Have you ever stopped to consider how many fatuous web sites you log onto every day? And how many you extend a cursory glance and dismiss, even before the first page has fully loaded?
Hopefully this isn’t one of them.
Apart from this page, which was purposely written as one continuous piece, there are only two others - my home page and a list of the clients I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside. I’ve not been a slave to chronology and, where possible, pointed out where I was smart, when I was lucky and where I was both.
The experts say people won’t read long copy about common products; I disagree. You can entertain people in print. You can make print emotional. And you can sell your product. I’m a strong advocate of twisted headlines and straight pictures, and vice versa.
Several of my clients have been new businesses, where diminishing capital has been stretched on so many facets of the start-up. Consequently, they’ve found it difficult to focus on a realistic promotional budget, if at all; hence the need for copy ads with no photography or illustrations.
Temujin-Creative is a local design company. When Barak Obama and Lewis Hamilton created history in the same month it prompted me to write this long copy ad for them.
Penny’s is the only vegetarian restaurant within a 20 mile radius. The owner, Penny, - a 15 year veggie veteran and part-time cook - decided, understandably, to personalise the name of her restaurant.
With a new venture I try to build the company name into the headline and perhaps bend it so that readers find it intriguing. Reference to vegetarian food wasn’t a big enough hook. I needed to expand the idea, give it more edge, more bite and more relevance. Using the word ‘meat’ in the wrong context in each of the headlines sorted that. The reader quickly established - by way of the opening lines of copy and strapline - that as a vegetarian restaurant the whole place was devoid of any. I adapted the idea for DM pieces, a web site and wall and ceiling murals inside the restaurant.
Underfloor Heating Now was also a new business - back in 2003. We toyed with many company names until the owner decided to go with his choice. All too often, quirky names grate at first but eventually settle into the vernacular. It was a mouth-full in comparison to the competition and for this reason I included it in the headline of the three launch ads, whilst at the same time playing on the spontaneity of the word ‘Now’. The owner is a seasoned under floor heating technophobe and insisted he was the USP of the business - definitely a new one to me! I therefore factored his name into the body copy, and injected a dollop of humour for good measure.
The second campaign featured solely on the benefits of using a particular type of heating pipe. I worked long and hard on finding a visual that enforced the sales message but came to realise that a straight headline and a bent layout would have more impact. Burying the headline within the copy produced the juxtaposition I was looking for.
Canadian Airlines competes head-on with Cathay Pacific when flying to Canada from Hong Kong. It did, however, have several virtues I was able to extol: Canada’s national carrier for starters; when flying to Toronto it made the journey nine times a week, as against Cathay’s six; and the stop-over time in Vancouver was one hour, whereas Cathay’s was three - including a change of aircraft. Pure nuggets!
Canada is synonymous with geese and I used them as a backdrop to everything we produced. In Hong Kong they only breed ducks, so my creative director was dispatched to Toronto to bag numerous reels of migrating species. The takes were edited in Hong Kong and two of the final English television commercials are shown here. And yes, it is Terry Scott’s narration. Our remit covered television, print, direct mail, outdoor and POS, and the geese went with us every step of the way.
BUPA is where the proprietorship of my own agency life started. And it’s a relationship that lasted for well over ten years. Insurance, whether in Hong Kong or the UK, is regarded as one of the expenses you need least; the ‘it-will-never-happen-to-me’ attitude prevails. Vehicle insurance is law, home insurance a necessity, yet health insurance is viewed with scepticism - until, or course, the sceptics need treatment.
All except one campaign carried a direct response coupon. Here is a selection of ads that come from four of the nine campaigns we created. Because the client had so much information on record, long copy ads were at times a necessity. Fact followed fact, each flowing effortlessly into the next; and our delightful client never once felt the need to make unnecessary changes. Between us we maintained a 78% grip of the health insurance market in Hong Kong and in recompense, BUPA asked us to assist with their launch in Singapore and Malaysia.
Elsco is a lighting manufacturer based south of San Francisco and one of the very first to develop low-level lighting for tennis courts. After major successes on the west coast of the states they looked at export markets - namely Asia - as well as other avenues for a slightly modified product. Petrol forecourts was one, car parks another. Great photography was the key to everything I produced. In fact the ‘night watchman’ ad was conceived whilst on a forecourt shoot in California. The headline and copy were written, quite literally, while seated on the pavement waiting for the extraordinary photographer, Neil Farrin, to pack away his cameras. These were certainly visual ads, requiring only a headline and the minimum of copy. Location and good weather played a major part in their visual impact.
