If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

About a year ago I was listening to a podcast called The Plot Thickens. The subject was the messy production of the movie The Bonfire of the Vanities. As the story unfolded I realised that the format – a documentary of a subject told over several episodes, with interviews featuring the participants – might lend... Read More

This is the sixth episode of my series of podcasts about the great David Abbott. This one is called ‘David’s Department’ and explores what it was like to be a creative working under David. I’ll link to the episode here, but you can also find the whole series on Soundcloud.

Good morning. Apologies for the recent silence of this blog. WordPress lost all my data recently, so that had to be sorted out. We got most of it back, but if you’re wondering where a few of the more recent posts have gone, they have vanished into the digishpere, never to return. A shame, as they took a while to write, and I had a couple more cued up, but First World Problems and all that… Moving swiftly forward, I have a new podcast episode for you. Paul Burke and I discussed the subject of ageism, during which we went off on various tangents, but eventually returned to the subject in hand. It still requires further explanation, so I shall endeavour to find a ‘younger’ powerful ECD-type, to see what they think of the issue. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here’s my chat with Paul on iTunes, Soundcloud and the play button just below these words.

Anthony is many things: comedian, journalist, DJ, presenter, author, pilot, maker of excellent roast potatoes, and, of course my next-door neighbour (find out all about him/hire him here). But he is also a top-level voiceover artist, who has lent his vocal cords to such clients as Nike, Lego, Samsung, Kellog’s and Disney. Here’s his Nike one (he’s the newsreader): So I thought it might be a good idea to ask him what it’s like on the other side of the recording booth glass. What’s he thinking when you’re going through those fifty menus, trying to decide between the Yaki Soba and the American Hot? What advice most effectively improves his read? Should you ask him to do an impression Michael Caine? We also find out which branch of Pret all the VO artists used as a hangout, how many voices routinely audition for a gig these days, and the difference between actors and professional VOs. Unsurprisingly it is the best recorded episode I have ever done, and has the most mellifluous voice that isn’t mine. Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the direct play button.:

So I was watching this video the other day: …and I found myself in violent agreement with everything Tim Lindsay was saying. There are lots of questions advertising has to ask itself right now. The industry is in a state of disrepair: financially straitened, endlessly splintered and trying to find its place at a time of climate crisis, pandemic and global political upheaval. So I got in touch with Tim and suggested we drill down into those topics, especially from his position as Chairman of D&AD (apologies for referring to him as CEO during the chat) – the pre-eminent body of advertising creativity. Are these creative topics? Financial? Business? You could even wonder whether or not they are within advertising’s remit at all. So we chatted about all of that, and I didn’t even ask about whether there should be a printed annual, or how Chinese jurors judge English advertising copy (and vice versa). Frankly, there are bigger things to discuss… Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the direct play button:

Andy is a winner of a Cannes Grand Prix (he talks about how Nike Tag and Shaderunner happened). Andy helped build a small Dutch ad agency into the third best in the world (he talks about his time at 180). Andy has done great work all over the planet (he talks about moving from New Zealand to Australia to Singapore to Australia to Portland to Amsterdam to a bunch of other places). Andy is a brilliant illustrator (he talks about his children’s book project). Andy is a creative environmental activist (he talks about writing ads for Greenpeace, among others). I worked for Andy for a couple of months a while back. He was an excellent boss. We had an excellent chat. You can find his work here. Enjoy! iTunes link, Soundcloud link and the play button you can just press right here:

