In last Friday’s edition of the advertising website, More About Advertising, editor Stephen Foster reprinted an article that had been written by the late John Webster for a magazine called Commercials. Stephen published John Webster’s article as part of his Desert Island Ads series. John Webster very gamely chose ten commercials from an agency that […]

Alan Waldie was unforgettable for me long before I ever met him. My first creative boss, Ron Brown, told me stories about Alan from his time working with Alan at, I think, the Roger Pryor advertising agency. My first full time art director, Phillip Eldridge, also regaled me with the antics of Waldie, gleaned from […]

At Anatomised we pride ourselves on our willingness and ability to solve communications problems on behalf of clients quickly and effectively. A project we undertook recently for So Just Shop is a good case in point.

It’s not often that something you write ends up in an exhibition. But a piece of writing I did recently can now be seen in a Detroit museum.

If you’re a gin brand owner and haven’t done so already, please request a copy of the survey summary report to see where you stand. You may be pleasantly surprised. At the very least you’ll get a sense of what needs improving.

As I write this I have beside me Thursday’s London Evening Standard. The headline reads as follows: ‘Remain ahead in final poll’. Also beside me I have Friday’s Evening Standard, whose front-page headline shouts ‘We’re Out’. So, as with last year’s General Election, the polls have got it wrong again. Not that I’m surprised.

Research has shown that visitors to websites possess little in the way of patience. They give up if the page they are trying to access doesn’t load in a couple of seconds. They soon turn their attention to some speedier site.

The other day I was invited to visit the new offices of AMVBBDO. And what splendid offices they are, too. Occupying a modern building in Southwark Street, with views over The Shard, this sparkling workspace, is set amongst a complex of shops and restaurants, a stone’s throw from the Tate Modern.

This is a rewrite of a post I published a few years back. It concerns the feature film, Lonely Are The Brave. But seeing as the feature film’s writer, Dalton Trumbo, is the subject of a new movie I thought it was timely to update it.

The other day I was privileged to experience something that one person who was present described as ‘magical’. It was a specially-convened event to celebrate the remarkable career of Alan Waldie. Alan is noted for many great pieces of work but most famously for the Benson & Hedges ‘Swimming Pool’ commercial which won a coveted D&AD Black Pencil in the late seventies. Last Tuesday, Alan was presented with another Black Pencil, to mark his extraordinary career. But rather than describing the event in detail, I can do no better than to publish below a press release prepared by Tim Lindsay, CEO of D&AD. Here it is.

A great English copywriter wrote this ad when he worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York in the sixties.

If only Volkswagen had clung to the ethos that it embodies.

Why couldn’t it have been somebody like George Clooney? Or Cary Grant? Or Martin Shaw, even? No such luck. It turns out that my near-doppelganger is not so much a Clooney as a loony. I wouldn’t mind, but people keep pointing out the resemblance, even complete strangers. Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that, like Jeremy, I live in Islington.