Since he quit advertising, Dave has had a big effect on it.First, with Howies.His mail order catalogues built up more than customer base, they built up a fan base.They were, and still are, traded on Ebay.Not for their clothing, for their vibe; that decent feel-good, smart, happy, moral life is for living, do the right thing voice. (Dave: Did I miss anything?)Their writing and ideas were ripped them off mercilessly by ad agencies, constantly being used as reference for tone ofRead more
Posts tagged: #Tony Barry
PODCAST: Me. (Pt. 1)
A lot of people have suggested that I do a podcast on myself. Aside from the obvious difficulties of trying to ask yourself probing questions, it felt a little bit indulgent, particularly as I did a whole series of them with my friend Ben Kay, (I think we recorded more episodes than the latest season of Game Of Thrones). But when someone who’s kindly agreed to be interviewed by me asks me to be interviewed by them, it feels rude to sayRead more
BOSS No.6: Tim Delaney.
Why advertising? I wanted to be a hotel bell hop boy when I left school at 15. But when I looked in the newspaper want ads – Junior Opportunities – they only had 2 ad agency messenger jobs. I went up to London and one of them offered me a job. What was your first job in advertising? A messenger- in a tiny basement room with 4 others. Quite Dickensian,when I look back. Did you try and get into Collett’s,Read more
BOSS No.5: Mark Denton.
Why advertising Mark? It all happened by accident. I was quite good at drawing as a kid and my Uncle had gone to Art School and had ended up as a Silversmith. The Dentons weren’t that imaginative (they all worked in the Family Scrap business) so ‘good at drawing’ meant that I should go to Art School too. My Mum thought I could get a job as one of those people who paint the patterns on the edge of platesRead more
TURNING STORIES INTO ADS: Panorama.
THE PROBLEM: Panorama’s audience was shrinking. We knew where to find a potential audience; The Guardian, Times and Telegraph. But how do we approach ads for one of the BBC’s most respected programmes? PANORAMA’S PERCEPTION: Serious, straight talking and truth-seeking. ADVERTISING’S PERCEPTION: Bullshitting, tricking and spinning. We couldn’t do anything about advertising getting itself a bad name over the last century, but we could avoid looking like we’re in that gang. Ads tend to look like ads; a small logo bottomRead more
TURNING STORIES INTO ADS: The Guardian.
Newspapers deal in stories, they have to find them and write them up every day. If they find good ones their sales increase. So when agencies try selling them brand campaigns, they tend to think it’s a lot of namby pamby nonsense. Instead they prefer their marketing to be based on specific content. That could be anything from a scoop to a serialisation of an autobiography. The problem is that the stories are rarely on brand, they are often theRead more
TURNING STORIES INTO ADS: G.Q.
Something struck me upon finding this little batch of GQ ads; What magazines would run 48 sheet posters today, just to promote the August issue?My writer, Tony Barry and I had three stories to turn into posters. a) 101 things to do before you’re 30. b) Foreign women reveal all about British lovers. c) Mick Jagger at 50. It’s easy to see why these two were rejected, it’s never good business to start ‘outing’ Royals and pop stars. This was theRead more
ADIDAS: Running ads.
These were the first Adidas ads I did. Loud, aggressive and very yellow. I wasn’t a big fan of the look that had been created at the time, I felt it killed the images and came over like Nike, only less sophisticated. (To be fair, they stand up surprisingly well today.) I got the chance to break away from this style with some running ads Tim Delaney had written. It helped that he’d written ads that were tonally very differentRead more
HOWIES: Anti-Advertising.
A year or so into Leagas Delaney, I found myself writer-less, Tim threw me together with another loose end; writer Dave Hieatt. Here are a few of the things we did. In between writing Adidas ads, Dave asked me if I wanted to make some T-Shirts with him. I would be the third partner, aside from Dave, there was a City-boy, business type, (I can’t remember his name only his goal; to own a house with a drive in driveRead more