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
Posts tagged: #Fallon McElligott
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