Show Notes
I was just about to write ‘the business I joined 30 years ago is unrecognisable today’. But then it occurred to me; that’s bullshit. Take today, either side of writing this I’m working on a global brief. The brand has an existing line that needs to be given new meaning, its felt to be a little too heavy, and possibly a bit esoteric in certain markets. We need to make it lighter, more upbeat and positive. Also, it’d be handy if we could use some kind of visual link to the product, as it’s going to run in a wide range of countries. Overall, they just need to feel cooler and more relevant to a younger audience. That was happening thirty years ago.
Sure, the thoughts may end up in some new locations and appear in slightly different shapes and sizes, but the process isn’t that different. There is one big difference though, the creative bods were way more cynical back then, for example, every element of a brief would be challenged: ‘Is that REALLY true?’ ‘It may be true but people won’t believe it!’. ‘Why should anyone believe that?’ ‘Is there really nothing better to say?’ ‘That’s two messages, pick one’. ‘Why would that make me buy it?’ ‘Posters are the wrong place for that message’ ‘That’s way to complicated for TV!’ ‘Who would be arsed to read about that?’ ‘They haven’t got much money, let’s spend it all on tv… or posters?’
Then digital turned up. It was a challenge for the creatives of my generation, not understanding the channels or tech but understanding why you weren’t allowed to question it. Why weren’t we allowed to take that same cynical approach that we’d taken to all information we’d be given, whether propositions or posters, creatives adopted the stance of super cynical member of the public. We couldn’t do that with digital, if you took that position with anything that involved a single pixel you risked being seen as a ‘dinosaur’. So people adapted, they avoided appearing cynical by using phrases like ‘there’s never been a better time to be in the business’ or ‘I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m being briefed on social media’ or ‘You want to brief me on a digital banner? I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven’. Questions started being replaced by buzz words, the aim was to get as many into a conversation before it collapsed due to their volume. It created a kind of MaCarthyite environment where most were too afraid to call it as they saw it.
More from STUFF FROM THE LOFT - Dave Dye
Every day I get great old print ads popping up in my feed. I'm reminded of Volkswagen's self-deprecation, Nike’s humanity and BMW’s intelligence. It’s easy to forget that each owes its existence to a magazine. Whose huge readership is responsible for the quality of the ad. Putting your product in front of so many people justified billing so many creative hours. And signing off such an expensive photographer, illustrator, celebrity, location, set build, etc. It's also why the converse is true today. There are still great print ads being produced, but they’re rare. Pick up most magazines and you’ll discover a slender selection of ads that have had neither time or money spent on them. They look like the clients made them at the weekend, after putting the kids to bed. Today’s tiny magazine audiences don’t warrant more. Which is a shame. It’s hard to explain just how important magazines once were and the role they played in people’s lives. As David Hepworth says ‘they were the internet’. David knows magazines – having written for the NME, Sounds and Smash Hits before becoming editor, then launching Just Seventeen, Q, Empire, Mojo, More! Heat and Word amongst others. I’ve listened to his podcast for the last 19 years. Each week, David and his Old Grey Whistle Test co-host Mark Ellen talk music and a bit of whatever’s happened that week. Very occasionally, David will talk briefly about the nuts and bolts of running a magazine, in particular, the symbiotic relationship between magazines and it’s advertisers. It's fascinating and I’m always left wanting to hear more. So I asked him to talk more. We had a very enjoyable chat, I hope you enjoy it too.
Faxes. Magic Markers. Hard copies of Campaign. Offices. Grant projectors. PMTs. U-matics. Scalpels. Memos. Information Departments. Flash. Spray mount. Chinagraphs. Secretaries. Pinboards. Foamboard. Lightboxes. CS10. Lighter fuel. Paintbox. Dupes. 10x8s”. Contact sheets. Proofs.
A planner! The third. Well, the other two weren’t talking about their careers, Paul Feldwick discussed his great book ‘Why Does The Pedlar Sing?’ and Sarah Carter reflected on working with John Webster. So maybe it's my first? Creative operating the seventies hated planners. 'They ruined the business’ and ‘they took all the fun out of advertising’ being their most common complaint. As they see it; planners stole half their job. Their instincts were replaced by the data obsessed views of these Oxbridge types. Clarity became more important than cut through. They get accused of sanding off the edges and idiosyncrasies of their creative work. Therefore destroying Creative's winning lottery tickets. You can’t accuse Laurence Green of any of the above. Skoda ‘Cake’, Sony ‘Balls’, Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’. (I could go on.) He’s wears his intelligence lightly, using it to simplify and explain, not impress. Regardless of the agency or creatives, the ads are simple, engaging and human. That can’t be a coincidence. Or could it? I asked him. Hope you enjoy it.
I never knew Martin at BMP. He kept a desk there. So I'd occasionally spot his green Bentley in Bishopsbridge Road. There'd be the odd a sighting in the building, a bit like Bigfoot or the Yeti, a glimpse of a blurry Martin moving through corridors, but way in the distance. Perhaps because of this, it didn’t occur to me to pick up the phone and ask him to do a podcast about his amazing career. But Charlie Crompton pushed me to do so, offering to broker the deal. (Thanks Charlie.) The timing is odd – BMP, or BMP/Univas/BDDP/ReevesRobertshaw/Davidson Pearce/Needham/DDB/Adam&Eve have just left 12 Bishopsbridge Road. After 55 years. It's difficult to even know where to begin to talk about the impact of Boase Massimi Pollitt. Obviously there's the birth of planning, the work of John Webster, all the agencies and people it gave birth too, but there's so much more. I’m also anxious about listing Martin’s achievements as he was so reluctant to take credit for them when we chatted. Or accept a compliment. Or criticise any employee who ever traipsed up their spiral staircase. Gossip? You try getting gossip out of a guy who’s been trained to interrogate Russian spies, it’s really hard. Despite this, we had a great chat, hope you enjoy it.
Bartle Bogle Hegarty opened its doors in 1982. Eight years later, Campaign voted them the agency of the decade. Why? Their work was considered, intelligent, and, in a decade often referred to as style-obsessed, BBH was the most style-obsessed. But they also had something few agencies have today; swagger. They had the confidence, or is it arrogance? to cut their own path. Refusing to do creative pitches, turning down business and making challenging creative calls few agencies would make. For example, on Audi, the created an end line only 5% of the population could understand – Vorsprung Durch Technik. For a desperate to become relevant to a new generation Levi’s, they soundtracked their ads with music their parents would consider old-fashioned. (Normal now, unusual then.) And on the subject of female sanitary protection, which everyone knew had to be dealt with delicately, like defusing a bomb. They risked it all, by boldly talking to women like human beings. Their Dr Whites ads ditched metaphors, blue liquid and any mention of roller-skating. Not only were these choices counterintuitive, they sold. As they put it in their AAR reel ‘We don’t sell (fade to black) We make people want to buy’. It was true, it was like they knew something others didn’t. Brands that chose BBH in the eighties were sprinkled with some kind of fairy dust that made them desirable and often fashionable. Since their launch, and for most of its first decade, John Hegarty worked writer Barbara Nokes. Together, they created the three campaigns above. The foundations of the agency. And one of their ads, Levi’s Black Sheep (below), remains as their logo and philosophy. We cover this in the second part of my chat with Barbara. Hope you enjoy it.