STUFF FROM THE LOFT - Dave Dye

Roy Grace may well be the best ad guy you've never heard of.But you'll recognise some of his Volkswagen ads below, created at DDB between 1965 and 1986.Whereas most creatives will lean towards a particular medium - Roy was as good in print as he was in tv.Many creatives make their names on one, great account, like a Nike or Volkswagen, Roy did great work across everything; from J&B Rare whisky to Alka-Seltzer, from Chanel to SOS soap scrubbing pads, from Land Rover to IBM computers.Most creatives create their best work with one partner - Roy did great work with dozens of different partners (leading to the phrase 'everybody did their best work with Roy, Roy did his best work with everybody').Scroll through the work below and some of it may strike you as a little basic, especially compared to todays CGI extravaganzas.Take Mobil oil; tin cans on an empty table tops.It doesn't appear very 'creative'.But next time you need a motor oil, my money says you'll buy Mobil.Even if you didn't like the ads, you'll just think it's the best oil.Forty years after they were made.He left DDB with his writer Diane Rothschild, to set up Grace & Rothschild.Shortly after, they hired a young writer called Allen Richardson.Allen went on to create a lot of great work of his own, a large chunk of it at Crispin Porter + Bogusky in their golden years.But Allen has just created different - a website about Roy.Not a post, A SITE!I caught up with Allen recently to ask what the hell was he thinking?(https://davedye.com/2023/04/24/roy-grace-site-with-allen-richardson/)

In 1969, fourteen years after the first commercial aired in Britain, colour arrived.The bar was raised.Ambitious ads could now go beyond the over-lit, creakily acted black & white output from adland.Ads, well, the good ones, started to look like they could've been snipped from a movie.But they were still pretty formal.A couple of years later, a young producer decides he wants to stop producing ads and start shooting themRather than chase the formal perfection, Adrian Lyne sees it as an opportunity to play, experimenting with film and lighting.Pushing and pulling it into places other directors tried hard to avoid.It meant his ads don’t look like theirs.Too much lens flair.Too out of focus. Too much camera movement. Too slow.Too quick.Too bright. Too dark. Too grainy. Too close in. Too far away.They looked great, but he made those writing the best scripts nervous 'Sure it'll look great, but would he shoot the idea?’It meant he shot more for JWT and McCann's than BMP and Collett's.To say some of the scripts he shot were slight would be ridiculous, an outlandish over-claim.But the public doesn’t see the scripts, just the films.And the films are great.They'd leap out from the plodding competition either side of them and making you feel something.The mood is always seductive, but real, like the best moment of a day.By the end of the seventies, the elements that made Adrian’s ads look different had been adopted by the mainstream, a bit like high street fashion stores borrow from the experimental Parisian Couture houses.Even CDP embraced capturing a vibe with visuals and music rather than a storytelling with ads like Fiat Strada ‘Robots’ and B&H ‘Iguana’.But by that time, Adrian was shooting his first movie; Foxes.He followed it with Flashdance, 91/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction, Jacobs Ladder, Indecent Proposal, Lolita, Unfaithful and last year's Deep Water.We had a lovely chat, hope you enjoy it.

When I put these blogs together I build up a file.Work for every client goes into a file, that goes into the appropriate agency file, the agency are numbered so that they come chronologically.It sounds a faff, it is a faff, but the only any way I can do it.Anyway, the last file is generally 'P.R' - all the news clippings, interviews and pictures that the individual has accumulated over the years.It helps me get a sense of the interviewee. If you've lead an agency like CDP, I'd expect about 15 to 20 bits.Dave's contains three bits, an ad where he appears with seven others (he looks like he's been  forced at gun point to be there), one that isn't about him, but he's quoted and one where he picks his favourite VW commercials.P.R. just isn't his thing.It's why they call them 'Ridley Scott's Hovis commercials' not Dave Browns.Even though Dave wrote nine.'Hill' gets all the headlines, but watch them all; they're all great.We had a lovely chat, hope you enjoy it. 

Leap before you look.That's written on the back of Michael's business cards.He prefers instinct over logic; everyone can access to logic, so they all end up in the same place.At Wolff Olins he took a brief to rebrand a paint company, now most would end up with rainbows, peacocks or some colourful iconography.Not Michael.He chose a fox, because 'the owner reminded me of a wily fox'.When Bowyer's needed a new logo, Michael went with a solution that combined illustration and photography 'because it had an amateurish feel, as if Bowyers had done it themselves'.Michael is one of the the most thoughtful designers you could meet, I loved our chat, I hope you enjoy listening to it.

