Finally in May Jim and I were hired by HHCL. We'd made it into London's hottest hot shop and we felt like kings.
Mercury: Print ads
Mercury chewed at the ankles of mighty BT for a few heady years in the mid 1990s. The characters were created by Harry Enfield while the ad campaign was conceived by Liz Whiston and Dave Shelton. They just needed a few more ads. Created for HHCL with Jim Bolton.
RWhites Lemonade: Mr Benn
RWhites hadn't advertised since the eighties heyday of Elvis Costello's dad on a midnight run to his fridge. Naresh Ramchandani and Dave Buonaguidi had already brought the Secret Lemonade Drinker back, this spot just added a new twist.
RWhites Lemonade: Japanese
The same ad as the original, only the song is entirely in Japanese. Bonkers for the sake of it. (No pun intended)
RWhites Lemonade: Secret Kiss
A beautiful Spanish revolutionary is hiding behind the kitchen door and kisses the Secret Lemonade Drinker in his jimjams and gives him an important message.
Pot Noodle Light: Potboiler press ads
I have no idea where this idea came from. The link to the product is tenuous and it just seems like an excuse to write soft porn and shoehorn a product on the end of it.
Campaign Faces to Watch
In 1993, our bosses at HHCL put us forward as Campaign 'Faces to Watch'. As if getting hired at what we believed was the world's greatest ad agency wasn't enough, this was the icing on the cake.
Mercury: Print ads
Mercury kept us busy throughout the mid 90s. The elaborate photo stories appeared in national press and were cheaper than TV.
Ads International article
The short lived Ads International magazine did a feature on me and Jim Bolton. I later went on to set up the Idea a Day idea bank with David Owen, the brains behind the magazine.
Mercury: TV campaign
The public seemed to warm to Grayson, his nameless wife and his friend, Mr Cholmondeley (Chumley) Warner. These TV ads won Creative Circle and BTA gold awards.
Mercury print: Chin up
Small space press ads were the banner and digital display ads of their era. Cheap and quick to make, all we needed was a B&Q pic of Grayson, some blue and a cheeky headline. Simple but effective (and repetitive) branding.
