What is now Adam & Eve DDB used to be BMP.
It was the second best agency in the UK, when the UK was the best in the world.
Some years it was actually the best.
I worked there for the first ten years of my career.
It was my first job after I got back from New York so I pretty much grew up in advertising at BMP.
Recently there was a reunion to coincide with Martin Boase’s birthday and I did something I should have done a long while ago.
I thanked Martin for not firing me all the times he should have.
Compared to New York I found London agencies, and Martin in particular, very tolerant of talent.
If they decided you were worth it, they cut you a lot of slack.
Even if it sometimes upset clients.
Martin always handled everything very coolly and calmly.
For instance, one day he sent his PA round to the creative department.
She very politely said “Martin has asked me if I could get Trott to shut his office door because the clients can smell the marijuana in reception. Would you mind terribly?”
And she gently closed my office door and left.
I don’t think most agency chairman would react like that.
But, as I say, Martin was very tolerant.
On a particular Friday, we had a big presentation due.
The client was expecting to see a new campaign.
I was briefed on Monday and I worked flat out until midnight all week.
By Friday morning I had around three dozen pretty good scripts.
We cut that down to around eighteen very good scripts.
And finally to about ten scripts we’d be really proud to make.
The client was due just after lunch, so I thought I had time for a quick pint to relax me before the presentation.
Big mistake.
At the pub, I found you can fit a quart into a pint pot.
In fact you can for four or five pints into the same amount of time it takes to drink one.
I thought I was doing a great job at the client presentation.
But it appears I was the only one who did.
In fact everyone else thought I was well out of order.
Martin got his PA to tell me there was a phone call.
But when I left the meeting to take the call, I found the caller had mysteriously hung up.
I tried to get back into the client meeting, but they’d locked the door.
So I started banging and yelling to make them let me back in.
Eventually Martin’s PA took me by the elbow and guided me back towards the pub.
Out of harm’s way.
In those days, the pub was really the creative department’s annexe.
One day I came back a little over-refreshed and decided to slide down the agency banisters.
If you’ve ever seen the BMP banisters they’re two stories high, very round and very fat.
They’re built that way to make it impossible to slide down them.
Any sensible, sober person would know this.
Unfortunately, at that time I was neither.
I threw one leg over the banisters, then the rest of my body followed it as I tried desperately to hang on.
And failed.
The people in reception tell me it was a comic sight watching my fingers lose their grip.
Eventually I hit the floor, about thirty feet below.
Where I cracked a vertebrae and passed out.
The creative department sprang into action.
They ran down the stairs and drew a chalk outline round me, like they’d seen on Starsky and Hutch.
Then stood round laughing like drains.
Until someone remembered Martin was in a meeting with one of the agency’s most important clients.
So they tried to get me though the heavy revolving door.
Every time the door closed on my back, the pain made me pass out again.
Eventually they got bored and everyone abandoned me, except Dave Christensen.
Dave is quite small, and he was struggling to lift me, to help me stand up.
A little old lady saw him doing it and started attacking him with her umbrella.
She was hitting Dave, yelling “Leave him alone you bully.”
So he gave up and just left me there on the steps.
At that moment Martin and the very important client came out of their meeting.
The client fell over me and down the steps.
Without missing a beat, Martin said “I’ve told the police about moving these people on before. They wander over here from Paddington station.”
And he dusted the client down and ushered him into a cab.
After each of these situations, and many more, Martin never mentioned a word about it to me.
As I say, he was very tolerant of the talent.
Not at all like New York.
Without Martin’s tolerance, I’d have been fired several times and I might not have had an advertising career.
Am I exaggerating?
At my previous agency, in New York, I’d been fired just for drinking some cans of beer out of the client refrigerator.
Love the story Dave! And I’m pretty sure that in today’s prim and proper environment, you’d be fired on the spot for any one of those incidents. Good thing you’re a boss now!
Conor - 21 November 2012 10:36 am
But, seriously speaking, you’ve raised an important point. Is there a connection between the madcap antics of the 70′s and 80′s and the outstanding work that was produced during that period? It seems to me that now agencies have become all grown up and “professional”, the work has become increasingly dull. We’ve become our clients.
Conor - 21 November 2012 10:40 am
I’ve asked this question many times: had BMP etc been under the control of holding companies from Day 1, would they have become as successful? I feel this holding company thing disallows agencies from taking risks.
Robin. - 21 November 2012 10:56 am
I agree Conor, I think fun became a dirty word.
So everything turned into a conveyor belt.
Dull in – dull out.
Dave Trott - 21 November 2012 10:57 am
Love these. But you left out the one where you got stuck in the revolving door with a guitar.
steakandcheese - 21 November 2012 11:39 am
S&C,
Sorry, that must be a reference I don’t get.
Dave Trott - 21 November 2012 11:55 am
Someone once got stuck with a guitar in the revolving door. Thought that was you. Our client refrigerator used to have a padlock on it. Mind you, we had the beverages inside as the client.
steakandcheese - 21 November 2012 12:01 pm
Conor, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. The world and in this case company culture have become so sanitised that perhaps genius is stifled within this. Bring back drug smoking alcoholic creatives. We should start a campaign
The Cabbie - 21 November 2012 12:04 pm
You don’t stop having fun because you grow old, you grow old because you stop having fun. These days I meet some 20 to 30 year olds that are going on 50.
