1985
Click on image to zoom inThe team that went on to found The Leith Agency created this long running campaign. As a junior copywriter Adrian was given the brief to "do some more posters" in the campaign. Luckily for him it was a dream brief and from 1985 to 1987 his career got off to a flying start with his work(along with practically the whole of Hall Advertising's creative department) winning many awards,including in Adrian's case a Campaign Poster Award.
1988
This campaign cost a few hundred quid. (That's all we had, so this is a perfect example of writing ideas to your budget.) It had a very simple idea: if you were watching the telly you weren't out enjoying all the things The List was there to tell you about.
The ads were deliberately boring, to reflect your boring existence. They obviously weren't that dull, however, since they won best TV campaign at the Roses awards, best campaign at the Scottish ad awards, and no less than four diplomas at the British TV advertising awards.
1989
Click on image to zoom inA freelance project led to this award-winning poster for Friends of The Earth Scotland. Adrian still won't drink Edinburgh tap water and has to be Scotland's earliest adopter of bottled water.
1990
Click on image to zoom inThis simple DM idea (we sent a half brick to customers with the message of 24 emergency glazing repairs wrapped around it) saw us win the race to get the The Leith Agency into D&AD for the first time. The work also features in the book "A smile in the mind" about lateral thinking.
1991
Click on image to zoom inThis poster was Brian's first piece of creative work, produced at Faulds Advertising. (A piece he both wrote and art directed.) It went on to win numerous awards including most impressively, a best newcomer award at Creative Circle.
1992
Click on image to zoom inThe Edinburgh Sick Kids' hospital needed to raise £10m to expand.
This direct response press campaign spearheaded the drive. It won awards around the world including silver at the Campaign press awards. Much more importantly it exceeded its fundraising target.
1993
Click on image to zoom inSimple idea, subvert a very hot topic of the time, animal testing. This poster won awards at Campaign Poster and at Cannes.
1994
Click on image to zoom inBefore it was swallowed up by Tesco, Scotland had its very own supermarket chain called William Low. We did a lot of interesting work for the supermarket but this particular poster stands out.
Unlike today, in 1994 supermarkets very rarely took an ethical stand in their advertising. This poster won awards at Campaign Press and at Cannes.
1995
When you watch TV, 70% of what you remember is visual and 30% audio. So how do you create a TV campaign for a radio station and make the viewer remember what they hear? What we did was to source real, emotive audio from the Radio Scotland archives. Then commission the world's best typographers to use that audio as their brief for the visuals, so, the words became the pictures.
These ads are Scotland's most awarded work, spawning many copycat campaigns in the following few years.
The campaign won 2 silvers at D&AD and 8 silver nominations, in fact they won awards across the globe culminating in the Epica D'or a competition open to the whole of European advertising. This is the only time a Scottish campaign has ever won this award.
1996
Click on image to zoom inCheynes have more hair salons than anyone else in Scotland.
But not the biggest budget, so we had to think hard to get the message right and produce, stand out.
That's when we asked ourselves the obvious question. Or at least it seemed obvious to us at the time. "What do they do with all the hair?"
That led to this work. A serious of bus shelter posters throughout Edinburgh, which were all made from real human hair. With the line, "if you cut more hair than anyone else in Scotland you've got to find something to do with it."
The posters got coverage in every tabloid in the country. And won best poster campaign at many award ceremonies. They were also nominated as best ever poster at the 21st anniversary of the Scottish advertising awards.
These posters also got into D&AD for typography and illustration.
Not bad for a bit of glue and a bag of floor clippings
1996
Click on image to zoom inJenners opened its doors to Edinburgh's rich families in 1857.
When we started working on the account at 1576 Ltd, the client's problem was that they needed younger customers. That's why, at first, the client refused to run our first ad as they worried that the headline "At the Shiraz bazaar no two persian rugs had the same features. Unless you consider caked on camel dung a feature." would offend their aged clientele. Of course, the ad had the opposite effect and helped to attract younger shoppers. And when Jenners saw sales rise in such a profitable department the campaign went from strength to strength.
1997
We won the pitch to advertise a board game called “Bedlam”. On playing it in the agency we realised just how it got its name: Chaos ensues, very loud chaos. That’s how we came up with this simple little TV idea. It made a noise at the awards winning for both idea and craft. The animators went on to win the Oscar that year for their short film “bob’s birthday”, lucky we spotted their talent first or we wouldn’t have been able to afford them.
