Campaign Diary
Diary’s mind is spinning at the thought of all the anecdotes being swapped at what’s likely to be the agency reunion to top them all.
Next year will be the 50th anniversary of the founding of Collett Dickenson Pearce. And a couple of its former senior staffers are marking the occasion by bringing together every surviving staffer who ever worked at the place.
Some 200 have promised to be there – and up to 300 more are being tracked down.
Although CDP – soon to be rebranded as Dentsu London – opened its doors for business on All Fools’ Day 1960, 15 April is the chosen date. “Our work was always late,” Mike Everett, a one-time CDP creative group head and one of the reunion organisers, tells us. “So a two-week delay is in the best CDP tradition.”
Meanwhile, ex-staff will be invited to post their best tales on a website, as well as examples they have of CDP’s work. Sadly, there’s no comprehensive archive for the agency that proclaimed “Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet” or told drinkers “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach”.
And the stories? Well, there’s hundreds. John Stuart, the former operations director, remembers the time Frank Lowe, then CDP’s managing director, thought it wise not to fire a production man after learning he was related to the great train robber Ronnie Biggs.
Or when John O’Donnell (pictured), the creative director, was ordered to warn his staff about their behaviour after a security man caught one of them in flagrante delicto with a woman staffer. O’Donnell circulated a memo saying the more rumpy-pumpy the better, because it got the creative juices flowing.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I remember an instance when John O’Donnell was in the throes of creating an ad and the Euston Road was awash with road works. A vociferous hubbub from pneumatic machinery puncturing the thoroughfare was impeding John from inspiration.
As I passed his office he roared for me to organise the stoppage of this pandemonium. I deliberated for a brief moment then hastened to the 5th floor and coerced a crate of Becks Beer from Maureen “the Bar” Lalor, the notorious affable Irish Barmaid, and promptly delivered said beverages to the brutish but handsome labourer who was the cause of this interruption of inventiveness. He smiled furtively, but accepted the beer graciously, and thus the uproar abated. On returning to John’s office – the floor and drawing board had been unceremoniously swathed in flour. A coup! Normality prevailed.
Heather Mannix
If there is anything I can do to help let me know !
Speaking to Tim Bell yesterday who told me about Horry’s agency in China . Still laughing .
Not many people in today’s advertising world do that any more !
We were lucky and …. terribly funny !
I have some very fond memories of CDP and some sad ones when I ”LEFT”. Some of you will know what I mean!! I believe that my years at Howland street were the best. I can remember seeing Euston Road for the first time and thinking ‘Oh no!’ . The area wasn’t what I was expecting or used to but the actual building was fantastic!! Especially the Reception on the 4th Floor as far as I can remember. It all went a but ”pear shape” for me when the Reception was demoted to the ground floor!! Looking forward to seeing all those great people I left behind. Fiona Kennedy and Rita will be attending too!!
One evening I walked into the pub on my own to order a drink from Maureen,sitting with a group some way from the bar was John O’Donnell who proceeded to shout across,”Len,dont drink on your own,fuck off home”, i’m still reminded of that acerbic tongue and how it strengthened my character over the years.On another occcasion,the final typesetting turned up for a newspaper ad we were doing for the Rainforest Foundation.It was late evening,i was viewing it in reception when O’Donnell comes along,studies it and says that he’s not happy with it and we should start again.I declined,claiming that the type would help him win the copywriting pencil that year if it was’nt changed.I was right and cant imagine what that brilliant tongue would have unleashed if he hadn’t.Fondest John,and to everyone i worked with.I wont be attending but i’m sure I’ll fuck off to my home in New Zealand that evening and have a drink and toast you all.
Never worked anywhere – even internationally in two decades – with such talented people.
Worked at a couple of big agencies later, before starting out on my own – on the client side, in publishing and now in private equity the Gulf.
Every other agency I was at was like working with librarians by comparison: no offence intended, but predictability, job protection and triple-guessing clients all got charmless and very, very dull…
It’s the only organisation I’ve ever worked at where a spark of individuality and a bright mind were prerequisites for survival, never mind for success.
No one in the industry since has ever got that quite as right.
I was hired as Planning Director by Geoff Howard-Spink, having not previously been in advertising. The day I arrived Geoff and Frank left to start their agency, with our clients. I now knew nobody, and certainly did not know what planning was.
My first client meeting, with Gallaher, was with John Salmon and John Ritchie. I kept quiet as I had no idea what I was meant to be doing there. After 20 minutes I realised to my horror that both the John’s were fast asleep. Gallaher did not seem to mind, and we chatted about this and that until they woke up.
All in a great introduction to seven very happy years. I look forward to seeing you all.
A second Mathews I’ve always wanted to mention was writer Pete who wrote, for me, the one most delightful witty and apposite scripts for the whole mass of Bird’s Eye Pie commercials we produced at that time. This one featured Terry-Thomas as Shakespeare and as usual, our beloved June Whitfield. (Who must have made a fortune). And whoever said that Ridley Scott couldn’t shoot comedy was wrong – although I always went for spiky Alan Parker.