Wimborne Picture Framing was another client with limited funds, but as I used them on a professional basis I could see a number of scenarios that could be woven into a plausible campaign. I mean, who uses a dog to greet customers and have you ever heard of a picture framer refusing to sell clip frames? Each ad – and there were nine in all – revealed how the owner approached his line of work. The ‘concierge’ version proved the most memorable, and not surprisingly so did the collie’s name; something about children and animals in advertising springs to mind. Instead of writing each ad as one continuous piece, I provided readers with regular bursts of information. The same applied to the web site.
Wilson was all about the touchy, feely experience which, from tennis ball packaging, was unheard of at the time. One bent headline and a simple pack shot was all that was required to complete this ad. And because it does what it says on the pack, I purposely didn’t overcomplicate things.
Pounds & Shanks was not where my own agency life began, but it’s the name I traded under for the last five years of its existence. We were creative, we were prepared to take risks and we were a thorn in the side of many of the bigger players. I pushed back the boundaries and refused to run mundane advertising. If it had no bite, back into the creative department it went. I spent many a long night dreaming up ways to promote ourselves and here are three examples: Deng Xiao Ping became China’s leader at the same time as we changed the agency’s name – it was new management for both parties. Using political figures in advertising is not to be recommended but in this case it worked for us, even though I was threatened with prosecution. We were past masters at gaining publicity and the Trebor campaign, which launched at a time when Whitehall was thrashing out Hong Kong’s hand-over, was extremely topical. And lastly, our just reward for all that hard graft: recognition from our peers and the advertising industry. The following year we made it into eighth position.
Habitat embarked on a foray into Hong Kong. It found a wealthy backer, sizeable retail premises and arrogantly assumed that it would flourish based on its success in the UK. Very little thought was given to the disposable income of Chinese households, the size of the market and most importantly, Ikea’s six-year stranglehold on the sector.
The thought behind the launch campaign revolved around the size of living space in Hong Kong and how to maximise it with good quality contemporary furniture, at affordable prices. We built the sets, we dressed the rooms, we took the photographs, we wrote and ran the ads and we achieved acceptable sales targets. Despite this, we noticed how quickly prices of selected product ranges were rising. Sadly for Habitat so did consumers, who returned to Ikea in droves. It took approximately twenty months for things to go really pear-shaped and even though every piece of consumer research was overwhelmingly in favour of our work, the relationship faltered. Payments to the agency became erratic or “in the post”. This went on for weeks, until one day (I think it was a Tuesday) I snapped, resigning the business immediately. Believe me, it was one of the saddest Tuesdays in my entire career.
Lifestyle Bathrooms looks much like any other bathroom showroom. It’s clean, neat and packed to the rafters with taps and showers and dummy bathroom suites. However, the subtle lighting, muted wall colours and under floor heating make it too enticing to leave in a hurry. The launch campaign focused on image, but required something stronger than disturbingly vacant semi-clad female models. Cue a cute thirteen-month-old toddler. A sizeable amount of re-branding was required and a patient photographer who could work with children.
Newsweek was forever battling with Time magazine. They fought for shelf space and subscribers. And still do.
In Asia, Newsweek have two important selling points: unbiased editorial content and a magazine that hits the
news-stands 12 hours before its rival. I believed we could do something that would drive home these facts without antagonising the owners of Time. Here are a couple of ads that ran during a five year tenure, and a POS poster that took centre stage a whole working day before their opponent made it onto the shelves.
The Dorset Kidney Fund is a charity manned by volunteers who spend many valuable hours raising money to assist the welfare of patients suffering from kidney failure. I was approached by a member of the committee seeking advice on how best to promote a fund raising event. I explained that the more forthright charities are with facts, the more likely people are to part with their money. Whilst digging around for information to form the basis of an invite, I stumbled upon this heart-wrenching story and decided to put pen to paper.
And there you have it.
In all the ads you’ve seen here I’ve done my utmost to engage the reader and persuade him or her to buy into the product or service. More than anything, I’ve attempted to propel the reader forward by offering a flow of ideas. Even though my trade is that of writer, I’m passionate about how the end result appears on the page. I can’t just write an ad; I care how it looks, just as much as what it says. No widows, no typos, great visuals and sympathetic typefaces are as important as the words themselves.
Selling the product; isn’t that what we’re all about?
Some of the client work I have produced is previewed below.
Larger images and television footage can be viewed from the Clients page.
