Language matters. In 1994 the Conservative Government abandoned one of Margaret Thatcher’s flagship policies, the Community Charge. The charge was intended to replace domestic rates…
Tribalism has got an awfully bad name of late. Built on identity and identification, it has a noble birth. But the problem is that tribalism…
It’s only half way through 2019 but an early contender for agency of the year is surely ‘Led By Donkeys’. And I mean that only…
Recently I have got really interested in the concept of creative vehicles. Indeed I wrote about them for Campaign magazine in a piece about how…
In August 2003 Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications, resigned. For some months he had been at the centre of allegations that the intelligence…
All of a sudden, the world of marketing has got very polite indeed. For years we have taken absolutely no notice of whether people actually…
One of my favourite ads of all time is Honda Grrr. A Wieden & Kennedy classic, it’s still fresh and powerful a decade on, albeit…
There are many phrases to which I take exception. I hate dead metaphors such as “Achilles’ heel”. I hate euphemisms that are designed to disguise…
All my heroes are equal but George Orwell is more equal than others. I’m not taken to affection for old Etonian propagandists, after all there…
There is one word the advertising industry really hates. In this word lies the root of all perceived evil. It’s only a little word but…
Adam Lury, one of the founders of the late, great and greatly missed HHCL, is perhaps one of our least recognised planning legends. The exponent…
Peter Mead, the co-founder of Abbott Mead Vickers, had a profound dislike for one particular word. An old school ad man from a modest background,…