The Story (So Far)

I was born in the city of Manchester in the North West of England. You may have heard of it. Less so nowadays for its proud industrial heritage but probably more for its soccer team: Manchester United.

In advertising terms it was, and still is, the second city after London and it’s where I started. First, at a small shop and then more significantly at the biggest and most creative agency in town - BDH (now TBWA Manchester). It was one of the few agencies outside London to consistently win major national and international creative awards. In my time there I helped to contribute to that by being honoured at British D&AD, One Show, Clio, the European EPICA awards and New York Festivals. We were the little guy - the underdog - and we gave the big boys a real run for their money. But that’s what it is to come from Manchester, you’re born with a great big chip on your shoulder that you never ever lose, and it says, “I’m gonna show em.”

I moved to JWT after that. I worked on their Co-op, Nortel and Esso accounts and helped them to win a significant slice of the British Regional Railways business. Significantly, in terms of the future direction of my career, I enjoyed a brief posting at JWT Chicago. There I worked with the team developing worldwide campaigns for Nortel. It was a great experience and sitting in that office high above North Michigan Avenue I realised that there was a world to be explored beyond Manchester and London.

Pretty quickly I had choices to make. Stay in the UK or gamble, and experience a different culture in a very different place. I moved to New York.

There I joined the team at Wells BDDP working on Chase Manhattan, P&G, and Amstel. It was a real education and great input from a writers point of view. The agency had a tangible strategic difference - disruption. And my immediate boss was the guy who wrote, ‘A different kind of company, a different kind of car’ for Saturn at Hal Riney. I remember pitching for the US Army account with him - we didn’t get it but the whole experience was a bit like creative boot camp. My final hurrah at BDDP was to provide the key creative that won Georgia Pacific, re-positioning the brand from providers of toilet tissue and paper towels to a company that were experts in home healthcare.

When I started out I remember leafing through the pages of CA and the One Show Annual gazing at great Nikon ads and Everlast ads and Subaru TV spots wondering what it would be like to work with all those guys. At Lowe New York I did.

The agency at the time was a fusion of three very dynamic cultures. Lowe, of course, but there were also influences from Scali McCabe Sloves and Goldsmith Jeffrey, both of which had been recently acquired by Frank Lowe. As a result the agency was filled with names like Lee Garfinkel, Gary Goldsmith, Marvin Sloves and Earl Cavanah, and great work was being produced on Mercedes Benz, Diet Coke and Heineken.

I worked hard and got lucky. I produced on Mercedes, Heineken, Burger King and KPMG and ran the KPMG, Courtyard by Marriott and Saab USA accounts. Again awards followed. Communication Arts, One Show, New York ADDY’s, International ANDY’s and Kelly’s. We won effectiveness awards at the four A’s and we grew Saab from small European car account into a major multi-million dollar piece of business. Working with those guys I realised what they had was more than talent - it was a real desire to succeed whatever it took. And usually it took all-nighter’s and weekends. I remember the best headline I ever wrote. I put it on the creative department wall for a joke, ‘All public holidays will be observed - from your office window’.

The most significant thing that happened while I lived and worked in New York was 9/11. I don’t know if it was the main factor in my decision to return to the UK, but it certainly played a part. Suddenly being closer to family seemed to matter just that bit more.

At that time Lee Garfinkel had moved to D’Arcy New York as their Worldwide Creative Director and he was looking for a guy to run the Philips business out of London. I seized the opportunity. Little did we know that dark clouds were gathering and literally right after I signed the contract Maurice Levy decided he was going to fold D’Arcy into Leo Burnett. It was a tough time and relationships strained. Lee left and there was much uncertainty over the future of Philips. I just focused on the work and on the client. It made a difference because once the dust settled they remained within the Publicis Group at Leo Burnett London and I became Worldwide Creative Director on the business. In my two-year tenure I persuaded a conservative client to buy better and edgier work and to embrace new media with their first significant viral campaign for the Philips MOI Ladyshave.

Eventually, Philips decided they were going to consolidate all their business into one agency and that agency was DDB. Our entire team were offered roles at DDB, demonstrating how much our clients thought of us. But I declined, preferring instead to be in control of my own destiny.

Instead I freelanced for the UK’s leading TV Channel: Channel 4. Producing poster and print on their Factual and DocuDrama strands, I worked with Devilfish on other TV based projects and with the iconic HHCL on Coca-Cola. I also returned to Lowe working on Saab out of Stockholm thanks to relationships I had built previously running the North American portion of the business. They needed a heavyweight guy to write TV - and I was happy to oblige.

Things snowballed with Lowe three years ago when I helped them with the pan-European Electrolux account, and a freelance gig turned into a more formal relationship. At the time Electrolux and Lowe had been struggling with their relationship in London, and matters were hardly helped by Campaign magazine naming a recent TV spot ‘Turkey of the Week’. Lowe needed to present a new campaign and rescue the relationship and it was decided that the Stockholm office would take the lead. Electrolux are, after all, a Scandinavian brand so the thinking was that if any sort of common ground were to be found - it would be in the Swedish capital. It worked. The client bought our campaign and the only move the business made was from the Lowe London office to the Lowe Stockholm office.

As a result I have written every Electrolux white goods TVC over the last three years bar one, and contributed not only to the strategic output of the account but to print, poster, web and other through-the-line communications.

In Spring last year I was a key member of the team that re-pitched the business (because consolidation was once again in the air). Happily we won it, adding the AEG Electrolux and Zanussi brands to the Lowe Worldwide roster and I've been busy working closely with the London, Stockholm and Prague offices developing major new work for both the Electrolux and the AEG brands slated to launch in the first quarter of 2010.

And that pretty much brings us up to date. I live in London on a leafy South Kensington street, I’m happily married to Angela and a believer in the one true faith - Manchester United.

And, I’m happy to report, that Mancunian chip still sits firmly on my shoulder.