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

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

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