We don’t live in particular creative times, do we? It’s not only because of holding companies. I know it is a factor but I think there is much more to it than that.
Jim Powell - 21 November 2012 12:09 pm
I was at Dorlands in the mid-80s – I assume the pub you got pissed in was the Prince of Wales? One of the grimmest dives in an area full of them…
Tom - 21 November 2012 2:36 pm
Dave, now you are the boss would you tolerate that sort of behaviour if the creative was particularly talented? Or would you say times have changed and usher him out the door?
Ian - 21 November 2012 3:35 pm
The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.
Unfortunately stuck in the muds, by their very nature, prevail.
I wonder what today’s sagelike Dave Trott would say to the whipper snapper self?
john p woods - 21 November 2012 5:31 pm
great stories Dave. you were Pete Townshend!
vinny warren - 21 November 2012 5:41 pm
“Try to pick up that pencil.” – Is what he would say.
steakandcheese - 21 November 2012 5:43 pm
Sounds more like Keith Moon, Vinny!
john p woods - 21 November 2012 6:19 pm
Ian,
I think the equation always is “Is what you get worth what it costs?”
Dave Trott - 21 November 2012 11:02 pm
S&C,
that sounds like you were in one of the classes at Rathbone Place.
Dave Trott - 22 November 2012 9:33 am
I was, but I heard that one at your new office.
steakandcheese - 22 November 2012 11:58 am
I agree – we used to make guns out of photographers’ tubes, packing tape and lighter fluid, fly giant polyboard gliders out of the sixth floor windows and drink at least five pints every lunchtime, but we were a top six creative agency.
greenhighlander - 22 November 2012 4:21 pm
Dave you are very naughty.
rachel carroll - 22 November 2012 5:01 pm
was Rachel…was
Dave Trott - 22 November 2012 5:26 pm
Dave,
I thought the trick was to grow old but not necessarily grow up? That said 5 pints of Guinness in 2 hrs is pretty much my limit these days.
john p woods - 22 November 2012 9:10 pm
I remember the fall well dave
we over at CDP had a great laugh your expense.
i think we might have even quaffed a glass of champagne, (would have been Krug of course. 61 vintage i think.) to toast your health.
i suppose you felt a lot better after a brown ale over the POW.
very best.
o’d
john o'driscoll - 23 November 2012 2:16 pm
John,
It was the difference between The Bash Street Kids and Lord Snooty And His Pals.
Dave Trott - 23 November 2012 4:32 pm
I recall meeting Snooks and some of his pals at the Reform Club, can’t remember meeting those Bush Kids of whom you speak.
Ciaran McCabe - 23 November 2012 4:57 pm
BTW Tom, you’re right of course.
The pub was the Prince of Wales (POW).
I often thought, if you told a martian that earthlings go into a small building to drink a fluid that makes them fall over, he’d envisage the POW.
And he’d be right.
Dave Trott - 23 November 2012 5:09 pm
Never got legless @ The Dudley Arms, Dave?
Grilla Login - 23 November 2012 6:22 pm
Grilla,
Met my wife in the Dudley arms (the pub not the person).
Dave Trott - 23 November 2012 6:30 pm
Dave,
Did you clock her early doors but not make a move till closing time so as to save a few bob?
john p woods - 23 November 2012 6:45 pm
Nope, it was a typically English romance.
I was pissed and she was stone-cold sober.
Dave Trott - 23 November 2012 7:00 pm
Was that before or after you rejected her as an art director?
steakandcheese - 23 November 2012 9:42 pm
Well remembered S&C.
She was working for David Abbott by then at FGA and that was their local.
BMP switched to drinking at the Dudley because we used to play darts against the CDP and FGA guys there.
It was a nice little pub for watching football, too.
Dave Trott - 24 November 2012 2:24 pm
“Cathy’s not the best dart player in the world but she enjoys a game whilst she’s waiting for me.”
It’s funny how you say you can have an idea whilst in at the local.
john p woods - 24 November 2012 6:33 pm
Hmmmm, I got threatened with the sack at DMB&B by Jeremy Pemberton. My crime was using the internal email system (this was in 1996 when email was still in its infancy) to send out weekly mass emails to the entire DMB&B network worldwide… bogus announcements and ridiculous stories. All good yarns though. The reason I persisted with it was because I’d get about a hundred email replies from all over the world thanking me for eliciting a genuine laugh and making the day brighter. These emails of thanks were entirely devalued by the lone, cold email from JPs PA, advising me that if it happened once more I’d be given my papers. After three warnings I finally piped down, and I never worked in advertising again. Hard to know, looking back, if it was Jeremy Pemberton being uptight and humourless, or me being a juvenile arse.
Tim Spencer - 30 November 2012 5:16 pm
I’d go for the former, Tim.
Dave Trott - 30 November 2012 5:24 pm
So now that you’re the boss, are you happy for your employees to get have a few relaxers in the pub before a client presentation?!
Neasa Cunniffe - 1 December 2012 5:50 pm
Nessa,
Of course not, that’s why it was good of Martin not to fire me.
Dave Trott - 1 December 2012 11:00 pm
Dammit – I was on the cusp of begging for a job there
Neasa - 5 December 2012 6:51 pm