You can’t advertise if you can’t attention.You can’t get attention if you don’t stand out.You can’t stand out without being different.You can’t do different if you think the same.If you think different you’re likely to be different.Being different is a problem to agencies.A BBH Planner once complained ‘the problem with this place is they can’t accommodate black sheep’.Equally, I doubt TBWA embrace disruptive people to create disruptive work.Why hire people who challenge the rules, avoid the easy option and argue their case?The work.Horry is different.Smart.Disruptive.Funny.But because he thought different, his work stood out, so much so that I can remember seeing most of it as a kid.Forty odd years ago.Penelope Keith answering the question ‘How does one spell pence?’A voiceover at the end of an ad saying ‘Made with prime porky worky’, can you be that irreverent?I can remember the whole cinema laughing at the Silk Cut ad, ‘Garrison’, (be careful when you watch it, it was for a 1976 sensibility).Then there’s the 2 minute Fiat Strada commercial, famous after one day.I could go on, but the works below, just look at it.We had a great chat*, hope you enjoy it.(*The China phone system let us down a bit, not the crystal-clear sound quality we’d get if we could’ve done it at Wave Studios.)

Ad agencies often claim to have no set style, that each campaign is created from scratch, bespoke for every client.It may be true for the mediocre ones, but not the great ones.Nobody used to confuse the work of AMV, BBH and GGT.The same with Wieden, Chiat and Fallon.Today, stick me in front of a tv and I’d fancy my chances at picking the Droga5.Or spotting the Uncommon on a tube platform.Because although ad agencies use the same ingredients, like chefs, they favour some more than others.We fight the idea of having a certain style in our business, ‘I thought that was one of yours’ can feel like a slap in the face.Why?Most creative industries embrace it.Architects aren't chosen because they have no particular style.Clothes aren't bought because the designer covers the whole map.Does anyone confuse Quentin Tarantino films with Wes Anderson’s?No, that's the point, their style is the attraction.Their philosophy, which has been honed over the years by everything they've consumed, the films, tv, magazines, conversations, experiences, comic books, even ads, that's what you're buying.It's the same with good Creatives.They have likes and dislikes, that creates a style.If asked you to spoof an ad by David Abbott, Tom McElligott, or John Webster, you probably could, because you’d recognise their patterns. Cabell Harris is the same.Whatever the agency or size of budget, he manages to create work that feels personal.Quirky, human with a hint of mischief.Take his One Show 1997 cover, (for my money – the best awards cover annual full stop).One Show Annuals are highly coveted by creatives, sometimes too coveted - getting coveted out of offices and are never seen again.Cabell came up with a great solution: a thief resistant cover.So dull it repels would-be Creative thieves.He spoofed a giant science book - The Giant Book of Spores'.Brilliant insight.Brilliant idea.Beautifully executed.We had a great chat about this and the rest of his work, and, by the end, I was even pronouncing his name correctly. (Cab-ell, not K-ball.)Hope you enjoy.

Whoever it's with, whenever I do these podcasts, some personal link seems to turn up.Something I'd forgotten or been unaware of - Paul Weiland was once my landlord, I judged the One Show with Gerry Graf 15 years earlier, David Holmes drew a poster for me 25 years earlier.This isn't like that, this time it really is personal (isn't that the Jaws 2 strap line?).Malcolm and I started out together; he'd shoot pictures for free, I'd write ads for free.The stuff we created helped us inch forward in our careers.When I finally got into my first good agency (SPDC&J), my new boss Mark Denton said 'it was all that extracurricular stuff that got you hired'.I hope you enjoy it.

