Went to the BBH Retrospective D&AD lecture last night. And it was good. Very good.
John and Nige talked about setting up BBH, international networks, ideas, Levis, Audi, content and they showed some ads. Great iconic ads. They talked about content a lot.
There were lots of people there.
They made some interesting points;
Ideas are what matter, nothing else
Ideas cross borders TM this matters particularly from the global perspective
Ideas cross borders TM also matters re content
The best ideas are the simplest
China / India = important
John hates words, loves pictures
Hates it when a team some to see him with a song or a video and not an idea
Feels it’s harder to see clients face to face because they’re all over the world
All John looks for in new recruits is interesting people
John originally wanted to call the agency Bartle Hegarty Bogle
These D&AD talks can be tedious, no matter how good the speaker, but this one was about as good as you can expect. John and Nige were a good double and act and they spoke interestingly. They told an interesting story (probably told a million times over the web) about how the script for the Levis laundrette ad was originally turned down because the BACC didn’t approve of the Y fronts. So reluctantly they changed it to boxer shorts, BACC approved and sales of boxer shorts went through the roof.
BBH have spawned 9 number one singles, which probably tells you that they know more about content than they realise.
Walking home. Tower Bridge. In the rain. Brilliant stuff.
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