Exhibit a series: why i got into ad land
"Tick followed tock followed tick." And what follows is 90 seconds of some of the best storytelling advertising's ever produced — one of the reasons I got into this business.
As I mentioned, I've just gone independent. And instead of branding myself, I've decided to write about the work that branded me. Guinness, The Economist, Honda… Glazer, Fallon — the brands and minds that talked me into this crazy gig.
Guinness holds its opening shot longer than a TikTok holds a viewer. Honda's Cog reportedly took 606 takes. Sony tipped 250,000 balls down a street in San Francisco. This was how you earned attention before you could push a photo of a burger to someone's phone at 7pm on the dot.
For the em-dash detectives: AI had a hand in this. I had the opinions.
If you skip the article, watch the video. It's full of horses and Moby Dick and thumping hearts and… art.
Guinness "Surfer" — Conviction
"Ahab says, I don't care who you are. Here's to your dream…" Gah. A very clever team at AMV BBDO — or possibly the director, Jonathan Glazer — wrote a voiceover that channels Moby Dick. The lines aren't actually in the book, which somehow makes it better. It gets your heart going the moment you press play, then spends the best part of ninety seconds telling you nothing about the product. Waves, horses, black and white, thump thump thump — a story held with total conviction. Good things come to those who wait.
Honda “The Cog” - Obsession
Reportedly 606 takes. (The team later admitted they chalked "606" on the clapperboard as a joke, which is its own kind of perfect.) Two minutes of car parts nudging each other in a flawless chain reaction. It's mesmerising — maybe because you can feel the effort, and you know it's real.
Sony Bravia "Balls" — Simplicity
I picture a fleet of runners chasing bouncy balls out of strangers' gardens for this one. Fallon tipped 250,000 of them down a San Francisco hill, laid José González underneath, and wrote four words: Colour, like no other. That's the whole ad. Sometimes the craft is knowing when to stop adding.
VW Golf GTI "Singin' in the Rain" — Reinvention
"You want to make Gene Kelly breakdance?!" Shock, horror, joy. "The original, updated." Proof that borrowed culture works — if you transform it. DDB London.
The Economist — the line
While all this film was happening, the best writing in Britain was sitting on the side of a bus shelter. White type, red background, no image. "I never read The Economist." — Management trainee, aged 42. Talk about respecting the reader’s intelligence.
Apple "Get a Mac" — character
Two men. A white background. Sixty-something scripts. The "Get a Mac" campaign was some of the best sustained writing of the decade — comparative advertising that never felt mean, product messaging disguised as character comedy. Tone of voice isn't a paragraph in a brand book - it’s something you build, episode by episode, until the audience can hear the brand before the logo appears.
VW print — Restraint
And underneath all of it, the masterclass: VW's print work from DDB, carrying the Bernbach tradition into a new century. A single image, acres of white space, a line that did all the work. Proof that the discipline of print — say one thing, say it perfectly — is the foundation everything else stands on.
What it all had in common
None of this work opened with the product. None of it was optimised, personalised, or A/B tested into beige. It was made by people who believed an audience would give a brand their attention if the brand gave them something worth attending to: beauty, wit, craft, surprise. A truckload of balls.
That's the deal I fell in love with.
