I’d written a piece for The Book Of Dreams that was felt to be a good summary of what ‘The Power Of Dreams’ actually meant. The piece was chosen to be the launch film that would start seeding the Honda philosophy. I wrote a surreal visual narrative to go with the words, commissioned an amazing Japanese animator and added an obscure instrumental track. The ad featured no car and felt nothing like a car commercial – which was the whole point.

“One of the most original and powerful car commercials in years.” CAMPAIGN

Out of interest, it was Russell Davies, the Head of Planning, who suggested we use Garrison Keilor as the brand voice. Good call, Russell.

I took over the Mars account at D’Arcy in 1997 (alongside my Art Director Carl Le Blond) and we decided to re-invent Maltesers, whose ads at that point lived in a rather twee world of ballerinas and weight-watching women. Sometimes the best way to get an ambitious idea through a conservative client is to give them exactly what they want, but in a way they would never have expected. Which is what we did. ‘How would you like a campaign where every ad is full of the target audience eating and enjoying Maltesers? we said. ‘An idea that couldn’t be done by any other chocolate; where every story is based around the unique physical properties of Maltesers? 

An idea with a light, playful tone of voice where we keep your long-running end line but we breathe new life into it? And did we say that every ad is full of the target audience eating and enjoying Maltesers? ’ And so began the ‘Little Balls’ campaign. 19 years later, it’s still going strong. The campaign concept was conceived by Carl and myself and these commercials are from the launch period with additional writing assistance from Trevor Webb and Steve Campbell. As a direct result of the new campaign, the value of the Maltesers brand for Mars rose from 72 million pounds in 1995 to 106 million pounds in 2000.

I went to meet the client for the first time to talk about the brand’s problems and ambitions. It became clear that Macleans had fallen off everyone’s radar and it desperately needed a distinctive, well-branded – and cheap – idea to bring it top of mind. In the cab on the way back to the agency I wrote a campaign in my head. What if we shot a load of short films where people slowly and clearly say the word ‘Macleans!’ (in the same way that you’d say ‘cheese!’ for a photo) and, in so doing, reveal their lovely, clean and white teeth? And what if each film, in a funny visual way, could also highlight a different product benefit of the toothpaste? Sometimes, if you’ve led a pure and virtuous life, having an idea really can be that simple. These perfectly formed little films were shot by the brilliant Johnny Maginn.

The government wanted Dads to take a more active role in helping their kids to read. This ad is one of those rare occasions where a script written for a pitch wins the business and gets made unchanged a few months later. Written with Carl Le Blond and shot by the legendary Roger Woodburn, the commercial got into the D&AD annual and also achieved unprecedented levels of response from the public. Back in the day, COI commercials had to achieve a certain level of direct response in order to justify the advertising expenditure. The phone number at the end of the ad had to generate at least 25,000 follow-up phone calls or the minister responsible would get a kicking. This spot triggered a million calls.

At the turn of the century, Weiden + Kennedy introduced a new campaign for Diet Coke with a streak of Bridget Jones/Smack The Pony humour. This is my surreal offering.

This was a short strategic thought-piece written to help sell a brief to client. I eventually turned it into the ad itself, making a 90” film for cinema. There was only £50,000 for production so I just used titles, music and stock photography, animating each shot in a tiny, subtle way. The final film was run by every single European market, which never normally happened. It also became the first European Toyota ad to ever run in Japan.

No gin. No people. No drinking. No photography. Just the colour green, some titles and a few sound effects (created by me, mucking about in a sound booth). Mark Tutssel and I conceived this campaign in a single day for the Gordon’s Gin pitch. The brief was the usual nonsense about ‘putting some fizz in your life’ so we ignored that and decided to just do something distinctive and insanely branded. Fair play to Leo Burnett and our ECD Giles Keeble for even presenting this madness, and hats off to United Distillers for taking a punt on it. (It helped that one of the clients literally could not stop laughing during the pitch.)

This was the launch cinema commercial. Four different 15” sections that each appeared between the other ads in the reel (making a 60” ad in all). The whole thing cost just £7,000 to produce. When I saw it in the cinema, the audience giggled through all the ads and actually applauded after the last section had finished. (Still my favourite moment from my whole career.) The campaign ran for 5 years in print and cinema, and we made 150 ads in all. I may have made more high-profile work down the years but, for me, this campaign is the best thing I’ve ever done.

This film marked the start of a new advertising approach for Gordon’s, after the ‘Green’ campaign. It’s a more blatant, metaphoric attempt to communicate the ‘invigorating’ effect of gin. It’s pretty weird and all these years later, I still don’t quite know what to make of it.