The first drawing I saw by R. O. Blechman showed a boardroom table full of people trying to brainstorm.In 6 stages, it showed different people having an idea, the ideas were represented by various forms of lighting, from tiny lightbulb to lamp with shade to a massive chandelier.In the last frame the boss at the end of the table comes up with an idea, it's represented by a miniscule lightbulb.Brilliant observation, very funny.I also loved the naive style of the drawing.It looked like a note one naughty child would pass to another secretly in class.Drawn in a hurry because they were excited.The apparent lack of craft means it feels personal, human.A master draftsman like Leonardo daVinci couldn't improve it.He'd kill it.Over the years I became more familiar with Blechman's lines.Often referred to as a nervous line.Countless ad folk have copied it - Alan Parker, John Hegarty, Gray Jolliffe and dozens more, including me.It just looks so easy (try it).You'll find you can draw squiggley lines in the shape of a person, but they feel like those chalk outlines the police draw around bodies; dead.Bob's not only feel alive, they conjure up multiple personalities with endless emotions.Often with a couple of dots and two or three lines.It's like some kind of magic trick.And whereas most artists get smoother, slicker and more polished over the years, Bob chose to move in the opposite direction - his line becoming more broken and juddery with each year. (Come to think of it, didn't Picasso take a similar route?)This distinctive style meant you could spot a Blechman from the next county.But more important than his lines are his ideas.They cover the map, from the big, weighty issues, like politics and death, to the kind of every day minutiae Seinfeld would go on to cover.His observations are as relevant today as they were decades ago.They're about being human.And whereas the styles of many of his contemporaries timestamp their work, Bob's human, anxious lines don't date.Now 91, Bob still sends a cartoon to the New York Times every week.We had a great chat, hope you enjoy it.

‘I’ve just done a Volvo ad with no car in it, it doesn’t get any better than that!’Those were the first I heard on day one at AMV/BBDO.It was the Art Director's way of saying 'it’s good here'.I appreciated the intent, but thought it was weird.Who cares if the ad has a car in it? Is it a good ad?But that's how a certain group of creatives think.For them wins are - running an ad word-free, securing hot director X to shoot their ad, getting the word 'dick' approved in a headline, keeping a logo as small as it was on the initial rough, and yes, whether they can avoid showing the product.Those kind of things can be helpful, but they shouldn't be the goal.But, to them, they're just doing their job, which they see as being creative.Innovating.Breaking rules.Going crazy.‘Fucking around with shit’.Being lead by what's new, different and of course, their own instincts.Clients are viewed as obstacles. Research is for dullards.They often create interesting work, but not much of it runs.Why? ‘The client bottled it!’ or ‘The agency rolled over'.Maybe if they were called 'Communicators' rather than 'Creatives' they wouldn't feel the need to appear so damned creative all the time?Instead of spending all their waking hours with their noses in Japanese animation, Dutch deconstructed typography or surrealist photography, maybe they'd offset if with subjects linked to communication? Rather than just look forward, maybe they'd look back at what worked, what didn’t and why?Maybe they'd ask people outside the creative department what they thought?Maybe they'd see data, psychology and research as helpful?There are people in creative departments like this, I've worked with them.Tom & Walter, Rich & Andy, David Abbott, John Webster, they tend to do better work than the first group.But if you feel your gang is the first group, check out the trailer by South Korean animator Seunghee Kim for her film 'The Realm of Deepest Knowing'. It's cool.If you feel that second group is more you, you may enjoy this chat with Orlando Wood.He's the Chief Innovation Officer at System1, where he forensically observes links between advertising, psychology and the creative arts.We chat about his findings on what's working, not working and why (which have been published with the IPA in two volumes; 'Lemon' and 'Look Out').Hope it's useful.

Should Liverpool win the Carabao Cup this season I’m sure they’ll be happy.But it’ll be a bonus.Their goal is to win the Premier League.Or maybe the European Cup.Creatives used to view Creative Circle Awards in the same way; delighted to win one, but their eyes were fixed on D&AD.Or BTAA.Or Campaign Press.Or Campaign Posters.Or The One Show.Or, a bit later, Cannes.In fact, my first ever advertising award was a Creative Circle Gold for radio - great, but I’d happily have swapped it for an ‘in book’ at D&AD.But, they did have one thing going for them - their annual.It wasn’t like the other annuals.The idiosyncratic way that they chose juries meant they featured an equally idiosyncratic batch of ads.One year they decided a single person should judge a whole category. (The year I won my gold for radio, fortunately the judge was Derek Day, arguably the most astute judge of radio on the planet. Thanks Derek!)Another year they decided that all judges had to be under thirty.They managed to rid the juries of those pesky award winners and Creative Directors, but to be fair, it again guaranteed that annual had different work in it than those other annuals.So it was worth a look.By 2006, with entries down, they could no longer afford to print an annual.As a registered charity, they only exist is to shine a light on the best British advertising has to offer, without an annual that light is going to be significantly dimmed.So why would agencies, who have finite awards budgets, continue to enter?It was a difficult question.What to do?What to do?A bald man with a twiddly moustache walks into frame ‘Ere, I’ll have a go…let me run it!’