barber and the family were evacuated in the war when a bomb hit St Mary’s Church close to their shop. He was also the local bookie—illegal then—and so they movedRead more
B&H, Part 2: The surreal years.
I used to walk past this poster every week for about a year. I was fifteen, my Art teacher had got hold of a life size billboard poster, a 48 sheet, or I should say 48 sheets. It was twenty or thirty foot long, and papered the entire corridor that lead to our classroom. We were all bemused by it at first, just a close-up of an electric circuit board? weird? Was it even an ad? Then we found the gold pack-shot.Read more
INTERVIEW: Mike Cozens.
Where were you bought up? Farley Road, Catford, S.E.6. Mr Smiths was where the Richardson Gang had their 1966 Gangland slaying. My Mum worked there. Frankie Frazer used to escort her up the Road. He famously said ‘I’ll take you home Lilly, you meet some dodgy characters around here’. That’s where I was dragged up. Was advertising your first choice? Not exactly. I was invited to leave Haberdashers Askes at the age of sixteen. Fortunately the only teacher whoRead more
IN-CAMERA 5: Graham Ford.
Where did you grow up? South East London When did you take your first picture? When I was eleven. Then I asked for a camera for my fifteenth birthday. One of my brothers showed me how develop a film and to make a contact print. I was completely absorbed by photography for the next 40 years. What was your first job? Aged 18, I spent two weeks in an ice cream warehouse, at minus 20 degrees. It paid for my newRead more
B&H Part 1: The ‘Gold Box’ Years.
In 1962, a bright, shiny new agency Collett Dickerson Pearce was offered a big account, the DuMaurier cigarette brand. This good news was particularly timely, as many at the fledgling agency were starting to worry their jobs. The agency turned the offer down. Founder John Pearce told the potential client the brand was a ‘dead duck’, and he didn’t want his agency to work with ‘no-hope brands’ or brands that they didn’t truly believe would respond to advertising. But being a decent sort of chap, MrRead more