1997
To promote John Menzies record department Brian got some of the Scottish ad industry's worst singers into a recording studio to sing their versions of the very latest album tracks. It was enough to drive any music lover to their nearest store, just so they could buy the original version and remove the hideous karaoke versions from their memories. Luckily awards judges couldn't hear it enough.
1998
When the NFL decided to convert Europe to the thrill of watching four bottom-numbing hours of live American football, they launched teams in a selection of European cities. Ours was there called The Scottish Claymores. Take a look at the ads we created and see for yourself how we went about trying to fill Murrayfield every other Saturday (you can’t accuse those yanks of thinking small). The campaign won best TV and best direct response TV at various award ceremonies. A few people even turned up... for one game at least.
1998
Click on image to zoom inThe client came to 1576 Ltd wanting a small space press campaign. We persuaded him to spend it all on a special-build poster positioned in Edinburgh's most prominent location. The result was a 48 sheet poster with giant wing mirrors attached. The client got off to a flying start (or as much as you can on a 50cc engine). And as predicted, he got lots of free publicity in the very papers he was thinking of buying space in. We also won "best poster" at a number of award ceremonies. Oh and some student woke up with a hell of a hangover wondering why he had a 10 foot wing mirror in his bed-sit. (It was stolen on the last night before the poster was due to come down.)
1999
Scotland is an amazing tourist destination. And the strategy behind these radio ads was a simple one: even a few days holiday here can make all the difference, So much so that it takes a long time to forget how this country makes you feel. Hence the campaign strapline: “Scotland. It stays with you”.
Over the 10 years Adrian worked on the account at 1576 Ltd. the campaign won awards in press, poster, TV and as you can hear, radio.
2000
Click on image to zoom inQuantum recruitment represents both employees and employers. So we decided to embrace that fact rather than skirt around it, by producing two ad campaigns in one. The yellow posters targeted employers and the black posters, employees. Both received their D.M. pieces on exactly the same day and both were encouraged to put up their posters for the other to see. The result was a lot of fun. It also resulted in us winning The Grand Prix at the Scottish ad awards. The work was also chosen for publication in the D&AD annual and the Art directors annual of New York.
2000
Click on image to zoom inBrian created this award-winning campaign for Michelle Mone. The idea behind the bra is simple: the figure you want without the surgery. So the resulting campaign saw plastic surgeons as down and outs.
The surgeon as beggar with "villa in Tuscany to support" was also re-created as a real life ambient stunt on the streets of London. It also appeared on the illustrious pages of D&AD.
2000
Direct Holidays are exactly like holidays bought through a travel agent. You simply buy them directly, thereby avoiding the unnecessary mark up. This TV campaign produced when we worked at 1576 Ltd. demonstrated the absurdity of having a middleman in your life when clearly you don't need one. When you watch the ad remember this,the actor playing the middleman is a vegetarian and he had to “try the steak” for 12 takes. What a pro.
2001
Click on image to zoom inThe stress bins campaign was created to a very tight client brief. It was a mandatory to show Scotland in all its glory. And the proposition was to show the country as a get away from it all destination. Adrian created the campaign at 1576 Ltd. whilst working with the art director Rufus Wedderburn (now doing well with the nice people at Newhaven) they won many awards including The Campaign readers' Silver Award for "poster of the year". The work also persuaded one of our client's friends to move back home after she saw the posters on the delightful London underground.
2002
Click on image to zoom inTo launch the revolving airport poster, a new advertising medium, the Drum magazine and the media owner ran a competition. Creatives could produce a poster execution for any client and the winner, chosen from a panel of judges would be the idea that best took advantage of both the location of the posters (the airport) and the nature of the medium (revolving.) How could Brian lose? His Kebab poster for 1576 Ltd. client Direct Holidays publicising direct flights to Turkey walked it. And it went on to win best mobile poster at the Scottish ad awards.
2002
Click on image to zoom inWhat do you do when you want to convince people they need lessons from the resident golf pro? Simple, you run "posters" all around the course. But place them in the very spot those most in need are guaranteed to see them: the rough. This poster campaign created at 1576 Ltd. won awards for ambient advertising and copywriting for headlines which included "come here often?" and "From here I'd recommend an axe."