Paul would be far too modes to say this, but if you watched a brilliant ad from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, there’s a decent chance he had something to do with it. As one of the founders of Gorgeous (2.0 – Chris Palmer had already been running a pre-Paul Gorgeous for a few years before he asked Frank Budgen and Paul to join him), he oversaw a peerless run of commercial brilliance that took in Cannes Grands Prix (plural), dozens of D&AD Pencils and a couple of DGA awards. But they were also the ads the we all loved, admired, and made many of us want to get into the business. We discuss all that, along with his earlier years producing on the agency side at BMP, where he first met Frank, and his time with Frank at The Paul Weiland Film Company, and a year running RSA, where he took on Chris Cunningham. There was so much to discuss, we had to do it in two parts: the years up to Gorgeous, then the Gorgeous years. If you want to see the work we discussed, most of it can be found on the Gorgeous site, where Frank still has an archive. He’s a lovely bloke. We had a lovely chat. Enjoy… iTunes link, Soundcloud link, and button you can press right here (Because of the fun weirdness of WordPress, if you like the direct play button, there will be a separate post just above this one with the second part of our chat. iTunes and Soundcloud will have both parts):

The second part of my chat with Paul. iTunes link, Soundcloud link, direct play button:

I used to collect movie posters. I still have a few favourites, but in the end I ran out of wall space and it seemed a shame to keep so much great stuff rolled up in a cupboard, especially if someone, somewhere might really want that foiled Kill Bill One-Sheet I tracked down, or the UK Quad of Goodfellas. Anyway, now that I live in LA, I can’t drive anywhere without seeing hundreds of them (fewer recently for obvious reasons), so I still keep an eye out for the good ones. The very best tend to be done by my friend Kenny Gravillis at Gravillis Inc.: See? He’s damn good. So we ended up meeting because his daughter babysat for me a few years ago. We then realised that we had a lot in common – a love of music, movies and frustrating football teams (he supports West Ham) – and now we’re just two ex-Brit mates in LA. But I always love his work, so I’m always keen to discuss it, hence this podcast. The other reason to chat is his career story, which goes from the Isle of Dogs to late-80s New York, to designing record sleeves for some of Def Jam’s biggest artists… …to expanding that role into other labels… …to pivoting from music to movies, and the surprising hurdles of making that change. There’s a lot to learn here, all told in Kenny’s East London, NY, LA accent. And if you want to know more, here’s a Creative Review profile (£/$), and a short documentary on how he collaborated with Black Panther designer Emory Douglas on the artwork for Da 5 Bloods: iTunes link, Soundcloud link, direct link:

This is the third and final ‘people who were heavily involved in the Blackcurrant Tango ad’ series: my chat with the client, David Atter. (Episode 1 with director Colin Gregg can be found here. Episode 2 with copywriter Chas Bayfield can be found here.) Just in case you’re popping by at some random point in the future, here’s the beloved ad: And a couple of the other Tango ads we discuss: David discusses many fascinating elements of the job of ‘client’ but also gives us some great insights to the BCT/Tango process. He currently has his own strategic marketing consultancy, providing advice, workshops & direction to help organisations use marketing as a force for good – for people, the planet, and profit Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the direct play button:

This is the second in my series of three posts/podcasts about Blackcurrant Tango, apparently one of the most beloved ads of the last thirty years: You could read the Colin Gregg post, or read this repeat of what I said there: I put this up on LinkedIn and it caused a massive, affectionate response. So I thought I might do 20 mins each with Chas, Colin and the client, David Atter. But the calls went on too long for that to be a viable option, so here are three individual episodes, one with each of them. As a former mid-90s creative, I was delighted to be able to ask Chas about what it was like being a young creative at HHCL. The stories of what happened before, during and after the phenomenon of BCT are as fascinating as you might hope. Here are the first ads he ever made (they got in The Book): Then these (they won a Silver Pencil): Here’s his site. Enjoy our chat… Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link, and the play button.

I’ve been putting up great ads from the 90s on LinkedIn. It started as a snarky attempt at pointing out how ads used to be better, and that even ads from 20+ years ago would be better than the ‘best’ of today. One of these ads was the wonderful Blackcurrant Tango ad of 1996: It seems hold a unique affection for advertising people of a certain generation. I remember speaking to people at the time who said it was the ad that made them want to get into the industry. But even now, people love it as much as they admire it. So the LinkedIn post got a huge and positive reaction, which made me think it might be good to get the story behind it. My initial idea was to have a 15-20 minute chat with the creatives, the client and the director, giving me an hour of material for a single BCT podcast. Fortunately, when I started speaking to the director, Colin Gregg, that plan went out of the window. that chat alone was a good 45 minutes, so I realised I’d need three separate episodes. This is the first; a conversation from the director’s POV about everything fro m the technical difficulties to the relationship with the agency and creatives. Colin’s a lovely bloke, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. And if you want to hire him for anything, here’s a link to his current production company home. And the ‘Making Of’ film that he mentioned: Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the play button.

