David Abbott Podcast Episode 6
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This is the sixth episode of my series of podcasts about the great David Abbott.
This one is called ‘David’s Department’ and explores what it was like to be a creative working under David.
I’ll link to the episode here, but you can also find the whole series on Soundcloud.
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Great stuff, Ben. Though for some reason I’m not seeing some of the middle Abbott episodes. Just the first couple and the very moving last episode. I first met David Abbott, quite by chance, in a grubby second hand bookshop in Coventry. About as far away from adland as you could imagine. By some incredible fluke, I’d picked up a slim red hardback volume called ‘What Advertising Is’ edited by Maurice Smelt. I was unemployed and possessed nothing more than a Desmond in Communication Studies from Sunderland Poly. I had vague notions about wanting to get ‘into’ advertising but no real clue how to go about it. And in that pre-internet age, and having no contacts south of Rugby, didn’t really know where to start. The book was dated 1972 and was a series of lectures or essays on various aspects of the ad industry. Media. TV. Art Direction. And one that drew me in: What Copy Is. The chapter was written by David Abbott. I’d never heard of him but by the end I knew I wanted to BE him. It started, just as you observed in the podcast, with a nice bit of self-deprecation. What followed was, as he described it ‘…the Gospel according to Bill Bernbach’, establishing a relationship with the reader, entertaining them, and above all, persuading them. He certainly persuaded me as I bought the book and changed my life. I’ve still got it and I’ve scanned it and photocopied that essay dozens of time for young teams. I hope some of his philosophy has gone in. I never got to physically meet the man. Fast forward twenty four years and I’m working at Proximity in the old rusty-bucket building on the corner of Marylebone Road; David Abbott’s old home. Indeed, I was sat in the very office where the famous shot of David with his feet on the desk was taken. Out of the window I can see the Swedish Church. I’m writing on The Economist account. But not his campaign. This is a new approach: a series of programmatic banners aimed at getting progressive ‘millennials’ to try the newspaper for themselves. We’re still liaising with AMV, so now and then I pop up the road to show them what we’re doing. One morning I strolled into their reception and stopped in my tracks. There was an easel standing there with a large black and white photo of a handsome grey haired man. Underneath it said David Abbott, 1938-2014.
And that’s my David Abbott story. Incidentally, our Economist campaign was very successful, won the DMA Grand Prix, and a Gold Lion at Cannes for Creative Effectiveness. I’m certain David would’ve approved.