2002
This commercial was the first of three Adrian made at 1576 Ltd. to launch the senses campaign. (This one for Winter. One for Autumn and a Spring/Summer commercial.) The aim was to wow the viewer into realising that they would have a "personally enriching experience" whatever time of year they chose to visit. Despite being trapped in snowstorms, standing around in torrential downpours and waiting for the mist to clear so that we could actually see the scenery, the end results are truly spectacular. The work won silver at the British travel awards. And our colds went away, eventually.
2003
Click on image to zoom inWhen 1576 Ltd. won the pitch to advertise an exhibition about big cats at the Museum of Scotland, Brian and I couldn't resist turning the city's trees into giant scratching posts. We got the rope delivered to us from a ships' chandler in Bristol and it took eight men to move it into position for each tree. After the event we donated the rope to the monkey house at Edinburgh Zoo. The work won awards for best ambient stunt at UK awards and a silver at Epica.
2003
Click on image to zoom inHere's another piece Brian and I created whilst at 1576 Ltd. VisitScotland have a strong presence at the mountainbike world cup. To make the most of their sponsorship we were asked to decorate their bus. The result? We turned it into a giant poster which we called 'Maniac Rob' in honour of our mountainbiking photography model,our very own studio guy, Rob Badura. It got lot of attention on the day and at awards ceremonies.
2004
Click on image to zoom inIt was whilst Brian and I were working at 1576 Ltd. that the media buyer, Feather Brooksbank came up with the idea of creating the longest poster ever to run on the London underground, stretching the entire length of the platform at Bank Station. The shot we took is of a fantastic location in the highlands, taken using a camera that can shoot panoramic 360-degree images. In fact three shots were taken from exactly the same spot, morning noon and night. The finished image was a combination of all three creating a dawn til dusk "perfect day". The months of planning were worth it. The national press coverage for the poster was huge. A campaign poster nomination for "best special build" was also nice.
2005
Click on image to zoom inWhen 1576 Ltd. had the Gleneagles Hotel account Brian and I drove to Perthshire a lot and on the way we passed the MOD radar housed in a white sphere, or as it's affectionately known, "the golf ball." Finally we decided it was an opportunity too good to miss. Gleneagles, is after all famous the world over for golf. So we came up with the idea of "stealing" the golf ball for an ambient ad for the hotel. Not literally of course, and only temporarily. The idea was to create a 16-foot high perfect replica of a golf tee, and place it so that passing motorists would see the radar as a real giant golf ball. It worked a treat apart from one small hiccup. Brian was arrested by an over zealous policeman when he caught him pointing his camera in the direction of the MOD establishment. But it was worth it in the end just to watch the drivers' faces when they saw the idea for the first time (and because the work won a nomination at that year's Campaign poster awards for best special build).
2006
Click on image to zoom inBells had a problem. They were a major sponsor of Scottish football but the supporters gave them no credit for this relationship. We set about showing that Bells were indeed passionate about Scotland's version of the beautiful game and not merely a sponsor. Our empathetic poster campaign proved very successful. We actually increased sales of Bells whisky in Scotland. Something that was not part of our remit and a fact that annoyed the hell out of TBWA (Bells' London Agency). We also won lots of awards including a silver and a silver nomination at D&AD. Powerful thing empathy.
2006
Click on image to zoom inJust because your client has no money, that doesn’t mean you can’t do something that gets noticed. These posters ran in gents’ toilets, across Scotland’s pubs and motorway service stations. Rather than show big shots of the cars we thought it more fun (and a far nicer idea) to show the kind of image each car helped the driver to project.
To get the type right, I risked a visit to A&E by photographing every parking bay message ever written. Brian then created a road alphabet, and wrote the lines digitally So, not a white line machine or council workie’s bum in sight.
2007
How do you describe a rum drinker? That is the question we asked ourselves when we pitched for OVD at 1576 Ltd. We ended up with “rough diamond”. The kind of guy whose heart is in the right place, as long as it doesn’t interfere with his time in the boozer. We knew the campaign would work because our planners (both ladies) did some real time research in the Port O’Leith public house. The results were conclusive: “F****** brilliant”, being our favourite focus group comment. Luckily the research was all done and dusted before the sparks started to fly; a fight ensued (nothing to do with the work, more likely over a woman, a scotch pie or a dog) and our lovely researchers were escorted from the rear exit of the pub by some very chivalrous “rough diamonds”.
