It’s like a blind date; Agency and client get together over coffee to find out if they have any chemistry. Either party can bail if they’re not ‘feeling it’, or take the relationship to the next stage if they are. It’s a good idea, but unlike a blind date, the two parties don’t sit at the table as equals. For one party this is just one of multiple coffees they’ll be sampling, for the other it’s their only coffee. OneRead more
Posts tagged: #CDD
BULLSEYE!
I worked with Sean Doyle for roughly 12 years. One morning, about six years in, Sean threw a scruffy ball of paper over to my side of the desk – ‘I did us a logo’. It was like a miracle; Our names fit together perfectly, symmetrically, what were the chances? It was worth putting it together even if just to enter for awards. I turned the scribble into type. That wasn’t how Sean had imagined it. DYE was too dominant.Read more
GUT v NUMBERS.
Whether it’s qual, quant or O.T.S, ROI, A/B testing or big data, when numbers turn up in marketing they must be obeyed. They’re distilled and translated into ‘rules’. Everyone wants their next campaign to be better than their last, but applying these ‘learnings’ to creative work often kills it. It can feel uncomfortable, because what’s being said makes total sense, but the effect is to complicate and make your ad more like every other ad out there. The ones youRead 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
The bit between the Me Pt. 1 and Me Pt. 2 podcasts.
Usually when I do these an interview or podcast, the challenge is trying to find the persons work, some people have not a scrap. (Yes, I’m talking about you Jeff Stark! And I haven’t forgotten you either Sid Myers!) I also like to add a bit of ephemera, for some colour, but it’s rare to come across that. The challenge this time was what to leave out; the CDD phone lists, the Mercedes meeting notes or internal memo? InRead more
Working for fruit.
A few months after setting up Campbell Doyle Dye a publisher came in for a chemistry meeting. Before we’d set up I’d been at AMV/BBDO, The Economist was one of the clients I looked after, so I was excited to share the work Sean and I had produced as it was not only relevant, it was arguably the best campaign for a publisher ever? “Did you do those here?” “Er…well, no, that was at our last agency, Abbott Mead Vickers”. “Oh?”Read more
MERCEDES-BENZ C-CLASS SPORTS COUPE: ‘Shiny?’
Discounting premium products can be risky. It can take decades to build up a premium positioning for a brand, to give their products a value beyond the materials and man hours that have gone into their making. Once you start discounting you risk making it feel less special, because people know that, generally, products get discounted because they aren’t selling, if they aren’t selling it must be because nobody wants them. MERCEDES-BENZ PROBLEM: A stock-pile of C-Class Sports Coupe’s. They decidedRead more
NOT IN-CAMERA: Giles Revell.
Where did you grow up? The sleepy town of Sawbridgeworth, it’s on the Hertfordshire and Essex border. When did you take your first picture? There was no eureka moment, I inherited my grandfather’s Silver Ilford Sportsman.I do remember being intrigued by its beauty; a matt silver finish with shiny brown hinged leather case. I wore it across my waist in my early teens, but had no idea what I was doing with it. It felt sophisticated, technical, way beyond anything I’d ever come inRead more
LOOT: Scruffy product = scruffy ad.
Capture or create a brand’s personality? When you’re producing a new campaign they’re your options. Although it’s not always possible, I prefer using what’s there, either physically or perception to fabricating something. Your work has more chance of resonating with the public if it feels to authentic, to feel authentic to them it needs to tally with their views of the brand. E.g. If your bank, for so long the sensible, staid pressence in your life starts talking like aRead more
MERRY DOWN: Year 1.
“We have a bit of an image problem with Merrydown, its main constituency appears to be students and street tramps.” Chris Carr, Merrydown Chairman. These were the only Merrydown ads we could remember seeing. (Written by Chris Wilkins.)Six sheets and fly posters were booked, so posh, long copy ads like those were out. The creative department came up with various routes, some good, some less so. Who’d have time to look at a picture, read the explanation below, then check out whoRead more
ANTI-SMOKING: Free can be expensive.
Every so often, a newspaper or magazine will call up asking for some ads. These can be anything from ‘If drugs were legalised how would they market themselves?’ to ‘How should banks communicate post 2008?’. Strangely enough, one such brief helped me secure my first job in advertising; ‘How would Vets advertise if it became legal for them to do so?’. (The concepts below ran in Marketing Week, probably helped turn my trial into a job.) (Hang on a minute… ‘HowRead more
CHRISTIAN AID: The client may be right.
I once pitched for Christian Aid. It’s an emotional subject matter, I got emotional. Sean Doyle and I wrote lots of very angry ads, essentially trying force people to reach into their pockets and save a starving child’s life. We won the pitch. We met our brand new client, Claire. She said, rather sheepishly, ‘The ads… we like them, but they look so gloomy, and… well, we’re all quite positive around here and wondered whether they could look a bit more upbeat?’Read more