The copywriter Terry Lovelock, who passed away in February, belonged to a generation of creative people who produced advertising so entertaining that it proved more popular than the programmes it interrupted. Together with art director Vernon Howe, he created one of the great examples of this type of advertising: the famous ‘Heineken refreshes the parts […]

This third Lockdown hasn’t given us much to laugh about but this brought a smile to our faces.

Is Anatomised’s Mark Andrews the only producer ever to have shot the same commercial twice 25 years apart?

Richard Foster, whom Britain’s most-awarded copywriter, Tony Brignull once described as a ‘natural writer’, passed away on February 8. Richard himself was also a multi-award winning advertising copywriter whose work appears in no fewer than 29 D&AD Annuals, which is surely some kind of record. Like Tony, he too contributed to The Copy Book, another D&AD publication.

Like many people, I find it easy to criticise the government’s handling of the Coronavirus outbreak. At the same time I also believe that no matter who got the job of steering the country through the crisis, mistakes would have been made.

Over the recent fine weekend, where social distancing was widely ignored, we considered how to make the two-metre rule hit home more strongly with the public.

Come with me now, back to the seventies. Paul Smith and I are sitting in our office at Collett, Dickenson and Pearce, the advertising agency. Suddenly, the looming presence of Frank Lowe, the agency’s managing director, makes itself felt. (Frank did a lot of looming in those days.) In his hand he has a script […]

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 […]

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.