1 and 2? Well, it came in at just under four hours. Tell me about it? I tried cutting it. Maybe I could’ve edited out the pre-directing bit? Lost the chat about growing up; the nine months in walled hospital room with one wall missing or the time he appeared on national tv as a puppeteer. Or cut the bits about his endless list of non-directing jobs? Maybe trim the stuff about his previous bosses? But his previous bosses areRead more
Posts tagged: #Fallon McElligott
PODCAST: John Stingley
There are many ways of writing ads. Simply stating that your product is good. Giving evidence that it’s good. Or making people feel that it’s good. Ai could spit out versions of the first two pretty quickly, but it’d struggle on the third. The third requires a bit of psychology, observation and understanding of what makes people tick. Bill Bernbach put it this way “It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more forRead more
Hands up who’s heard of TOM LICHTENHELD?
In the late 80s, I discovered a discount bookshop on Shaftesbury Avenue, amongst the junk, ‘Knitting For The Whole Family’ and ‘Fun With Chives’ were piles American advertising books I’d never heard of; One Show Annuals. They were dirt cheap – £4.99. For the cost of one D&AD Annual I could buy six One Shows. So I bought six One Shows. The work was a revelation. Bolder, funnier and less genteel than the stuff in the D&AD. One agency stoodRead more
REMEMBER THOSE GREAT PORSCHE ADS? 1. Bruce Bildsten
How did you end up at Fallon McElligott Bruce? I got there very early, but I suspect I came close to being there from the beginning. I had met Tom McElligott at the University of Minnesota when he spoke to an advertising class I took. He was at the creative agency Bozell and Jacobs and asked me to come back and interview a couple of times. I got impatient with student loans to be paid that I took a jobRead more
WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Ben Kay
Finally, I’ve made it! Here I am on the prestigious Dave Dye blog, presumably with a pink circle covering my face on some random old image (however, now that I’ve written that I fully expect Dave to put the circle over the other advertising Ben Kay, the former head of planning at Y&R. Or maybe the rugby player). Dave has kindly asked me to do a post on the advertising I liked before I knew what I was supposed toRead more
GREEN BOOKS: Ads 2.
I have a confession to make; not everything on this site is from the loft. Apologies to those of you who feel cheated. I feel such a fraud. The good news is that this post is 100% loft. Not mine, my old partner Mike McKenna’s. I started putting these green books together when Mike and I worked as a team at Publicis, back in the early 90’s. They were our internet. We’d split the cost of the pricey books fromRead more
GREEN BOOKS: Dave Hieatt
This book was glued and cellotaped together before Hiut Denim, The Do Lectures, Do Books and Howies were even a glint in Dave’s eye.It’s nearly 30 years old.But it’s so them.It features the same ingredients that shine through those companies today – humanity, ecology, wit, positivity, a wide-eyed curiosity and a kind of folksy down home vibe.In fact, if you wanted to make a Dave Hieatt pie, here’s the recipe book.Read more
PODCAST: Gerry Graf.
The best ads appear effortless. As if created accidentally, the result of a chance corridor meeting by people letting off steam on their way to different, grown-up, serious meetings, probably ones involving charts, numbers and mashed-up new words they get the gist of but aren’t 100% confident of their meaning. The truth is that it’s hard to create work like that, it’s like catching lightning in a bottle. A few creatives have been in the right place at the right time to grab a bolt, barelyRead more
PODCAST: Tom McElligott.
After years of being amazed at what was on the net, I’m now increasingly surprised at what’s not. Three years ago I was trawling for a particular ad of Tom’s, not only couldn’t I find it I could barely find any of his work. Outraged, I gathered together as much of his work as I could lay my hands on and put out a post called ‘Hands Up Who’s Heard Of Tom McElligott’. I was trying to be snarky and ironic, like you may writeRead more
Hands up who’s heard of TOM McELLIGOTT?
It’s crazy, he should be better known. He ushered in a new, sassier way of talking. His work felt like it was written by a very smart lawyer with a wicked sense of humour. He influenced a generation. But there’s almost no evidence of his existence on the internet. In a Stalinesque style purge, Lurzer’s Archive have retouched the Fallon McElligott work to read Fallon. Even the publishers of Luke Sullivan’s great book ‘Hey Whipple’ seem not to know him: I can’t find a lot ofRead more