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
Posts tagged: #BMP
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
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
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
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: Richard Russell.
Before I became a Copywriter, I just liked popular ads. I didn’t know they were popular ads, of course, they were just the stuff that was visible and fun and spoke to me. The more I worked in advertising though, the more it seemed to me that the industry had a real problem with popular ads. A snobbery that mass-market work was dumbed down. And, conversely, a belief that the work without wide appeal was way cooler and cleverer, andRead more
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 – Mark Denton
A funny thing happened the other day…I saw an advert on the internet and I went out and bought something. Don’t laugh, IT’S TRUE! The advert was for a TRIO bar and after seeing it I urgently needed a toffee/chocolate hit. Of course I couldn’t find a Trio anywhere (do they still make them?) so I had to make do with a Toffee Crisp. They (I bought a multi-pack) were very nice. I can’t remember what their advertising was likeRead more
PODCAST: MARY WEAR
‘Remember how seriously we all took it? Not that we took ourselves seriously or that we didn’t have fun, but we just tried so, so hard to make great work. It may be chip paper to most people, but we’d really sweated every last detail. Even on the bad ads, we’d stay lat trying desperately to improve them. Like we were on a mission. It seemed so important.’ I enjoyed chatting to Mary. Although afterwards, I must confess, I wasRead more
YE OLDE ADVERTS.
Before we start, full disclosure: I’m not anti old ads. I quite like them. But weirdly, a surprising number of creatives leaders don’t. At least, they say they don’t in public, I’m sure in private they must have a cheeky flip through the odd One Show annual now and again? They put out phrases next to their profiles like ‘All about the new’, ‘Future facing creative’, ‘Forwards, not backwards’ ‘I never look back’. It sounds so cool. Frankly, it makes meRead more
Hands Up Who’s Heard Of Frank Budgen?
We’re smack bang in the middle of the age of collaboration. Any press release for a creative hiring now contains that reassuring phrase ‘Known for being collaborative’. (To me it always reads ‘We’re pleased to announce we’ve finally found a creative who will listen to us’.) The feeling the team had creating the work is as scrutinised as what they created. But collaboration means different things to different people. For most of the team it conjures up enjoyable meetings onRead more
Hands Up Who’s Heard Of MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN?
Remember Alessandro Volta? Douglas Engelbart? What about Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis? Thought not. Even if I asked who invented electric light, the computer mouse and social media, those names are still unlikely to come up. More likely, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg will spring to mind. They didn’t invent those ideas, they either stole from those guys or ‘built on their thinking’.But although now virtually forgotten, their work was crucial, take away their thinking would be likeRead more
THE LOOKY-LIKEY AMALGAM.
I few months back I recorded a podcast with Richard Shotton, one of the brightest people in the business. Whilst preparing I read Richard’s book, The Choice Factory, it’s great, full of fascinating insights and observations on human behaviour and how we respond to marketing. Whilst taking in all this intelligent insight an interesting theory occurred to me; why don’t we just create ads that people like? Granted, it’s no theory of relativity, but it’s odd that it’s barely aRead more
PITCH: Innocent?
The creative pitch: Companies invite agencies to present creative proposals on how to improve their marketing and therefore their bottom line. Best proposal wins. Wrong. For a start, clients run only one campaign for every 16 they are presented in pitches. (Thanks Martin Jones, AAR Guru & Brighton fan.) How can it be that fifteen of the sixteen agencies get the brief so wrong that they end up throwing their time, energy a work in the bin? Because, as I’mRead more
PODCAST: Sir Frank Lowe.
“Frank Lowe single-handedly cajoled a whole generation of writers, art directors and film directors into revolutionising British and world advertising.” – Sir Alan Parker. It seemed a bit over the top. I know he was very good and had a big impact on the business, but ‘single-handedly’? I guess Alan is his mate, so probably bigged him up a bit. Having just spent three hours nose to nose with Frank, I got a taste of what Alan was talking about. I can’tRead more
PODCAST: Chris Wilkins.
‘Chris is one of the few very, very bright people around.’ – CHARLES SAATCHI. ‘On his day he’s a much better writer than I am.’ – DAVE TROTT. ‘He is intelligent, witty and versatile and I’d say he’s probably one of the best three copywriters in the country.’ – JOHN WEBSTER. ‘He’s just done a podcast with me!’ – DAVE DYE J. WALTER THOMPSON. Guinness. BOASE MASSIMI POLLITT. Bambi Nappies. Pepsi. The Labour Party. Cresta. Cadbury’s Smash. Southern Comfort. SAATCHIRead more
PODCAST: Tim Riley.
Words. Boy, they’ve really fallen off their perch. They used to be so respected, as were the people who knew how to use them. They could breathe life into cold, dead facts, in their hands ‘our beer costs a lot’ could become ‘Reassuringly expensive’. Better and shorter. Writers would often burn the midnight oil in an effort to get the maximum meaning from the minimum word count. It’s odd, because people have never read more than they do today, Facebook, Twitter,Read more
PODCAST: Tony Davidson. (Part 1.)
Sometimes, it’s difficult writing about people you know. On the one hand, you don’t want to offend them with a flip remark, like ‘no filter between his brain and mouth’, or ‘certified nut-job.’ On the other, and probably worse, you don’t want to get all gooey with guff like ‘only about the work’ or ‘incredibly consistent* since day one’. So I won’t bother, I’ll just let you listen and make your own minds up. (*Except for ‘Captain Chaos’.) STUDENT. BMP.Read more