I miss great ads & long lunches

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Really, I do. I miss them.

Working with the big agencies and sitting in an edit suite in London’s Soho at 3am, being offered whatever I want. No seriously, as the person who spends the money in a big client like Sony or Virgin, I could have ordered ANYTHING! The nice looking young man in the tight white T shirt (the uniform of the edit suite runners of that time) said so – glint in eye.

This was the 90s, when the long business lunch and excessive agency hospitality was alive and well in London. Bloody brilliant.

Recently, getting into Mad Men has been a walk down memory lane for me. My agencies have included, as they were called then, Grey, McCann Erickson, BBDO, DDB Needham, Lowe Howard Spink, Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett and many others. When you have a big brand and big budget, you are welcomed into this world of Mad Men and Ad men. Albeit there was less whisky and smoking in the agencies than in the 60’s, but the focus on creativity and liberating the copywriting and art departments to go and seek mental nirvana and banning the grey suits from the creative floor, simply produced very good advertising.

In this current world of online campaigns, direct response buy-it-now strategies, I really miss good ads that make you engage with and love a brand. And by extension, I miss London.

Occasionally in Australia, we get the kind of ads that turn you on and make you smile. Carlton Draught is a consistently impressive advertiser. And the long version of the Pure Blonde ad, where the man nurses the pigeon back to health is creative genius. And I just can’t go past the amazing Toyota Hilux Unbreakable ad.

On the other hand, the raft of ‘random strategy’ banking ads have the opposite effect on me, bum clenchingly awful by any standard.

So I do still really miss the UK’s ability to write quirky, creative and effective ads and often shift the boundaries of what has gone before. The timeless Hovis and Hamlet ads, the John West Salmon hungry bear campaign and of course all beer advertising: Stella Artois, Carling Black Label, every Heineken and Guinness ad ever made. But I don’t live there anymore and rarely get to enjoy the surprise of the new ads as they break on TV for the first time.

A few years ago though, I did catch the London 2012 Paralympics ad while I was there, which left me in awe: Meet the Superhumans

So as much as I love what I do, I remember fondly the excesses and successes of my earlier career. I believe we have become too precious and serious about business and the GFC helped us become more so.

Personally, I think we should all embrace a less formal and more joyful attitude. We know that people buy people not products, so why not make ourselves easy and enjoyable to do business with.

I say  “Soften the F*** up”

(The post Getting Naked talks more on this subject)