2008
Click on image to zoom inHow do you persuade people to recycle their Christmas cards at Tesco's and M&S so that the money raised goes to buying more saplings? That was the task The Woodland Trust set mightysmall.
We came up with a very simple idea. Create a poster campaign with an illustration of a stark bare tree and the headline "Turn your cards back into trees". Then add more and more real recycled Christmas cards to the posters (chosen by us after rummaging through the supermarket collection bins) so that over the course of the month the trees blossomed back to life.
So that's exactly what we did,creeping around in the dead of night to add the cards so that commuters witnessed the magical transformation as more and more cards were "recycled" into trees.
Our Client Jacqui Morris said in the press release: "The campaign designed by mightysmall is extremely powerful.It is an innovative approach to promoting our Christmas card Recycling Campaign".
Nice lady.
2008
We won the jewel and Esk account in February 08. The task was to drive student placement for the new college year and we were given a free hand as to how we should achieve this. Clearly the college prides itself on its vocational courses so we had to capture this selling point. Added to that we were in the enviable position of having a college that was undergoing a £55 million pound refurbishment, bringing the real life working environments up to world-class standards. So the strategy for the campaign really was a no brainer. We produced a TV ad (the first for an Edinburgh college). A radio campaign and a press and poster campaign. All the work features actual students and introduces the new Jewel and Esk strapline. “Hands on learning”. And we already have the idea for next year’s campaign in the bag.
2008
In January we won the brief to promote The Murray group’s sponsorship of the Scottish Rugby team. The strategic positioning we came up with was summed up with the strapline “make your own history”. And each piece of the creative work chose a year when both Murray (one of Scotland’s most successful companies) and the Scottish rugby team, made their own history by achieving something truly impressive. The campaign includes posters at Murrayfield, Scotland’s home ground. And films designed to run on the big screens at half time. Take a look at the ads and you’ll see that they use CGI animation to fly around the stadium and reveal each historic moment as if it was being marked out on the turf before our very eyes. (Hamish at Freakworks created the ads for us. Thanks for all those long hours you put in staring at blades of grass, Mr Alison). The campaign will run for the 3 years that Murray sponsor the team and we’ll be creating a new Murray moment in history for each home game.
2008
Click on image to zoom inPart of the remit of this government body is to produce and promote the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. This acts as a guide to behaviour of both landowner and land user as they go about enjoying (and working in) Scotland’s great outdoors. We won the pitch to help SNH create two new campaigns to target a couple of audiences who research had told them needed a little extra persuasion to change their behaviour.
The first campaign is aimed at dog walkers to encourage the use of leads at certain times and includes posters running outside vets’ practices, a press campaign, and an ambient smelly sheep that is designed to draw dogs irresistibly to it, whereupon their owners can read the message that “your dog is just as attracted to the real thing.”
The second campaign, seen here, is aimed at social campers and is built on the campaign line “don’t mess with nature.” This campaign runs as press, as posters at beauty spots popular with the target audience and on toilet rolls handed out free at Scotland’s music festivals.
Which adds a whole new meaning to our strapline “know the code before you go”.
2008
Click on image to zoom inAndrew repairs wind instruments. His big customers are schools. He wanted something to publicise his services. What better than a mailer and ambient campaign targeting school orchestra seats across the country, using a branded whoopee cushion and the line ”broken wind?”. Schoolboy humour at its finest.
2008
Fettes is one of the UK's top Independent boarding and day schools. Based in Edinburgh since 1870 it has a list of former pupils that reads like a who’s who, including everyone from The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair to David Ogilvy (founder of the advertising empire Ogilvy and Mather). It's even the school that Ian Fleming chose for his most famous character Bond, James Bond. As you'll have gathered it's a spectacularly impressive seat of learning. Our task was to produce a film that would take the form of a DVD to accompany the school prospectus. And the task we set ourselves was to capture the truth that, despite it's history, heritage, fearsome track record of academic excellence and rather scary looking Gothic main building with gargoyles staring down from every parapet, the school is actually one big family. And at Fettes the life lessons they learn together make the whole experience a very happy one.
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