Written with Neil Dawson almost 30 years ago, this was our first ever TV commercial. To this day, it remains the most successful global commercial in Procter & Gamble history. (Meaning the commercial most often run, or re-made, across all P&G global markets.)

Vortex was a dying brand. The client had no money but needed a big, stand-out idea that could kick-start sales again, or the product would be killed off. Mark Tutssel and I wrote this super-simple idea, but account management couldn’t sell the script. So we shot it for nothing in ten minutes at the end of another shoot. Account management still couldn’t sell it. So that was that.

N.B. A few months later, the industry held a one-off awards evening for ‘The Best Ads That Never Ran’ across multiple product and media categories. (Frankly, a weird and misguided concept, but hey.) Creatives across London pulled out their best ideas from the bottom drawer and, as would normally happen at awards dos, there was an overall Grand Prix for the best ad of the night, from any category. This ad won.

Directed by the legendary Richard Loncraine, this was all shot in camera.

Written in 2014 for the German market, it’s an enjoyable, original, gag-rich, product-focussed idea that reversed a terrible business curve for McDonald’s and sold a great many burgers. A good old-fashioned, funny, hard-working TV ad. Nothing to be ashamed about there.

A cute little idea about imaginary ‘play’ food, designed to tackle the perceived notion that packet sauces don’t make ‘real’ meals.

Gurners with mouth ulcers: an idea whose time had come.

A quick bit of history:

Drambuie is a honey-infused whisky whose original recipe was created 270 years ago by Bonnie Prince Charlie. On the run, after defeat at the Battle of Culloden had ended his hopes of restoring the Stuarts to the throne of Great Britain, the Prince was given shelter in Scotland by various highland clans, despite there being a huge price on his head. John Mackinnon, the chief of one particular clan, was rewarded by Bonnie Prince Charlie with the secret recipe to his personal liqueur. The unique whiskey, known today as Drambuie, is still made to the same original recipe.

This online film celebrates another inspirational figure who was cut from the same cloth as the proud Prince. An amazing man who had his own beliefs and did things his own way. His name was Moe Norman and his story and achievements defy belief; yet most golfers have never heard of him. Who better to tell his story than a barman, as he prepares a drink made with Drambuie and ginger beer.

‘This is phenomenal. I love brands that understand how to tell an intriguing story and through telling that story, elevate their brand, capture consumer attention and in this case deliver a product focused message. Why does this work for me? What do most bartenders do better than mix drinks? Tell stories. They could have taken some douche-y metrosexual bartender at a Vegas club or high-end London bar and had him tell us that we should try this drink because he thinks its cool. Instead they took a bartender we’ve all met at one point and gave us a reason to listen to him. Well done. Drambuie has never caught my attention before but today they own my conversations.’

Industry comment

A Long Wave radio station whose point of difference was that their DJs talked less per hour than any other station. The use of a tape cassette in the visual ages the ad horribly, but so be it. For the record, no CG was employed – the guy we used really could fit a cassette into his mouth sideways. At the casting session, after every actor had told us about their latest acting jobs (Shakespeare; The Old Vic; etc, etc) we’d say, “That’s great. Now, would you just stick this tape in your mouth, please?”

That curious gloop that you blob over a mouth ulcer to numb the pain and heal the wound. We cast real professional gurners to pull the worst faces they could. Most gurners are elderly and can pull weird faces because they don’t have any teeth – the young guy here was just a weird freak-face.

My first print campaign, created with Andy McKay and shot by the legendary Helmut Newton (for an eye-watering fee). Our brief was to tell people that the famous Desert Boot was designed and introduced by Clark’s and that all other desert boots were just copies. The boot was inspired by the suede and crepe shoes that army officers wore in Burma in 1949 but rather than write a history-based campaign like the other Creatives, Andy and I came up with a tongue-in-cheek fashion idea. Success followed: not just a sales increase of 200%, but national media column inches and some prestigious industry recognition. There’s something about adding a little humour to style that really works.

Ideas written from a personal truth always stand a chance of being good.

OXFORD CIRCUS: We replaced every single written word in a vast street scene with our brand line.

LANGUAGES: We wrote the line in every single language in the world. Including Klingon.

POSTER HANDLE/TYPE MAN: Awareness ads to start seeding that Compaq made laptops as well as desktops.

We needed to start overturning perceptions of Compaq as an unsuitable business brand. Companies weren’t installing Compaq computers because they didn’t think they were big enough to offer the right level of IT support. So we tackled the problem head on with endearing honesty. This ad was two consecutive double-page spreads.