My other memorable piece of trivia was Gray Jolliffe with his Ford Dealer ads which no one wanted to write. Gray would literally pick up the discarded briefs thrown into the corridor and transmute most of them (with his cartoons), into gold. One ad I remember, and keep reminding him about, is a whole page ad for a new dealership in Wales.
The headline was “CARMAN JONES”, daft now perhaps but creased me up at the time.
I worked in the TV department in telecine and pre/post production. When I got the push in the first tranche of redundancies, I kept hearing about jobs being stressful. I realised it had been “stressful” at CDP, but as it was the only place I had ever worked from the age of16 to 39 I hadn’t been aware of it, demanding yes( YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE)or should that be were, difficult yes, drunken yes, impossible yes. So that was stress, was it.
I just wanted to send my best wishes for the reunion and shed a few Irish tears that I won’t be there. Down here in Australia there are quite a few of former CDP staffers.
In no particualr order: Dickie Dearing, Pete Cherry, Angela Bray, Rob Henderson, Graham Watson, Paul Hansen, Alec Wignall and apologies to any other that I’ve missed.
One of my memories is going to Ireland for Aer Lingus with Arthur Parsons and Alan Waldie. We arrived at Swansea for the ferry and Arthur produced, from a Gladstone bag, a bottle of Gin, mixers and glasses. We sat in his Ford Zephyr feeling like kings.
In Ireland Waldie chucked someone who got up his nose into the hotel swimming pool and gave away his jacket and contents to the hotel barman because he said he liked it. We had to retrieve it the next day, wallet and all.
We flew out to the Arran Islands in a tiny plane but beforehand discovered that Alan hated flying as he gunned down a great number of drinks in the hotel bar/waiting room in Galway City.
I could go on and on about that trip and the great experiences. Colin Milward took us and and John Salmon to task for allowing three of us out of the office for a month but said no more.
The bizarre thing was that the campaign never ran in England because of ‘The Troubles’ restarting but did run in France and they won an award for one of the ads but took the credit without a mention of the writer, him downunder.
Another tale involving Ireland was the shot for the ‘Silence is golden’ ad for B&H. Pete Cherry chose an American photographer who had a holiday home in the north of Ireland.
He took us from the airport to his home and took us to his “great location”, a lake at the bottom of his garden.
Not good enough for B&H.
We spent the next few days looking and finally found a better lake and later a rowing boat for the fishing gear. We finally got to shoot and the photographer turned up with only a 35mm camera. Steam was coming out of Pete Cherry’s ears (that’s ankle height to most). Pete had asked for a 10 x 8 Gadolfi. To add insult to injury a gang of the photographer’s friends turned up for the ‘crack’. I next remember Pete looking up at the towering photographer and sacking him. We had dinner with him that I night and I explained that there was the Atlantic’s width of difference in understanding what was required for a B&G shoot between us and him.
We then drove down to Killarney and the lakes with the freelance photographer assistant to try and get a shot to convince Colin that the excercise was worthwhile. We booked a dawn awakening at the hotel but awoke to no call at 9am. The front desk said we looked so tired thay gave us a lie in. To be fair Pete was so sick with nerves, he had drunk an entire bottle of Caoline (sp?)and Morphine and had slept the entire length of Ireland.
Anyway, we got the trial photo and Pete disappeared off to the Lake District with Bruce Brown. We didn’t hear a squeek for a week. Unbeknown to us it had poured with rain all week. The award-winning shot was taken on the very last day when the sun finally showed it’s face.
Great days.
Anyway, it’s in the high 20′s and I’m living the life of Mr Riley in Sydney’s northern beaches . Have a sup on me.
Mike Doyle, a child of the 70′s.
A former Plannist writes…
I won’t be there on the night, due to my attendance being required here in France while an Italian puts a new roof on our house here. So instead I’m going to run a series of pieces on my bollocks deconstructing site at http://nbyslog.blogspot.com/
Hopefully, there’ll be a few anecdotes you recognise, and the odd reason to smile.
Colletts taught me how to tell shit from putty: for this, I shall be eternally grateful.
Best
Wardy x (John Ward, planner, 1974-81)
To John and Mike and all the others who helped to put last night together , you should know that what you achieved was magnificent . Very many congratulations .
Colletts will never die and all the people who were either notlucky enough or good enough to work there will never understand why .
Well done indeed . Unforgettable .
David
Hello all,
Could anyone please put me in touch with John O’Donnell? I want to contact him about a project I’m working on.
Thanks very much, Julian
I want to find Alec Wignall. I knew him in Charlotte Street from 1970 onwards. I Have been based in Los Angeles since 1978. The last time I spoke to him was when I was working in Milan in 1988 and he was in Australia. I really miss him.
I was PA to the Company Secretary (David Pullen) circa 1984-6(??) and CDP inspired me to go on to train as a copywriter (which I still am!) I remember the 5th floor (?) bar very well indeed and the canteen which was done out like a wild west saloon. Also the Christmas parties…
John’s exact words were, ‘I thoroughly approve – there isn’t enough shagging in the place!’
I think I still have the memo in an old filofax…
If C.J. Fitzjames is lurking out there and still conscious,
it would be great to hear from you.
@film_scanning What did he do? If he was on set he might be in the photos. I'll DM you a list. Did he go to http://bit.ly/kQ8GSo ?