Our first full year as an employed creative team. We were let loose on TV, print, radio which back then was pretty much all the media there was.
AA Insurance: Call your insurance company
Meet the Johnsons from Bracknell. I met them at a church camp in Somerset in 1990 and used them, their house and their pets for numerous ad campaigns. This is PJ and famiiy in a horribly grainy ad for the AA. PJ reappears in my 2000 journey across the USA in Pig
Tango Word Sponsorship: Pet Detectives
In 1994, TV sponsorship was a graphic design exercise and the budgets were tiny. For Tango's sponsorship of cult TV magazine show The Word, we created 102 separate clips and ran off with a D&AD silver pencil. This set featured DI Harry Haines from The Bill interrogating animals.
Tango Word Sponsorship: Johnny Ball
As part of their sponsorship of The Word, Tango enlisted loveable eighties kids' presenter Johnny Ball to help explain the unexplainable. This was the first time anyone had used live action for TV sponsorship.
Tango Word Sponsorship: Housewives Survival Tips
102 is a lot of idents especially on the tiny budget we had to play with. This set involved a housewife offering tips for extreme survival and were shot at a friend's place in Bracknell. Interestingly, the 15 second clips are the first ads on UK TV ever to have a web address on them.
Tango Word Sponsorship: Strachan McAlistair
The Word sponsorship contained some of the strangest idents ever made. Tango enlisted mad Scottish bard Strachan McAlistair, a man who only writes poems about Harrison Ford and who has failed to grasp that Ford is actually an actor.
Tango Word Sponsorship: the full set
Weird goings on in the background, shrink wrapped people, a choir singing football chants, Africans whose names mean something ludicrous in English - here's the full unadulterated (and sadly lo res) set.
Mercury Ladybird
Having been a huge fan of Ladybird Books for most of my life, I used the style for this print campaign.
Mercury: Local Paper
This campaign for telecoms wannabes Mercury used 'local paper' stories placed in the national press. The stories all depicted people celebrating Mercury benefits by baking pies, hosting street parties and kissing one another. Inspired by Cornwall's Camelford and Delabole Post.
AA Driving School: Not cool
These ads appeared in Smash Hits and other teen mags and set out to deliberately go against the grain of the rest of the mag. After all, you don't want your driving teacher to be hip, you want to pass your test.
Mercury: Tubecards
We scoured 1950's Good Housekeeping and other womens' magazines for a visual style and created a 1950's ad for Mercury - but in 1994.
Mercury: Cardiff
Wales lucked out in the 90's thanks to Mercury. This OOH helped them celebrate.
Mercury: Freecall
Mercury's equivalent to BT's 0800 business number was 0500. They just needed to tell the world about it.
Mercury: Mercurycard
You couldn't use a Mercury phone without a Mercurycard. This one helpfully explains how to use a telephone number
Mazda: Japanglish
We loved how lots of Japanese gizmos came with instructions in English that wasn't really English. Mazda wanted to highlight its Japanese-ness and so this is what we did. Created with Jim Bolton at HHCL