Stephen was the 25th employee of Bartle Bogle Hegarty, which means he saw it grow from a very good agency to the best in the country in a few short years. After a stint on Audi he became the first account guy on Levi’s, so we talked all about that. If you grew up in the 1980s that was probably the biggest, best ad campaign you’d ever seen. It made a whole country change their choice of underwear, its soundtracks routinely went to number one, and every new execution was news. Actual newspaper news, nor ‘a little column in Campaign’ news. Here are some of the ads we discussed: But as he rose to board level, appropriately enough, he got bored. So he decided he liked the idea of working on the production side, jacked in his high-flying job and went right back to the bottom again as a runner, taking out the bin bags. But then he ended up running a large production company called Large, before founding his own companies. He’s currently the founder/owner of Unltd Productions, with a stable of excellent directors. Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the direct play button thing:

Rich and I started in advertising at the same time in the same place. He won a Cannes Gold in his first year. I was laid off. Now we’re back together having a delightful chat about those intervening 24 years. He’s a top bloke, and still has those great creative chops, as evidenced by this, one of the few decent ads of the Pandemic so far: Here’s some of his other work (check out his search page in the D&AD archive for several others), including the classic Old Lions ad for Carlsberg: Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link, and the thing where you just press the play button. Enjoy!

Jean-Louis is the Chief Strategy Officer of The Concept Bureau. (Slight aside: I wonder why job titles are sounding increasingly military.) I asked him on the pod because ‘strategist’ is becoming a very common word in advertising-adjacent job titles. Jean-Louis is a Brand Strategist, so what does that mean, and what is a Creative Strategist, and where do their jobs cross over with that of, say, a comms planner? What do these very smart people do all day, and how does it relate to what you do all day? We talk about all that and much more, and if you want to know about my Butterfinger Theory, and how it relates to 2020 branding, have a listen. Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link, and the thing where you just press play on this page:

Rob McFaul is the founder of an organisation called Purpose Disruptors: A network of advertising insiders whose goal is to create a visible, large scale, bottom up movement within the industry, that will act in solidarity to meaningfully tackle climate change. I’m very, very interested in this subject. It’s both immensely interesting and immensely intractable. In some ways it’s the ultimate brief. Have a listen and dip your toe in the waters of capitalist hypocrisy, corporate morality, regenerative leadership, universal stardust, and much else. (Or maybe your toes are already in. Maybe you’re up to your eyeballs. Have a listen anyway.) If you’re interested in getting further involved, email me at bwmkay@gmail.com, or contact Rob via Purpose Disruptors. Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link, and the direct player:

ITIAPTWC Episode 56b -Rory Sutherland

ITIAPTWC Episode 56c – Rory Sutherland

This is my attempt to make sure the podcast adds to the iTunes feed. Fingers crossed…

I loved chatting to Trevor. We’d never met before, but he was a warm and lovely fella. His first Tango ad broke the mould, as popular with kids in playgrounds as it was with award jurors. But then there was the weird, pervy Apple Tango ad. And the weird, pervy Pot Noodle ads: as popular with sex fetishists as they were with award jurors. Then he created a new kind of ad agency that is still going 25 years later. Then he won an OBE. And he helps prove the benefits of diversity, both in terms of race, and background. Take a bloke from a South London council estate and add him to a bloke from Scotland and you get the kind of magic that only happens when two plus artichoke equals hen night. Here’s the Soundcloud link and the iTunes link. The direct player is at the bottom of the post.