WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Vikki Ross.

Dave asked me to contribute to another one of his brilliant ideas – a series of posts by people in advertising talking about what ads they liked before they learnt what they were supposed to like. I never learnt what I was supposed to like. I didn’t study advertising at uni – I didn’t even go to uni. And I didn’t go to ad school – I didn’t know it was a thing until I started mentoring at School ofRead more

WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE.

I read this psychologist’s theory once; everything we say we say to impress others. Everything. Like that, me starting this blog by quoting some psychologist’s theory in an effort to come across all intelligent. If it’s true, it could explain why asking people to name their favourite ads becomes an exercise in creating a cool, intelligent persona. You’ll can watch this live if you’re on an awards jury. This year there will be a lot of jurors positioning themselves asRead 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

INTERVIEW: Jeremy Sinclair.

Occasionally, very occasionally, a client will ask me advice on how they should judge their advertising. It’s easy to tell a terrible ad from a great one, but it’s rare to have such a big gap between ideas. A more likely comparison be trying to assess average against quite good? good against great? Some creative people will advise that ‘If it’s right, you’ll feel it in your gut’. Sometimes true, but not really helpful. I tend to give them a copy of the page above.Read more